Classical Dogs

MUSIC Top: Anonymous, possibly by Pietro Antonio Lorenzoni (Italian, 1721–1782) The Boy Mozart, 1763 Oil on canvas Bottom: Philip Reinagle, R.A. (British, 1749–1833) Classical Portrait of an Extraordinary Musical Dog, 1805 Oil on canvas Dogs 28.25 in. x 36.5 in. Many of the great composers Correspondence by the Mozart family is tracked with mentions of kept dogs, and some put them Bimberl. When traveling, Wolfie into their music seldom failed to send Bimberl By Dennis Bartel “a thousand kisses.” At 21, Mozart went with his mother to Paris, where the young genius hoped to Mozarteum, Salzburg land a job. But his was a long, dark isten closely The Mozart family dog, a stay in the City of Lights, turning and you may Fox Terrier, was named Bimbes, tragic when Frau Mozart died. hear, perhaps though the prodigy Wolfie changed Back in Salzburg, Nannerl kept her name to the southern German her brother informed as to his coming from diminutive Bimberl. So pleased dear Bimberl, describing how the Lthe back of the timpani, was he with this clever dog-eared old dog stationed herself at the ornamentation that he similarly door each day and waited mourn- the sound of dogs in rechristened his sister, Maria fully for Mozart mère and fils to classical music. Anna, as Nannerl. come home. Virginia Museum of Fine Arts, Richmond. Paul Mellon Collection. Photo: Katherine Wetzel © Virginia Museum of Fine Arts Spring 2019 Bark 27 hile Mozart never enshrined Bimberl in music, more than a W Statue of Dan, the dog who inspired century later, another composer, one of Elgar's Enigma Variations. Sir Edward Elgar, most certainly put the hound in his harmony. Elgar kept a succession of dogs until he was 29, when he married Caroline Alice Roberts, love of his life, who could not abide “the filthy creatures!” Thereafter, Elgar loved the dogs of friends, particularly the Sinclairs’ Dan, a white-faced English Bulldog from the Midlands. With each visit to the Sinclairs, Elgar sought out Dan, if Dan did not seek out Elgar first. Come the end of the visit, upon taking his leave, Elgar some- times jotted in the visitors’ book a musical picture of the dog that day, such as “He sleeps,” “Dan uneasy” and “He fidgets and … fffz Radnorimages / Alamy Stock Photo Barks.” On occasion, these Moods of Dan made their way into some of Elgar’s noblest music. The mood “Dan triumphant (after a fight)” was turned into the leaping opening chords of the overture In the South. The five adagio bars “Dan wistful (outside the cathedral)” were included in “For the Fallen,” the last number of the patriotic choral work Edward Elgar with his dogs Marco, Mina and Meg at Napleton Grange. The Spirit of England. “The sinful youth of Dan” became the festive The Elgar Foundation. National Trust, UK opening of the imperial masque owner, George Robertson Sinclair.) One more of Dan’s moods, “He The Crown of India, composed for Elgar said of this 60-second muses (on the muzzling order),” the coronation in India of King allegro, “The first few bars were was transfigured into the prayer George V and Queen Mary. suggested by his great Bulldog Dan theme that plays a central part But beyond these works, Dan (a well-known character) falling in The Dream of Gerontius, the is best remembered for achieving down the steep bank in the River oratorio regarded by many as the dogkind’s greatest musical minute Wye; his paddling upstream to find Elgarian masterpiece. As such, the of praise and favor: Variation XI a landing place; and his rejoicing Worcester Cathedral later made “G.R.S.” from Enigma Variations. bark on landing. G.R.S. said ‘Set The Dream of Gerontius the subject (The initials belonged to Dan’s that to music.’ I did; here it is.” of a stained-glass window 28 Bark Spring 2019 MUSIC World History Archive / Alamy Stock Photo Top: Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec (French, 1864–1901) The Motograph Moving Picture Book Wood engraving with color printed in lithography 1898 11.44 in. x 9.06 in. Bottom Left: The Motograph Moving Picture Book cover Bottom Right: Erik Satie (French, 1866–1925) Marc AutenriethMarc CC BY-SA 4.0 Spring 2019 Bark 29 commemorating the town’s native son, Sir Edward, Master of the King’s Musick (and by extension, the dog he loved). In July 1903, G.R.S. wrote to Elgar, “Poor dear old Dan died an hour ago. He was my best friend.” Dan was given a little grave in a quiet, shady spot beneath a big apple tree. hough he kept no dogs in his tiny apartment, what a T laugh to see such craft from the French composer Erik Satie in his Trois Véritables Preludes Flasques (pour un chien), Three Veritable Flabby Preludes (for a dog). The name is silly (a spoof of Claude