Sport, set and match – 10 hyperlinks between tennis and classical music

1. Claude Debussy

Essentially the most well-known piece of classical music primarily based on the sport of tennis, Debussy’s 1912 ballet (or ‘poème dansé’, to be exact) Jeux depicts a younger man and two feminine mates in search of a lacking ball on a heat summer season’s night time. Admittedly, there’s not a lot serve and volley occurring right here; as an alternative, the three characters frolic round merrily earlier than beginning to get slightly cosy with one another. Love all, as they are saying…

2. Erik Satie

By no means one to mince his phrases, Satie smashed a few hard-hit volleys within the course of Jeux, stating how little it appeared to should do with the sport itself. The next yr, he had a shot of his personal on the topic when he included ‘Le Tennis’ because the final of the 21 actions of his Sports activities et divertissements for solo piano.

3. Benjamin Britten

Britten was each a really proficient sportsman and the possessor of a ferocious will to win, not least when enjoying tennis towards his accomplice, the tenor Peter Pears. ‘Ben was intensely, remorselessly aggressive in an virtually sadistic manner,’ remembers writer Jonathan Gathorne-Hardy concerning the British composer. ‘Once you had been crushed by him at squash or tennis… you actually felt that he’d been “beating” you.’

4. Arnold Schoenberg and George Gershwin

When Arnold Schoenberg arrived in Los Angeles within the mid-Thirties, fellow composer George Gershwin made him welcome by inviting him over for a sport of tennis. It proved so successful that additional video games adopted regularly and, regardless of a 24-year distinction in age, the 2 proved a very good match. Apparently, Gershwin’s fashion was free and straightforward, whereas Schoenberg performed a extra exact, safety-first sport – rumours that the latter had 12 completely different photographs which he performed in rotation earlier than repeating one are unfaithful.

5. Sergei Prokofiev

In 1916, Prokofiev revealed that his love of tennis had acquired in the best way of his day job. ‘The well-known worldwide tennis star Prokofiev has arrived in Kuokkala [in Finland] and has taken half in an enormous tennis competitors,’ wrote the composer in a letter. ‘The Gambler [his opera] suffered most of all.’

6. Wilhelm Peterson-Berger

The Swedish composer Peterson-Berger was such a fan of tennis that, in his later years, he had a court docket constructed at his home on the island of Frösön. Lengthy earlier than that, nevertheless, he had ardently championed the sport in Sweden and depicted its charms in ‘Garden Tennis’, the third motion of his Frösöblomster (‘Frösön Flowers’) for solo piano in 1896.

7. Ralph Vaughan Williams

Vaughan Williams additionally had a tennis court docket at his home, in Dorking, Surrey. How a lot he himself performed is just not clear – given his physique, in all probability not lots – although we do have letters from his spouse, Adeline, inviting fellow composer Gerald Finzi over for a sport of ‘very delicate’ tennis on a few events within the early Thirties. Historical past doesn’t reveal if Finzi was any good, both.

8. Henry VIII

The well-known Tudor king, typically credited because the composer of Greensleeves, was mad eager on tennis – although of the ‘actual’ fairly than the ‘garden’ selection. Two of his wives revealed that he would head off in a sulk when video games didn’t go his manner, whereas one other two complained that he had a really uneven fashion of play. Presumably.

9. Isaac Stern, Joshua Bell and Pinchas Zukerman

Three of the best violinists of latest years have additionally loved nothing greater than to go to the court docket for slightly train. The nice Isaac Stern (1920-2001) performed the sport all through his profession, consistently dismissing those that warned him about damage with the riposte that life is for dwelling. Joshua Bell (b. 1967) was a really proficient tennis participant as a boy, often profitable tournaments in between practising his scales, whereas Pinchas Zukerman (b. 1948) even at one level dabbled with the concept of dropping the violin to take up an expert profession with the racquet as an alternative.

10. Roger Federer, Rafa Nadal and Novak Djokovic

Now that we’ve served 9 examples of tennis-loving musicians, what about life on the opposite facet of the online – specifically classical music-loving tennis gamers? The three best gamers of the present period – and arguably of all time – all have musical hyperlinks and loves. The grandson of an expert conductor, Rafael Nadal advised GQ Journal final yr that his musical loves included each opera and orchestral music, and Novak Djokovic has additionally revealed a passion for the opera, including that solely lack of time prevents him going extra typically. Roger Federer, in the meantime, has been seen attending orchestral live shows and in 2012 took day trip to make a video congratulating the Sydney Symphony Orchestra on its eightieth birthday. His personal violin enjoying, nevertheless, might nonetheless do with slightly observe…

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