masterwordsmith-unplugged

This evening, a dear friend told me about Victor Borge via email (thanks!!). I was telling her about my hamsters and she surmised they would make delectable dinner platters for her overweight frog! Along the way, as we exchanged emails, she told me she could not respond as she was watching Victor Borge. Victor who? I felt quite illiterate all of a sudden and googled Victor Borge and he is the reason why I have not done any sopo post tonight.

Victor Borge (January 3, 1909 – December 23, 2000), born Børge Rosenbaum, was a Danish comedian, conductor and pianist, affectionately known as The Clown Prince of Denmark, The Unmelancholy Dane, and The Great Dane. His parents, Bernhard and Frederikke Rosenbaum, were both musicians—his father a violinist in the Royal Danish Chapel and his mother a pianist. Like his mother, Borge began piano lessons at the age of two, and it was soon apparent that he was a prodigy. He gave his first piano recital when he was eight years old, and in 1918 was awarded a full scholarship at the Royal Danish Academy of Music, studying under Olivo Krause. Later on, he was taught by Victor Schiøler, Liszt's student Frederic Lamond, and Busoni's pupil Egon Petri.

He was a classical pianist, entertainer, comedian and humorist. Seldom do we see such talent, wit and classy humor plus musical genius all rolled into one.

Among Borge's other famous routines is the "Phonetic Punctuation" routine, in which he recites a story, with full punctuation (comma, period, exclamation mark, etc.) as exaggerated onomatopoeic sounds. Another is his "Inflationary Language", where he incremented numbers embedded in words, whether they are visible or not ("once upon a time" becomes "twice upon a time", "wonderful" becomes "twoderful", "forehead" becomes "fivehead", "tennis" becomes "elevennis", "I ate a tenderloin with my fork" becomes "'I nine an elevenderloin with my five'k' and so on and so fifth"). Take a look at THIS VIDEO CLIP.

Borge used physical and visual elements in his live and televised performances. He would play a strange-sounding piano tune from sheet music, looking increasingly confused; turning the sheet upside down, he would then play the actual tune, flashing a joyful smile of accomplishment to the audience (he had, at first, been literally playing the actual tune upside down). You can see it in the following clip. CLICK HERE to watch it on YouTube.

His musical sidekick in the 1950s, Leonid Hambro, was a well-known concert pianist. In 1968, classical pianist Şahan Arzruni joined him as his straightman, performing together on one piano a version of Liszt's Second Hungarian Rhapsody, considered a musical-comedic classic. You can see it in the following clip. CLICK HERE to watch it on YouTube.


According to Wikipedia, Borge died in Greenwich, Connecticut, at the age of 91, after more than 75 years of entertaining. He died peacefully in his sleep a day after returning from a concert in Denmark. He is interred at Putnam Cemetery in Greenwich, with a replica of Danish icon The Little Mermaid sitting on a large rock at the gravesite. "It was just his time to go", Frederikke Borge said. "He's been missing my mother terribly."[citation needed]

You can read more about him HERE and watch lots of his videos HERE.

Have a lovely evening! Cheers!