| Mozart | recapitulated | |
| G. & S. | collaborated | (Gilbert & Sullivan, of course) |
| Glazunov | inebriated | (Drank a lot) |
| Gordon Jacob | orchestrated | (Best in the business) |
| Franz Liszt | got himself ordained | |
| Borodin | was all self-trained | (He was a chemist by trade) |
| Arthur Bliss | was colourised | (Saw pitches as "colours") |
| Arbeau | anagrammatised | (Changed his name) |
| Mussorgsky | pictured ugly gnomes | (“Pictures at an Exhibition”) |
| Ligeti | used metronomes | (“Poeme symphonique for 100 metronomes”) |
| Hummell | now almost forgotten | (Beethoven's rival) |
| Delius | thought all Bach was rotten | (Disliked repetition in music) |
| Schubert | left his uncompleted | (More than once) |
| Glass | repeated... and repeated | (Minimalism pioneer) |
| Berlioz | decapitated | ("March to the Scaffold") |
| Erik Satie | ......hesitated | ("Gymnopedies") |
| Wagner | sought complete perfection | |
| Mahler | scored the Resurrection | ("Resurrection Symphony") |
| Josef Suk | loved Dvorak's daughter | ("Azrael Symphony") |
| Jean Sibelius | served cold water | (His own quote) |
| Shostakovich | angered Stalin | ("Lady Macbeth of Mtsensk") |
| Johann Strauss | Vienna's darlin' | |
| Richard Strauss | was sometimes sordid | ("Elektra", "Salome" etc.) |
| Elgar | got it all recorded | (Spent his last years recoring all his works) |
| Dukas | brought a broom to life | ("Sorcerer's Apprentice") |
| Poulenc | never found a wife | |
| Debussy | played a dreamy faun | ("Prelude a l'apres-Midi D'Un Faun") |
| Ravel | danced on from dusk till dawn | ("Daphnis & Chloe" Ballet) |
| Dohnanyi | played a nursery rhyme | ("Variations on a Nursery Theme") |
| Scriabin | thought himself divine | (Honestly! Overdosed on theosophy) |
| Sousa’s | instruments were blown | (The Sousaphone, of course) |
| Offenbach | autographed “O de Cologne” | (He was born in Cologne, Germany) |
| Webern's | work was met with laughter | ("Six Pieces For Orchestra") |
| Berg's | was a complete disaster | ("Altenberg Lieder") |
| Schnittke's | works are full of violence | |
| Cage's | mostly ... | (4 mins 33 secs total silence) |
| Gershwin | sought to entertain us | (And did!) |
| William Herschel | found Uranus | (He also wrote music) |
| Holst | wove his spell round the planet | ("Uranus, the Magician") |
| Rachmaninov | found he could span it | (He had very large hands) |
| Karlheinz | works on scales colossal | (Stockhausen - "Licht") |
| Charles Camille | a "living fossil" | (Saint-Saens - "Carnival of the Animals") |
| Peter T. | was never happy | (Tchaikovsky - Very self-critical) |
| Ludwig Van | removed his Nappy | (Beethoven's 3rd Symphony Dedication to Napoleon) |
| Vaughan-Williams | had a post-war vision | (Symphony no.6 - finale) |
| Bruckner | plagued with indecision | (Always revising earlier works) |
| Smetana | had E-flat ears | (Suffered from Tinnitus) |
| Ives | had his stretched, it appears | (Metaphorically, by his father) |
| Stravinsky | danced a Pagan rite | ("Rite of Spring") |
| Rodrigo | worked without a light | (Blind from birth) |
| Salieri | planned a misdemeanour | (Poisoned Mozart???) |
| Arnold | used a vacuum-cleaner | ("A Grand Grand Overture" which uses 4 of them!) |
| Bernstein | was a heavy smoker | (Which eventually killed him) |
| Reizenstein | did play the joker | ("Concerto Popolare" etc.) |
| Mendelssohn | was most distinguished | (Aristocratic) |
| Nielsen | couldn't be extinguished | ("Inextinguishable Symphony") |
| Tippett | shared a bed with Britten | (Allegedly) |
| Schumann | was with madness smitten | (Spent his last years in a madhouse) |
| Berio | used the odd quotation | (Usually from Mahler) |
| George Lloyd | needs no explanation | (Wrote 12 Clear tuneful symphonies) |
| Paganini | wooed the ladies | (The first ever "Superstar"? |
| Khachaturian | danced on sabres | ("Sabre Dance") |
| Orff | discovered filthy habits | ("Carmina Burana") |
| Bach | and family bred like rabbits | (He had 25 children!) |
| Prokofiev | wrote in fits and starts | |
| Gorecki | got into the charts | ("Symphony of Sorrowful Songs") |
| Walton | spent a half hour feasting | ("Belshazzar's Feast") |
| Litolff | got locked up for cheating | (Fraud, actually) |
| Haydn | organised a strike | ("Farewell Symphony") |
| Chausson | fell right off his bike | (Died of a cycling accident) |
| Lully | speared his foot in error | (Died of gangrene) |
| Wendy Carlos | was a feller! | (Had a sex change) |
| Rossini | in a Leap-Year born | (29th Feb 1792) |
| Duparc | died in a thunderstorm | (Unknown - poetic license!) |
| Arriaga | barely started | (Killed age 19) |
| Brian | finally departed | (At the age of 96) |
| Adès | new kid on the block | |
| Martland | he sets out to shock | (“Drill”) |
| Turnage | drowned some Screaming Popes | (“Drowned Out”, “Three Screaming Popes”) |
| Nyman | gives us future hopes |
n.b. Since I wrote this poem the world has lost the following musical giants:
| Toru Takemitsu | (d. 20 Feb 1996 age 66) |
| Morton Gould | (d. 21 Feb 1996 age 83) |
| Rafael Kubelik | (d. 11 Aug 1996 age 82) |
| Sir Georg Solti | (d. 6 Sep 1997 age 85) |
| Robert Simpson | (d. 21 Nov 1997 age 76) |
| Sir Michael Tippett | (d. 5 Jan 1998 age 93) |
| George Lloyd | (d. 3 July 1998 age 85) |
| Alfred Schnittke | (d. 3 Aug 1998 age 64) |
| Yehudi Menuhin | (d. 12 Mar 1999 age 83) |
| Joaquin Rodrigo | (d. 7 July 1999 age 98) |
| Victor Borge | (d. 23 Dec 2000 age 91) |
| Luciano Berio | (d. 27 May 2003 age 76 - reunited with Cathy) |
| Sir Malcolm Williamson | (d. 2 Mar 2003 age 72) |
| Sir Malcolm Arnold | (d. 23 Sep 2006 age 85) |
| Gyorgy Ligeti | (d. 12 June 2006 age 83) |
| Mstislav Rostropovich | (d. 27 Apr 2007 age 80) |
| Karlheinz Stockhausen | (d. 6 Dec 2007 age 79) |
R.I.P. - and thanks for all the music.
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