RE: [F_minor] Re: Cornelia Foss reveals all!!!

["Houpt, Fred" <fred.houpt@rbc.com>]

Thanks for that info and the Borge joke.  Oh how I adore the memory of
that Great Dane.  He made me laugh a thousand times and lifted my
spirits.  What a blessed memory.  Makes me want to go check out some of
his funny stuff on You Tube when I get home, as they block us here at
work.

I had no idea about George Gershwin's love life; thanks for that. 

I did mention that Bernstein was bi-sexual.  Not aware of anyone else
famous was bi?  As for other variations, which come to your mind?
Straight, bi and gay....then there are those who choose to be ascetics
(nuns and monks).  So, what other variations did I miss?

(I'm thinking of Gesualdo, who killed his wife and her lover, but we
won't go there, eh?)

Fred  

-----Original Message-----
From: Robert Merkin [mailto:bobmerk@earthlink.net] 
Sent: Monday, August 27, 2007 12:45 PM
To: Houpt, Fred; F_MINOR@EMAIL.RUTGERS.EDU
Subject: RE: [F_minor] Re: Cornelia Foss reveals all!!!

Victor Borge asked the audience for requests, and someone yelled "Bach!"

Borge replied, "Johann Sebastian? Or Offen?"

But I assume you mean George rather than Ira.

George Gershwin had an intense ten-year affair with Kay (nee Katherine)
Swift, a composer with the distinction of being the first woman to score
a
(successful) Broadway musical, "Fine and Dandy" (1930). When she met
Gershwin (like Foss, she was married with kids), she was
Julliard-trained (before it was named Julliard) and a somewhat snooty
classical-only worshipper. Gershwin pursuaded her to explore popular
music. Besides the jazz standard "Fine and Dandy" she wrote the classic
torch ballad, "Can't We Be Friends?" (I have Bing Crosby crooning it.) 

Her first husband, the banker Jimmy Warburg, wrote her pop lyrics,
apparently to compete with Gershwin in the tug of war for her
affections.

A much richer biography, and plenty more interesting stuff (including
photos of a Very Attractive Flapper), is at the website of the Kay Swift
Trust:

http://www.kayswift.com/bio.html

Meanwhile, I'm a little surprised that several of today's posts imply
that the human libido only comes from the factory in two strictly
separate varieties, Straight or Gay. There's a third possibility about
some of the musicians we're mentioning.

And, in my experience, a fourth possibility. Maybe a fifth. We take it
for granted that great composers go all over the emotional landscape,
from holy to vulgar, from joy and rapture to grief and melancholia. Is
it likely that the romantic and sexual identity of such people would be
comfortably trapped in just one of two rigid categories?

Bob / Massachusetts USA


> [Original Message]
> From: Houpt, Fred <fred.houpt@rbc.com>
> To: paul wiener <pwiener@ms.cc.sunysb.edu>; yuzu 
> <yukaz36@hotmail.com>;
<f_minor@email.rutgers.edu>
> Date: 8/27/2007 10:16:19 AM
> Subject: RE: [F_minor] Re: Cornelia Foss reveals all!!!
>
> Beethoven had lovers, that much is pretty much accepted.  And he most
likely used the ladies of the night as well.  Copeland and Rorem were
gay?
See how little I know......
>
> And, lest we forget, Leonard Bernstein was bi.  Wasn't Gershwin gay?
>
> Fred
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: paul wiener [mailto:pwiener@ms.cc.sunysb.edu]
> Sent: Monday, August 27, 2007 10:10 AM
> To: Houpt, Fred; yuzu; f_minor@email.rutgers.edu
> Subject: RE: [F_minor] Re: Cornelia Foss reveals all!!!
>
> Opposite sex ? Copeland?  Ned Rorem?
>
> Beethoven? (do prostitutes count?)
>
> At 09:20 AM 8/27/2007, Houpt, Fred wrote:
> >Hi all.  I have no problem with imagining Glenn having a love life, 
> >even a sexually open one.  What I do have a problem imagining, is him

> >letting a lover touch, grasp or squeeze his hands.  Laugh as you will

> >at my innuendo, but that is the one thing I cannot see him allowing.
> >Platonic love? Nah, Glenn seemed way too passionate and in the arms 
> >of a women I can just see him acting in a much more relaxed 
> >way....physically.  But, we do not really know any of this for sure.
> >
> >It makes me think out loud on the topic of having sexual relations.
> >Let's take a vote amongst ourselves.  Which famous composer never had

> >relations with the opposite sex?
> >
> >Brahms?  Nah, too many prostitutes all around his early days.
> >Schubert? Ditto.
> >Vivaldi? Don't know anything about his life really.
> >
> >Anyone else have any ideas?
> >
> >Cheers,
> >
> >Fred Houpt
> >Toronto
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