Here is one of the most enjoyable and illuminating books ever published for the music lover, a feast of delightful anecdotes that reveal the all-too-human side of the great composers and performers. pThere are stories of appetites Handel eating dinner for three, embarrassments Brahms falling asleep as Liszt plays, oddities Bruckner's dog being trained to howl at Wagner, and devotions a lovely admirer disrobing in tribute to Puccini. There are memorable accounts of Stravinsky telling Proust how much he hates Beethoven, of Tchaikovsky's first bewildering telephone call, of Dvorak's strange love of pigeons, and of Verdi's intricate maneuvering to keep the now-famous melody of La donna mobile top secret. pThere is also wonderful trivia Beethoven loved to cat bread soup made with ten raw eggs, along with eccentric strategies Verdi, disturbed by the sound of street organs playing arias from his operas, hired them all for a season and kept them locked in a room. There are examples of musici