Notes

The title of this work comes from the following review of Vincent d'Indy's Second Symphony. This review was found in Nicholas Slomninsky's Lexicon of Musical Invective.

Vincent d'Indy's Second Symphony is one of the works of the altogether utter modern school which hates all harmonies not afflicted with strabismus. It revels in fractured sevenths, dislocated ninths, and unlucky thirteenths. When it cannot think of anything to do to make the blood curdle and the spine wiggle, it snatches two minor seconds in different keys and incites them to murderous combat with one another. Proceedings of this sort administer galvanic shocks to the nerves and make people squirm in their seats so that at least they cannot go to sleep...People who do not like harmonies suggestive of rampant lemons and inebriated persimmons will not enjoy this Symphony.

(W.J.Henderson, New York Sun, January 13, 1905)