Speaker 1: Welcome to Criminalia, a production of Shonda Land Audio in
Speaker 1: partnership with I Heart Radio. Hello, and welcome to another
Speaker 1: episode of Criminalia. This season, we're exploring the lives and
Speaker 1: motivations of some of the most notorious stalkers throughout history.
Speaker 1: I'm Maria Tremarqi and I'm Holly Fry. Today we are
Speaker 1: going to talk about a woman named Olga Janina, and
Speaker 1: although she was a pianist herself, Olga is probably best
Speaker 1: known for her obsession with one of the greatest pianists
Speaker 1: of all time, Franz List. Before we can really get
Speaker 1: into olga story, we actually need to talk about List
Speaker 1: because you need to know about who he was to
Speaker 1: understand how we get to this Stocking story. List was
Speaker 1: born in October of eighteen eleven, and he was born
Speaker 1: in a small town in Hungary, which actually after World
Speaker 1: War One and became part of Austria. He was a
Speaker 1: child prodigy, and his father was inspired by the life
Speaker 1: of another child prodigy, whom you know as wolf Gang
Speaker 1: Amadeus Mozart. He moved to the family to Vienna, where
Speaker 1: his son could study with the great composers and pianists
Speaker 1: of the time, including Mozart's rival Antonio Saltieri. About a
Speaker 1: year later, the family moved to Paris, where lists father
Speaker 1: thought there would be more opportunity for his son to
Speaker 1: play and learn. On March nine of eighteen thirty two,
Speaker 1: List for the first time saw a performance by violinist
Speaker 1: Niccolo Paganini. And we know that specific date because this
Speaker 1: was a magical moment for List, who was about twenty
Speaker 1: one is years old at the time, and this was
Speaker 1: the moment that he knew he could and would push
Speaker 1: himself to become a virtuoso pianist. Between eighteen thirty nine
Speaker 1: to eighteen forty seven, which puts him between the ages
Speaker 1: of twenty and thirty six, List did indeed become known
Speaker 1: as a virtuoso pianist, which means he was a master
Speaker 1: at his craft. And it's this period that solidified him
Speaker 1: as the greatest pianist of all time. And we're talking
Speaker 1: about then and still today. And Liszt was part of
Speaker 1: the movement known as the Romantic Era. We've talked about
Speaker 1: this a little before. It fell between eighteen fifteen and
Speaker 1: nineteen ten, and artists during this time, including composers, were
Speaker 1: establishing new stylistic and technical standards, and List became a
Speaker 1: major influence in this movement. His works had a measurable
Speaker 1: impact not only during the nineteenth century, but also on
Speaker 1: how classical music has been composed and performed ever since.
Speaker 1: Some of the other more recognizable names of this era,
Speaker 1: just to give you some context, are Mendelssohn, Brahms, and Tschaikovsky.
Speaker 1: During his lifetime, List was considered to be bombastic, both
Speaker 1: in his art and how he lived his life, And
Speaker 1: that word bombastic comes up all the time when you're
Speaker 1: researching him. It's every book. I feel like if you
Speaker 1: did a list drinking game with bombastic, you would be
Speaker 1: a train wreck. At the end of each chap, you'd
Speaker 1: be staying over you can. So he was talented, and
Speaker 1: he was influential as a composer, a pianist, teacher, conductor.
Speaker 1: I mean, the list is huge. He was even an author.
Speaker 1: But perhaps above all of that, he was a talented showman,
Speaker 1: and he was known to have a larger than life personality.
