Damian Thompson Damian Thompson

Brahms’s benders

The list includes Beethoven, Schubert, Schumann, Liszt, Brahms, Mussorgsky and Sibelius. No reports of Bach getting drunk – but he did once order eight gallons of beer

issue 10 December 2016

‘Brahms and Liszt’ is a lovely bit of rhyming slang, but it doesn’t have the ring of authenticity. Can you really imagine cockney barrow boys whistling tunes from the Tragic Overture and the Transcendental Études? Also, the Oxford English Dictionary reckons it only dates back to the 1930s. It always made me snigger, though, because it conjured up an implausible vision of pompous beardy Johannes and the social-climbing Abbé rolling around legless.

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