In this lovely old book about musicians and food, Charles Nielsen Gattey relates some interesting anecdotes.
“In his impoverished youth, Irving Berlin was employed as a waiter cum pianist in a shabby Bowery restaurant. Visitors would later be taken there during tours of New York, and guides would point at an ancient, ill-treated piano in a corner and allege that Berlin had composed some of his best tunes there.
Drawn to the place by a fit of nostalgia one evening when he had become famous, the composer sat at the piano and began to play. Just then, a coach arrived and unloaded its sightseers. “This historic place is where Berlin wrote his immortal melodies on that very piano. Listen, the song that Bowery bum is playing is one of his, though if he heard how he’s murdering it he’d turn in his grave.”
The pianist Paderewski displayed his sense of the ridiculous when replying to an invitation to perform after a dinner party being given for King George V and Queen Mary. He had asked for a fat fee which she agreed to pay, adding in her letter
“Please accept my regrets for not inviting you to the dinner. As a professional artist, you will be more at ease in a nice room where you can rest before the concert.”
The great pianist wrote back: “Dear Duchess, Thank you for your letter. As you so kindly inform me that I am not obliged to be present at your dinner, I shall be satisfied with half my fee.”
Yet another clueless member of high society issued a thoughtless invitation to the Spanish violinist Pablo Sarasate
“Dearest Maestro, how lovely to have you back in town. Can you dine with us tomorrow? P.S. Please don’t forget to bring your Stradivarius!”
Sarasate replied “Delighted to see you. I most certainly accept your invitation to dinner tomorrow. P.S. My Strad does not dine.”