Speaker 1: His performances became a combination of skill and flamboyance. So
Speaker 1: most people probably don't think about classical music and musicians
Speaker 1: in this way, but List was super famous. If you're
Speaker 1: wondering just how famous we mean. He inspired something that
Speaker 1: became known as list Domania. Yes, just like Beatlemania. It
Speaker 1: was more than a century before the Beatles. Like this
Speaker 1: really is the first hyper attentive of manic fandom. Right,
Speaker 1: this is the thing. This is the first time that
Speaker 1: people went nuts. And his concerts were part of this
Speaker 1: because they were like nothing that anyone had seen before. Right, So,
Speaker 1: before List, it was considered to be in bad taste
Speaker 1: if a musician played a song from memory. There's an
Speaker 1: anecdote actually that we came across where Chopin, who was
Speaker 1: actually a very good friend of List, He's quoted saying
Speaker 1: that playing from memory was arrogant and that doing so
Speaker 1: would make it appear that you were pretending that the
Speaker 1: composition you were playing was one of your own. But
Speaker 1: list List did not rely on sheet music because with
Speaker 1: the way he played, reading from a page would have
Speaker 1: been a difficult proposition. But it was also a really
Speaker 1: good way to cause a big stir. Yeah, Chopin, bless him,
Speaker 1: was so reserved. I could see where he would be like, frauds,
Speaker 1: what are you doing? Have another beer? Like I'm playing right,
Speaker 1: Because he thought that his performances should be more than
Speaker 1: a recital. By the way, that term recital is something
Speaker 1: that List coined. It seems kind of in the pejorative,
Speaker 1: but he really viewed his shows as theatrical events that
Speaker 1: were more than just the music. And if playing from
Speaker 1: memory was bad, who then this was the worse. Unlike
Speaker 1: any other pianist in his day or before him, Liz
Speaker 1: played his piano in such a way on stage that
Speaker 1: the audience could see his face while he was playing
Speaker 1: for them. Oh my god, you know I was reading that.
Speaker 1: He actually also was the first person to walk from
Speaker 1: the wings out to sit down on his piano, and
Speaker 1: that too was scandal Like. I will say this, if
Speaker 1: you've looked at historical portraits of List, particularly in his
Speaker 1: younger years, you would want to look at that face
Speaker 1: as much as possible. He was incredibly beautiful. Yes, and
Speaker 1: the long locks in any way, we'll get going. We're
Speaker 1: just gonna wax rhapsodic about the handsomeness of Franz. I'm
Speaker 1: pretty sure I would have been a groupie myself. Um So,
Speaker 1: in addition to facing the audience when he played for them,
Speaker 1: he was also very physical when he played the piano,
Speaker 1: and like I said, he had long walks, and his
Speaker 1: long hair would often become slick with sweat, and he'd
Speaker 1: whip it around as he played, and I kind of
Speaker 1: like to think that it was kind of early headbanging
Speaker 1: that was going on behind the piano. It would be
Speaker 1: accurate to say that. List Ultimately, he just captivated his audience.
Speaker 1: So women swooned and they screamed, and allegedly they threw
Speaker 1: their nineteenth century under garments at him during his performance,
Speaker 1: although that had to be kind of a a bit
Speaker 1: to get off, right. That's a tricky proposition. If you've
Speaker 1: never worn pantlets and a sit over it, you know
Speaker 1: they don't just like, it's not an easy undressing situation.
Speaker 1: That's not just coming through your sleeve like you know,
Speaker 1: um okay. So, for example, one woman who was sort
Speaker 1: of skulking around him and she ended up pouring the
Speaker 1: remaining tea from his teacup into her scent bottle, which
Speaker 1: was popular at the time. He carried with you. It
Speaker 1: wasn't something weird, and just like more modern artists on
Speaker 1: the celebrity level of say like a Mick Jagger or
Speaker 1: a David Bowie, there were stories of women not just
Speaker 1: throwing their clothing onto the stage, but also stealing things
Speaker 1: from him, like that tea and his teacup, or you know,
Speaker 1: slightly chopping locks of his hair off so he wouldn't notice,
Speaker 1: or taking just whatever they could get their hands on
Speaker 1: from him. Yeah, I I feel like I have read
Speaker 1: accounts where even things like cigarette butts that he had
Speaker 1: touched they would take yep, and like in their cleavage
Speaker 1: and like, because yeah, I read the same thing. It
Speaker 1: was obsessive mania, for sure. They screamed and swooned. And
Speaker 1: it might not surprise you that among all of the
Speaker 1: things he was, including all of those very productive and
Speaker 1: artistic accomplishments, he was also really polarizing. Yeah, a little
Speaker 1: bit scooch. His friend German composer Ludwig von Beethoven called him,
Speaker 1: and we're quoting young Turk, because of the rebellious and
Speaker 1: revolutionary way that he had about him. Clara Schumann, who
Speaker 1: is regarded as one of the most distinguished pianists of
Speaker 1: the Romantic era, dismissed him as and this is a
Speaker 1: great quote that we both love, the smasher of pianos.
