October 2, 2016, marks the 63rd annual observance of late Danish/American comic musician Victor Borge’s (real name Børge Rosenbaum) inaugural performance of “Comedy in Music,” the one-man Broadway act featuring “The Clown Prince of Denmark” himself, which opened to American audiences at New York’s John Golden Theatre on this day in 1953, becoming “the longest running one-man show in the history of theater with 849 performances by the time it closed on January 21, 1956” [1] earning it a coveted spot in the Guinness Book of World Records.
To mark the occasion, Unraveling Musical Myths nominates as album of the month a recording of the act, as found on YouTube.
The video below features such quotable worthy and delightful gems as:
“and now for the numbers:
one is Clair de lune,
and the other one... isn’t."
"Clair de lune...
English translation:
'Clear the Saloon!' ”
and humorous ascriptions to members of JS Bach’s enormous family (the virile master of the baroque and his wives were notoriously fertile, giving life to some twenty offspring):
"Bach? Which one? Johann Sebastian
... or Offen?"
Whilst in between many a storied (and compulsively interrupted) performances at the piano, the Clown Prince takes to endearing his audience with his very own historical expertise of composers past, through the use of highly informative biographical sound bytes, which Borge delivers to his unassuming audience with all of the - er...finesse - of a most learned musical historian:
"and now Brahms
- Joey Brahms! -
...spelled backwards Smharb!"
"Pyotr Ilych Tchaikovsky:The video: Comedy in Music, as performed by Victor Borge, in two parts:
... Pete was born in Votkinsk, May 7th, 1840.
When he was a little boy, he never played out in the streets of Votkinsk like the other little children of Votkinsk
…because when Tchaikovsky was one month old his parents moved to St. Petersburg!"
Footnote:
[1] Source (quote): Wikipedia - Comedy in Music
More on Victor Borge:
- Under Classical Music & Opera: The Mayhem Behind the Music, at unravelingmusicalmyths
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