Delos Diary

Reading the movie and TV reviews in Weekly Variety can be addictive. Productions are covered from a professional viewpoint and the reviews are often detailed in ways ordinary newspaper criticisms are not. They also contain unique "Variety-isms" worth remembering. In the August 25 issue, a new BBC-TV production called "Eroica" is given lengthy coverage. We in the USA will undoubtedly see it sometime in the future on PBS. It's a biography limited to one phase of Ludwig van Beethoven's life … the period when he was composing his Third Symphony, the breakthrough Eroica.
At one point, demonstrating his Variety pedigree, the reviewer refers to the composer as a "cantankerous cleffer." That set me off into dreaming of other two-word descriptions of famous composers. How about "neurotic notespinner" for Tchaikovsky, "pubescent prodigy" for the young Mozart, or "seraphic songmeister" for Franz Schubert? After that, my fantasies failed. Anyone have suggestions for Wagner, Brahms, or Berlioz?
Whatever, they could hardly be more irreverent than calling the admittedly "cantankerous" Beethoven a "cleffer"!