Speaker 1: And that is a great quote because he actually was
Speaker 1: a smatcher of pianos. His aggressive playing style came to
Speaker 1: be known as and I'm gonna quote this musical combat.
Speaker 1: So imagine you're watching him facing you from the stage,
Speaker 1: and this is going on, and it looked like he
Speaker 1: was attacking his instrument when he played, and he would
Speaker 1: often break the strings of pianos and damage the keys.
Speaker 1: As an interesting aside, pianos were actually a little bit
Speaker 1: more delicate than than they are today, but it's not
Speaker 1: like they were made out of cardboard piano. But you
Speaker 1: can also thank his performances for being the inspiration for
Speaker 1: manufacturers to improve and FOURTI five piano construction. And there
Speaker 1: is an account about his playing style that was relayed
Speaker 1: after someone had witnessed a performance he gave in Vienna.
Speaker 1: So imagine you have a ticket to see the amazing
Speaker 1: fronts list, and you enter the theater and you find
Speaker 1: your seat, and as you settle in, you notice that
Speaker 1: on stage there are three pianos. Will there be guest artists?
Speaker 1: You might wonder m guests, but not so much. Liszt
Speaker 1: would use all three pianos, playing one after the other,
Speaker 1: as he broke each of the first two with his
Speaker 1: dynamic and very passionate technique. In a letter to one
Speaker 1: of his mistresses, he wrote a out that show and
Speaker 1: he wrote, quote, my concert has just finished. Enthusiasm impossible
Speaker 1: to describe. That night he received eighteen curtain calls, and
Speaker 1: then he was ultimately carried out of the theater by
Speaker 1: his adoring fans. Eighteen curtain goals. That that concert go
Speaker 1: on to like four in the morning, like you know, right,
Speaker 1: So no one had seen anything like this before, and
Speaker 1: the ever growing hysteria that surrounded List became known, as
Speaker 1: we mentioned earlier, as listomania. So besides destroying pianos that
Speaker 1: we really can't be sure if he also vandalized hotel rooms,
Speaker 1: as one might do today. There's never any mention of it.
Speaker 1: I believe he was polite to hotel I believe he
Speaker 1: was too. I did see that he was polite to
Speaker 1: people who he rode with as well in carriages. I
Speaker 1: think it was just the pianos that he took it
Speaker 1: all out on. We are going to take a quick
Speaker 1: break here, but when we come back, we are going
Speaker 1: to start talking about the groupies that all of this
Speaker 1: bombastic playing attracted. Welcome back to Criminaliot. So let's talk
Speaker 1: now about nineteen century rock stars and their groupies. So
Speaker 1: there were ways in which Frant's list lived up to
Speaker 1: the rock star image. Even then, he was a bit
Speaker 1: of a playboy and he had numerous liaisons with women.
Speaker 1: He never married, but he did come close once. Of
Speaker 1: his many affairs, there are two women that stood out
Speaker 1: in his life, Marie Dagou and the Princess Caroline designed Wittgenstein.
