Uploaded August 2026 | Updated September 2026, 1 week ago
#5 from 'Erzählungen' (Stories) Op.31 (1887)
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Phillip Sear plays an imaginative humoresque (in all but name), the last of a set of five short pieces by the American composer and artist George Templeton Strong (1856–1948).
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Strong was born in New York City to a musically inclined family. Strong's early life was marked by musical training and a family tradition of involvement in the arts. He studied music at the Leipzig Conservatory and became friends with the American composer Edward MacDowell. After returning to the United States, Strong taught music but found the work to be stressful.
In 1897, Strong moved to Switzerland, where he dedicated himself to painting for several years. Around 1912, he resumed his musical career and spent the rest of his life in Geneva. Strong's work as a composer and painter reflects his Romantic style and his deep connection to European traditions.
The piece his headed by verses are from “The Height of the Ridiculous” by the American physician, essayist, and poet Oliver Wendell Holmes (1809–1894). The poem is an early comic piece, generally dated 1830. Strong quotes stanzas 1–3, a row of asterisks marking omitted intervening stanzas, and the final stanza.
"I wrote some lines once on a time
In wondrous merry mood,
And thought, as usual, men would say
They were exceeding good.
They were so queer, so very queer,
I laughed as I would die;
Albeit, in a general way,
A sober man am I.
* * * * * *
I called my servant, and he came:
How kind it was of him
To mind a slender man like me,
He of the mighty limb!
* * * * * *
He took the paper, and I watched,
And saw him peep within;
At the first line he read, his face
Was all upon the grin.
* * * * * *
Ten days and nights, with sleepless eye,
I watched that wretched man,
And since, I never dare to write
As funny as I can.
The asterisks omit these three stanzas:
“These to the printer,” I exclaimed,
And, in my humorous way,
I added (as a trifling jest),
“There’ll be the devil to pay.”
He read the next; the grin grew broad,
And shot from ear to ear;
He read the third; a chuckling noise
I now began to hear.
The fourth; he broke into a roar;
The fifth; his waistband split;
The sixth; he burst five buttons off,
And tumbled in a fit."
The joke is extravagantly self-mocking: the poet is so pleased with his supposedly comic verses that he gives them to his servant, whose uncontrolled laughter becomes a ten-day ordeal. (information from (Perplexity AI, 13 August 2026).
This brilliant and original piece somehow anticipates Prokofiev in its sudden contrasts of mood.
Thumbnail image created with Picsart ( tinyl.co/4WqE ).
#americanmusic #holmes #humoresque
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Played by Phillip Sear
psear.co.uk (Email: piano4@psear.33mail.com
WhatsApp: wa.me/441444483794 ) TikTok: tiktok.com/@pianogems
****See all my latest videos here: tinyurl.com/phillip210 ****
#5 from 'Erzählungen' (Stories) Op.31 (1887)
------------------------------------
Phillip Sear plays an imaginative humoresque (in all but name), the last of a set of five short pieces by the American composer and artist George Templeton Strong (1856–1948).
------------------------------------
Strong was born in New York City to a musically inclined family. Strong's early life was marked by musical training and a family tradition of involvement in the arts. He studied music at the Leipzig Conservatory and became friends with the American composer Edward MacDowell. After returning to the United States, Strong taught music but found the work to be stressful.
In 1897, Strong moved to Switzerland, where he dedicated himself to painting for several years. Around 1912, he resumed his musical career and spent the rest of his life in Geneva. Strong's work as a composer and painter reflects his Romantic style and his deep connection to European traditions.
The piece his headed by verses are from “The Height of the Ridiculous” by the American physician, essayist, and poet Oliver Wendell Holmes (1809–1894). The poem is an early comic piece, generally dated 1830. Strong quotes stanzas 1–3, a row of asterisks marking omitted intervening stanzas, and the final stanza.
"I wrote some lines once on a time
In wondrous merry mood,
And thought, as usual, men would say
They were exceeding good.
They were so queer, so very queer,
I laughed as I would die;
Albeit, in a general way,
A sober man am I.
* * * * * *
I called my servant, and he came:
How kind it was of him
To mind a slender man like me,
He of the mighty limb!
* * * * * *
He took the paper, and I watched,
And saw him peep within;
At the first line he read, his face
Was all upon the grin.
* * * * * *
Ten days and nights, with sleepless eye,
I watched that wretched man,
And since, I never dare to write
As funny as I can.
The asterisks omit these three stanzas:
“These to the printer,” I exclaimed,
And, in my humorous way,
I added (as a trifling jest),
“There’ll be the devil to pay.”
He read the next; the grin grew broad,
And shot from ear to ear;
He read the third; a chuckling noise
I now began to hear.
The fourth; he broke into a roar;
The fifth; his waistband split;
The sixth; he burst five buttons off,
And tumbled in a fit."
The joke is extravagantly self-mocking: the poet is so pleased with his supposedly comic verses that he gives them to his servant, whose uncontrolled laughter becomes a ten-day ordeal. (information from (Perplexity AI, 13 August 2026).
This brilliant and original piece somehow anticipates Prokofiev in its sudden contrasts of mood.
Thumbnail image created with Picsart ( tinyl.co/4WqE ).
#americanmusic #holmes #humoresque
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Played by Phillip Sear
psear.co.uk (Email: piano4@psear.33mail.com
WhatsApp: wa.me/441444483794 ) TikTok: tiktok.com/@pianogems
****See all my latest videos here: tinyurl.com/phillip210 ****
