Katy Hamilton

Well, here we are in the middle of the summer holidays. There’s time off to go walking, visit new places, watch too much telly, drink beer with friends… and start noticing things you don’t tend to pay much attention to the rest of the time. As I sat on a train to sunny Sevenoaks earlier this week, I was flicking idly through both the newspaper on my lap and the news items on my phone, and they started to irritate me in equal measure. I know this is nothing new, but it’s the first time I’ve actually dedicated mental processing power to analyzing just what is so annoying about a large proportion of news headlines. And it’s this. They work on the construction: person who did/said [insert name of awful/laughable/illegal/stupid thing] has now done/said something else! As a result of that first thing, how could any of us possibly take them seriously regarding the second?! Crazy, man!

Don’t get me wrong, click-bait news titles annoy me too (couldn’t resist the title of this piece, sorry…). But are we really, seriously saying that just because a human being once did or said a thing we don’t like, they automatically invalidate every action for the rest of their lives? It’s such appallingly lazy thinking, it beggars belief. However, as previously mentioned, it’s the holidays, and I can’t really bring myself to write another couple of hundred words being irate about it. So instead, I present for your viewing pleasure a selection of my own headlines, carefully crafted to match the current tabloid trends. Enjoy…

 

Alleged cat murderer now encouraging children to eat off dirt paths

Yup, you read this right. This is Brahms. Wagner (probably) started the rumour that Brahms used to shoot cats using a ‘Bohemian sparrow slaying bow’ given to him by Dvořák, and then transcribe their last meows for inclusion in his compositions. This has been categorically proven to be complete nonsense – but only, astonishingly, in 2001. Meanwhile, we know that Brahms did used to take a pocketful of sweets with him when he walked through the Prater in Vienna, and the local children soon got to know this and would swarm around him when they saw him. ‘From out of his jacket pocket,’ reported a friend, ‘came sweets which Brahms sprinkled on the ground, now and then pointing out the pebbles, as he called them, if any had gone unnoticed.’ Health and safety wasn’t such a big deal in the 1890s…

Shameful neglect: mother of eight ‘too busy’ to spend time with children

Well, if you’ve got an incarcerated, later dead husband and that many family members to support, perhaps Clara Schumann can be forgiven for being away on tour so often. But I doubt social services would look kindly on such things today.

Serial adulterer made priest in Vatican shocker!

Liszt’s life could provide enough stories for an entire books of these headlines, but given the number of alleged affairs he engaged in, as well as having three children by Marie d’Agoult, it was quite something that he ended life as an Abbé. His long-term lover, Princess Carolyne von Sayn Wittgenstein, even managed to wangle a marriage annulment from the Vatican so that she could leave her husband and be with Liszt.

Suspicions of publicity stunt grow as ‘deaf’ composer premieres new piece

In April and May 1814, Beethoven played for two performances of his new chamber work, the ‘Archduke’ Trio. His hearing had been getting steadily worse for at least 15 years by this time, and these were his last two appearances in public as a pianist. After such a slow and painful road, something tells me that The Sun would have started to suspect it was all a ruse to sell concert tickets. What is particularly bizarre is that, in relating these final performances, the authors of the Beethoven article in The New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians go on to add that because of his deafness, these were his last appearances in public ‘except as an accompanist.’ I clearly need to re-think my accompanying strategy.

Ex-con revealed as secret Hun supporter

During the First World War, this would have been a pretty big deal… Ethel Smyth, irascible, witty and an ardent feminist, had managed to get herself thrown in prison with Emmeline Pankhurst and a large group of other suffragettes for throwing stones at a government minister’s window. (She also reports that she had to give Mrs Pankhurst stone-throwing lessons, and that on the big day and after much practising, Mrs Pankhurst was furious because she got arrested before she’d actually managed to hit anything.) Smyth had undertaken considerable musical training in Germany and considered it her ‘spiritual home’ – the outbreak of war came as a great blow to her.

Conductor held over ‘terrorism’ comment

This one requires no fabrication – it’s a genuine headline from 4 December 2001, when Pierre Boulez, having written a polemical piece back in 1967 in which he suggested blowing up opera houses, was taken into custody by the Swiss police as a potential national security risk.

Noted conductor held for questioning over cross-dress murder plans

Poor Berlioz. I mean, what completely sane person wouldn’t respond to a jilted engagement by planning to kill his ex, his ex’s new boyfriend, his ex’s mother, and then himself? In a dress and wig, obviously, because then he could gain access to their home without being suspected. Can’t think why he eventually decided against going through with it.

I’m not even going to dignify Wagner with a headline, because he could be a newspaper all on his own. Consider that my ‘try it yourself at home!’ challenge…