Speaker 1: Liszt and Marie were together for about a decade. They
Speaker 1: actually had three children together, and when that relationship ended,
Speaker 1: Marie decided to publish a then scandalous novel under the
Speaker 1: male pseudonym Daniel Stern. So this is one of those
Speaker 1: instances where it was fiction on a technicality, was very
Speaker 1: thinly veiled fiction. It was real, but the names were
Speaker 1: changed to right barely um. And then there was Caroline
Speaker 1: and listed in Caroline were actually supposed to be married,
Speaker 1: but that ceremony was called off on the eve of
Speaker 1: the wedding because Caroline, who had been married previously, discovered
Speaker 1: that her first marriage was still legally standing, at least
Speaker 1: in the eyes of the church, which meant they could
Speaker 1: not become with the next day. So enter Olga Olga
Speaker 1: Janina was a cigar smoking feminist, although if we're being
Speaker 1: period correct, which we should be, she was a proto feminist.
Speaker 1: This was the time when the ground worked for feminism
Speaker 1: as we know it today was just beginning to form.
Speaker 1: She stood out for a couple of reasons, but they're
Speaker 1: really just two big ones. Um. She preferred to wear
Speaker 1: a jacket and trousers at a time when women didn't
Speaker 1: wear trousers, and also for her bizarre behavior. Olga had
Speaker 1: been notoriously unstable during the time in her life when
Speaker 1: she lived in Budapest and now living in Paris, the
Speaker 1: time that her life intersects would List, she had picked
Speaker 1: up a reputation for being we quote rowdy. She was
Speaker 1: very jealous of other women, and she was very aggressive.
Speaker 1: So we actually have a good example of rowdy and aggressive.
Speaker 1: I think, Um, if we go a little bit deeper
Speaker 1: into the kind of person Olga was, if we take
Speaker 1: away her passion for list and just talk about her,
Speaker 1: this is a pretty telling example. So when an upcoming
Speaker 1: recital of hers was not promoted in local papers or
Speaker 1: didn't receive the glowing reviews she had expected, she was
Speaker 1: not above taking matters into her own hands. And there's
Speaker 1: one anecdote that has her dressing as a man with
Speaker 1: a cane and visiting one of the newspaper editors who
Speaker 1: did not promote her, and she berated him while striking
Speaker 1: him in the face and chest with that cane. Aggressive
Speaker 1: I'm gonna take us down a little side street about
Speaker 1: her mode of dress because her clothing choices were actually
Speaker 1: not entirely unprecedented at this time. So George Song, who
Speaker 1: we have name checked on this show before and who
Speaker 1: was actually a very good friend of Lists. She was
Speaker 1: with Chopin for many years, so they had a friendship together.
Speaker 1: She famously wore men's were during this period, and this was,
Speaker 1: as we said, this sort of period of proto feminism,
Speaker 1: and donning those garments was actually an act of protests
Speaker 1: because it was, if you can imagine, now, illegal in
Speaker 1: Paris for women to wear pants without a permit. Those
Speaker 1: permits were given to people whose jobs necessitated these so
Speaker 1: called unladylike garments, or to people who could offer up
Speaker 1: some health reason that they needed to wear them. Incidentally,
Speaker 1: that law was on the books in Paris until so
Speaker 1: let's just let our minds be blown for a moment
Speaker 1: away pause. Paris Seat of Fashion where it was illegal
Speaker 1: to wear your jeans until technically, but the point here
Speaker 1: is that in walking down the street in pants to
Speaker 1: assault demand with a cane Olga, Janina was breaking multiple
Speaker 1: laws and she knew it that. Yeah, I think like, oh,
Speaker 1: I didn't know I wasn't allowed to wear pants, right. Um.
Speaker 1: So we mentioned earlier that she was also a pianist,
Speaker 1: and she became one of the students when she was
Speaker 1: about twenty four years old. But she set herself apart
Speaker 1: from his other students though. She wasn't quiet about the
Speaker 1: fact that she kept a revolver in her handbag, and
Speaker 1: the other students were, and I don't really blame them,
Speaker 1: they were kind of afraid of her when she showed
Speaker 1: up to class. Um. I mean I took piano lessons
Speaker 1: when I was younger, and if someone had showed up
Speaker 1: and said, hey, have you been practicing the sonata? By
Speaker 1: the way, I have a gun, I would be like,
Speaker 1: I'll play Hungarian Rhapsody faster. I'm sorry. But it wasn't
Speaker 1: even just the revolver. It was believed that she also
Speaker 1: carried a dagger, and that's a dagger with a poisoned tip.
