by James Hogan
I just had to share this article from the New York Times. Remember all those wonderful Peanuts comic strips featuring Schroeder? He would be at his piano, and often in the comic strip panel, the reader would see a stanza of music, which served as a kind of wallpaper to the scene.
Turns out Charles Schulz was pretty serious about music. The music featured in the cartoons was actual, original music from classical scores, and frequently it would reflect the mood of the drawing. Several of the comic strips are on display at “Schulz’s Beethoven: Schroeder’s Muse” at the Charles Schulz Museum in New York, and visitors can view the strips and hear the music that was literally drawn into them. How brilliant!
Would love your comments about Charles Schulz, Peanuts, and music in cartoons/comics.
I should have, but didn’t, realize that Schulz was such a classical music fan. Normally, when I think of classical music in relation to the graphic and visual medium of comics or cartoons, I think of it as the soundtrack. I didn’t realize Schultz was using it to create a visual “soundtrack.” Interesting.
This article certain hits home with me. For the past 48 years, or so, I have always anticipated Beethoven’s birthday wondering if that day’s Peanuts strip would be Beethoven themed. It usually was and it always made my day.
I remember as a child in the early 60’s I was once looking through one of the several Peanuts compilation books we had around the house. That very same strip with Schroeder going through the warm-ups before playing had caught my attention. The antics amused me and I showed the cartoon to my mother. She pointed to the music notes and commented matter-of-factly, “That’s the Hammerklavier Sonata.” My mother, while not a musician, was very knowledgeable about classical music. But I assume now that one of her musician friends must have informed her. Regardless, that was the first time I had ever heard the term “Hammerklavier” and I’ve always associated it with Schroeder and Peanuts.