For the birthday of Nicolas Slonimsky (1894-1995), here a few favorites from his sidesplitting compendium of critical vitriol, “Lexicon of Musical Invective”:

“We recoil in horror before this rotting odor which rushes into our nostrils from the disharmonies of this putrefactive counterpoint. His imagination is so incurably sick and warped that anything like regularity in chord progressions and period structure simply do not exist for him. Bruckner composes like a drunkard!”

(Gustav Dompke, The German Times of Vienna, 1886)

“Heartless sterility, obliteration of all melody, all tonal charm, all music… This reveling in the destruction of all tonal essence, raging satanic fury in the orchestra, this demoniacal, lewd caterwauling, scandal-mongering, gun-toting music, with an orchestral accompaniment slapping you in the face… Hence, the secret fascination that makes it the darling of feeble-minded royalty…of the court monkeys covered with reptilian slime, and of the blasé hysterical female court parasites who need this galvanic stimulation by massive instrumental treatment to throw their pleasure-weary frog-legs into violent convulsion…the diabolical din of this pig-headed man, stuffed with brass and sawdust, inflated, in an insanely destructive self-aggrandizement, by Mephistopheles’ mephitic and most venomous hellish miasma, into Beelzebub’s Court Composer and General Director of Hell’s Music — Wagner!”

(J.L. Klein, “History of the Drama,” 1871)

And of course, who could forget:

“The violin is no longer played; it is pulled, torn, drubbed…. We see plainly the savage vulgar faces, we hear curses, we smell vodka.… Tchaikovsky’s Violin Concerto gives us for the first time the hideous notion that there can be music that stinks to the ear.”

(Eduard Hanslick, New Free Press, Vienna, 1881)

Tchaikovsky could recite every word of Hanslick’s sustained screed, from which this is but an excerpt, from memory.

The “Lexicon” is merely the tip of the Slonimsky iceberg. He conducted first performances of works by Ives and Varèse. His “Thesaurus of Scales and Melodic Patterns” influenced musicians from John Coltrane to Frank Zappa. His sly wit made him a favorite guest on radio and television programs, including “The Tonight Show.” It’s not surprising that he lived to be 101.

Happy birthday, Nicholas Slonimsky.

Slonimsky documentary on YouTube — narrated by Michael York!