Speaker 1: Some sources also suggest that Olga wasn't opium users, So
Speaker 1: this is a whole combination of things that really are
Speaker 1: wow um which actually the opium use wouldn't have been
Speaker 1: all that weird at the time. Um. She also carried
Speaker 1: around a small bag containing her stash of narcotics, and
Speaker 1: it said that there was also poisons in it. And
Speaker 1: for any of those who listened to the first season
Speaker 1: of Criminaliat, sorry but there's no word on whether or
Speaker 1: not that was arsenic in the bag. It's always about
Speaker 1: it's always arsenic. I'm assuming it was probably. Olga Janina
Speaker 1: was also one of the women who swooned over List,
Speaker 1: and by swooned we mean threatened his in her own
Speaker 1: life over an affair that the pair actually had in
Speaker 1: eighteen seventy. Olga just found herself madly infatuated with him
Speaker 1: and consequently madly jealous. She followed the women that she
Speaker 1: considered to be her rivals for his affection, and then
Speaker 1: she just started following Lists. Um. So in the summer
Speaker 1: of eighteen seventy one, after their affair was over, List
Speaker 1: encouraged Olga to travel to New York to give piano performances,
Speaker 1: which I mean at the very least would give him
Speaker 1: a break from her continuing emotional blackmail that had been
Speaker 1: going on. So Olga did go to New York, but
Speaker 1: once she arrives, their history kind of loses track of
Speaker 1: her story. And it's assumed that because List destroyed most
Speaker 1: of the letters that she sent him, that's why we
Speaker 1: don't really know. But we do know a little bit
Speaker 1: about their correspondence from some of Olga's own records and
Speaker 1: Maria's mentioning correspondence, because we know that she continued to
Speaker 1: send him letters. And in one letter, she we quote,
Speaker 1: begs for a few gentle words from her beloved, but
Speaker 1: she did not get them. Liz replied, not what she
Speaker 1: was hoping, and again we're quoting here. The violence of
Speaker 1: your feelings disturbs my peace of mind. Permit me therefore
Speaker 1: to inform you that I shall decline to accept any
Speaker 1: more of your strange ravings, at least until such time
Speaker 1: that you understand that no one who fails to observe
Speaker 1: God's laws can ever hope to find happiness. You also
Speaker 1: need to reconcile your fate, which is the product, moreover,
Speaker 1: of your various acts of imprudence. So that's a pretty
Speaker 1: serious burn Smarting from that, Olga plotted revenge on her
Speaker 1: once beloved List, and when she returned from New York
Speaker 1: in late one, she threatened to kill him upon her arrival,
Speaker 1: and she wasn't really shy about telling people what her
Speaker 1: plan was, and it was her wife's ambition was to
Speaker 1: kill List and then commit suicide. And a few sources
Speaker 1: do report that she did swallow poison, and when a
Speaker 1: doctor was called to help her, it turned out that
Speaker 1: she hadn't actually swallowed anything that was dangerous at all. Oh,
Speaker 1: we are going to take another quick break and have
Speaker 1: a word from a sponsor, and when we return, we're
Speaker 1: going to talk about Olga's books, and there will also
Speaker 1: be a little mention of the who's Roger Daltery and
Speaker 1: how he is connected to any of The story just
Speaker 1: keeps getting stranger and stranger. Welcome back to Criminalia. Let's
Speaker 1: now get into the kinds of things that were in
Speaker 1: Olga's memoirs. So to be clear, Olga and Liszt were
Speaker 1: never in a committed relationship. They're a fair lasted much
Speaker 1: less than a year, but it inspired her to write
Speaker 1: a lot more than just letters. She wrote her memoirs.
Speaker 1: In her first book, published in eighteen seventy four, was
Speaker 1: called Souvenir dun Kosak that translates to Memories of a Cossack.
