ErebusFact library / Trivia
7 music facts, each paired with a strange little scene and a hook for the hard word.
Beethoven was almost completely deaf when his Ninth Symphony, with its "Ode to Joy", premiered in 1824.
Picture it
A wild-haired composer stands on stage facing the orchestra. The crowd erupts, but he hears nothing. A singer gently turns him around to see nine hundred hats waving. Above him, a bee sits on a toe (BAY-toe-ven).
Memory hooks
Mozart wrote his first symphony at the age of 8, in London in 1764.
Picture it
A tiny boy with a powdered wig sits on a stack of cushions in LONDON, scribbling his very first symphony while his father is ill in bed. He's only 8. Picture him drawing an 8 on the page, like a snowman with no hat.
Memory hooks
Antonio Vivaldi, composer of The Four Seasons, was a priest from Venice nicknamed "the Red Priest" for his red hair.
Picture it
A priest with flaming red hair races through the canals of VENICE, violin under his arm, composing The Four Seasons as he goes. People call him "the Red Priest". His name, VIVALDI, sounds like "VIVA, ALL DAY".
Memory hooks
Antonio Stradivari made his famous violins in Cremona, Italy.
Picture it
In a small Italian town, a workshop smells of varnish and CREAM ("CREMONA"). An old craftsman, STRADIVARI, "STRIDES" between the benches, carving violins that will one day sell for millions.
Memory hooks
The piano was invented by Bartolomeo Cristofori around 1700; its name comes from "pianoforte", Italian for soft and loud.
Picture it
Around 1700 in Florence, an instrument maker named CRISTOFORI ("CHRIS, TO FOUR eyes") builds a harpsichord that can play soft or loud depending on how hard you press. He calls it the "piano e forte": soft and loud.
Memory hooks
Chopin died in Paris in 1849, but his heart was taken to Warsaw and placed in a pillar of the Church of the Holy Cross.
Picture it
A pale pianist dies in Paris, but his heart wants to go home. His sister smuggles it in a jar of cognac across Europe to WARSAW, where it's sealed inside a pillar of the Church of the HOLY CROSS. Every year, people still lay flowers there.
Memory hooks
Handel's Messiah, famous for its "Hallelujah" chorus, premiered in Dublin in 1742.
Picture it
A German composer living in London takes his new oratorio across the sea to DUBLIN, where the audience is asked to leave their swords at home and wear dresses without hoops to fit more people in. A choir belts out "Hallelujah!" It's 1742: "17... 42", a choir of seventeen singing to forty-two tables.
Memory hooks