Debussy’s quaintly cat-like Preludes), but Satie’s artistic intent was no less serious than that of, say, his drinking buddy at Le Chat Noir, Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec. The similarities between these Leoš Janáček (top row-middle) at the summer residence two artists’ most famous dogs of conductor Sir Henry Wood, England, 1926. suggest they are of like breed. © Moravian Museum Toulouse-Lautrec’s 1899 cover for Schola Cantorum de Paris, earning joué, the Tervuren is suddenly up The Motograph Moving Picture a diploma in counterpoint. and bounds across the room on Book depicts a domestic scene in There is nothing flabby about fourths and fifths. The cat hisses which appears an apparent Belgian these pooch pieces. Rather, they minor sevenths and scats up the Tervuren—a mahogany-haired, are contrapuntally correct in an keyboard. Out the door they go! perky-eared Shepherd—growling obedient sort of way—linear Into the scattering leaves on the across the room at a black cat, and sharp. Montmartre sidewalks. which glares back from its perch The first, Sévère réprimande, is on a three-legged stool. The two an insistent toccata, barking with ne of music’s most humane animals are drawn in blue crayon bass chords. veterinary operations and India ink, with Toulouse- The second, Seul à la maison, Owas performed by Czech Lautrec’s distinctive deft, nervous is a serene two-part invention composer Dr. Leoš Janáček, a line and delicious wit. The room (à la Bach) which, without much keeper of dogs in his old age. A is bathed in harsh light. The scene help from our imagination, may favorite was a large mongrel whose is at once brutal and alluring. depict Toulouse-Lautrec’s Belgian deep black coat won from Janáček So it is with the Flabby Preludes, Tervuren momentarily at rest on the name Cert (Devil). Janáček written a few years later, after the the floor, showing the cat dog- notated Cert’s varied vocalizations 40ish Satie finished three years indifference. and included some in a local Brno at a high-tone music school, the In the last Flabby Prelude, On exhibit of his writings and music. 30 Bark Spring 2019 MUSIC During this time, Janáček also a thrill down my spine, I know held a keen interest in the folk that it is good. See,” he added, rhymes he read regularly in the motioning to Rexie who lay on Children’s Supplement of a Brno the floor, his tail wagging with a newspaper. In 1925–26, he set French vibrato, “he is most excited 19 in a cycle of couplets for nine when he sways his tail. He gets his voices, Ríkadle (Nonsense Rhymes). thrill through his spine!” Number eight, “Nás pes nás pes,” laments: “Our dog, our dog’s/ las, one of music’s most broken his tail./For his own good, charming pets is lost. Here’s his mate/Trapped it in the garden the sad story. It was the Columbia Records© A Prokofiev,Peter and the Wolf album cover, 1941 g a t e .” summer of 1892. The gentle Alex Steinweiss, illustrator The verse describes a once- Frenchman Gabriel Fauré had common rural method of amputa- reached middle age and the ninth Parisian home, where he was tion. A broken vertebra in a dog’s year of an arranged marriage that a favorite with the two Bardac tail will not heal easily, and can be had always lacked the tender children, Raoul and Dolly, and extremely painful whenever the sensuality of his music. While the family dog, Ketty. dog wags its tail. Better to cut it off. visiting his parents-in-law in the Scholarship has made a dog’s Seine valley resort town of Prunay, breakfast of the identity of Ketty’s ust imagine a human with Fauré met a witty and elegant breed; even a leading Fauré the character of a dog!” femme du monde, an amateur authority (Jean-Michel Nectoux) “J said Fritz Kreisler, violin soprano, Mme. Sigismond Bardac identifies Ketty merely as “a dog.” virtuoso and writer of delightful (Emma), and entered into une That this essential bit of dog- scraps of faux baroque musical passion infidele. tagging has been left undone is doggerel. “He would be loving, Emma Bardac and her banker woeful. thankful, true, strong, graceful, husband led lives of mutual During four years as an inti- a true demigod.” independence. Thus, Fauré made mate of the Bardac family, Fauré In 60 years, the childless Fritz frequent visits to the Bardacs’ composed a suite of six pieces for and Harriet Kreisler were rarely dogless. There were about a dozen dogs in all, usually in pairs, living Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers on the Kreislers’ wooded estate in in film still from Shall We Dance (1937) western Berlin and later, in their Manhattan apartment not far from Central Park.

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