Speaker 1: She wrote that under the pseudonym Robert Franz, Now there
Speaker 1: was a real Robert Franz at the time. He was
Speaker 1: a German composer, and he was one of Liszt's contemporaries.
Speaker 1: So this had to have been a little bit awkward,
Speaker 1: and also how confusing would it have been for him
Speaker 1: to see his name listed as the author of a
Speaker 1: kiss and tell book about a barely fictionalized version of
Speaker 1: one of his friends. This book didn't make the splash
Speaker 1: that she had really hoped that it would, But the
Speaker 1: cover art actually sounds pretty great. Um, it was list,
Speaker 1: but it was a caricature of him playing the piano
Speaker 1: for half clothed cherubs who were scattering flower pedals at
Speaker 1: his feet and offering him wine. Upon reading lists. Good
Speaker 1: for End, whose name actually also was Olga, she was
Speaker 1: the Baroness von mayan Org wrote to him that she
Speaker 1: was now going to end have to quote this because
Speaker 1: her word was much better than anything that I would
Speaker 1: come up with disinfect her library. So Liszt actually himself
Speaker 1: when he wrote back, he didn't seem very upset by
Speaker 1: the book or any of this. But if you recall,
Speaker 1: this actually wasn't the first scandalous book starring him. He's
Speaker 1: old hat at this. He's been through this before. It's
Speaker 1: like whatever in eighteen seventy four, in eighteen seventy five,
Speaker 1: so remember, let's just this up in years. At this point.
Speaker 1: Olga went on to write two more books called Leisamuel
Speaker 1: dun cossack X that's Loves of a Cossack by a
Speaker 1: Friend of the abbe X and Le Roman du Pianiste
Speaker 1: aid le Cossack that's the novel of the Pianist and
Speaker 1: the Cossack, which is very much a reference to him
Speaker 1: and her. Right, that's really not very well bailed, right,
Speaker 1: she she self identified as Cossack. That will come up
Speaker 1: again in a moment. So these books were ones that
Speaker 1: she also wrote under a pseudonym, but this time it
Speaker 1: was a different one. It was Sylvia Zarelli, and her
Speaker 1: books were widely regarded as defamatory. Everyone knew exactly who
Speaker 1: and what she was referencing, and they were also kind
Speaker 1: of relegated to being pulp fiction. But she seemed quite
Speaker 1: proud of it. She sent copies to all of Liszt's friends. Well,
Speaker 1: it's a nice gift to get. And despite her books
Speaker 1: being and I'm gonna do this quote end quote business autobiographical,
Speaker 1: it was about this time when Olga was outed for
Speaker 1: a few things, and these things did not include anything
Speaker 1: about List. So first, her last name was not Janina,
Speaker 1: it was Zelinska. And I'm not fluid in Polish, so up,
Speaker 1: my apologies to those of you who are. She had
Speaker 1: taken the name Dannina from her husband, whom she had
Speaker 1: abandoned along with her child because of her passion for List.
Speaker 1: And it also became known at this time that she
Speaker 1: was not a Cossack, nor was she a countess as
Speaker 1: she had been telling people. She was actually the daughter
Speaker 1: of a boot polish maker, and her life, as she
Speaker 1: told it, was truly a work of fiction that was
Speaker 1: probably the better work than those horrible novels. Historians are
Speaker 1: actually still untangling the reality of who Olga was and
Speaker 1: the life that she led, particularly after lists death, and
Speaker 1: in the end, with all sorts of damage done, it
Speaker 1: appears that she retreated and then went on to establish
Speaker 1: a piano studio in Geneva hopefully less aggressive, maybe without
Speaker 1: the revolver. I don't know, maybe her teaching style, right,
Speaker 1: she's really aggressive with her pupils list, so a list. Well.
Speaker 1: He walked away from everything as well, but in a
Speaker 1: different way. So around eighteen sixty one or maybe eighteen
Speaker 1: sixty three. The dates seemed to vary a bit, but
Speaker 1: those are the two that always pop up. He began
Speaker 1: living a more solitary life and he moved into a
Speaker 1: small apartment in a monastery just outside of Rome, and
Speaker 1: in July of eighteen sixty five he received the four
Speaker 1: Minor Orders of the Catholic Church, which when you receive these,
Speaker 1: they make you a low ranking clergyman. It did not
Speaker 1: make him a priest, but he had considered priesthood when
Speaker 1: he was a teenager. This career change was a huge
Speaker 1: surprise to many of his fans and to his peers,
Speaker 1: and apparently to the Catholic Church too. There's this great
Speaker 1: quote from a monk referring to him as Mephistopheles in
Speaker 1: the guise of clergy. This really was I think to
Speaker 1: contextualize it for modern comparison, right, like think of a
Speaker 1: rock star who was sort of known to be like
Speaker 1: think of Jagger going, hey, I decided to become a
Speaker 1: monk right when he released straight Yeah. Liz died on
Speaker 1: July six. He was seventy four at the time and
Speaker 1: living in Germany, and he had towards the end developed
Speaker 1: some health conditions, such as a dima and cataracts, but
Speaker 1: his cause of death was officially the result of pneumonia,
Speaker 1: and some historians actually theorized that he contracted pneumonia at
Speaker 1: a festival that was hosted by his daughter and his
Speaker 1: son in law, the controversial German composer and conductor Richard Wagner.
Speaker 1: Silinian List is really well known as the composer of
Speaker 1: the Hungarian Rhapsodies as well as the Faust Symphony Um
Speaker 1: but he was way more prolific than you might actually guess.
Speaker 1: He wrote in total more than seven hundred compositions, and
Speaker 1: in fact you probably actually know some of them, even
Speaker 1: if you don't think that you do, including Hungarian Rhapsody
Speaker 1: number two. It has fallen out of popularity even today,
Speaker 1: and it's been featured in cartoons including Tom and Jerry
Speaker 1: as well as Bugs Bunny. And while his music has
Speaker 1: been used in cartoons, it's also really important to remember
Speaker 1: that he did change many things about how we write
Speaker 1: and play music today, and he also inspired something else.
Speaker 1: He inspired maybe my favorite part of the research, which is,
Speaker 1: as soon as I found it, I was sending posters
Speaker 1: to Holly and email a. This um he inspired the
Speaker 1: movie list Domania, directed and written by Ken Russell. So imagine,
Speaker 1: if you will, the opening scene, which is List played
Speaker 1: by The Who's Roger Daltry. That's where he shows up.
Speaker 1: He's performing to a crowd of screaming fans, Ringo Star
Speaker 1: makes an appearance as the Pope. And the ending, well, okay,
Speaker 1: so the ending, You're really just gonna have to watch
Speaker 1: that for yourself. Here's what I really love about this, Like,
Speaker 1: did you think about the connection between Franz List smashing
Speaker 1: his pianos and The Who's Pete Townsend smashing his guitars. Yes,
Speaker 1: In fact, I originally thought that that maybe I would
Speaker 1: talk a little about that in the show, Like we
Speaker 1: would never have had Jimmy Hendricks lighting his guitars and
Speaker 1: fire and damaging his amps, and and like Keith Moon
Speaker 1: and Pete Townsend and all these guys who destroy their instruments.
Speaker 1: There's even there are pianists today who as part of
Speaker 1: their performance, light the piano on fire as they're playing.
Speaker 1: You know this would not have happened without Franz list Um,
Speaker 1: and so he changed everything. Holly, Yes, Um, what about
Speaker 1: this story here of Olga and Frons inspires your drinking today? Okay,
Speaker 1: So today's chaser is the winner in a head to
Speaker 1: head battle between two cocktails at my house, and it's exciting.
Speaker 1: It's exciting. It's like a race. I had two very
Speaker 1: different ideas, and I won't. I won't entirely detail the
Speaker 1: losing drink because I'm keeping it in my pocket in
Speaker 1: case I want to use some variation of it for
Speaker 1: a future episode. I think that's smart. The one that
Speaker 1: was discarded, um was a drink because of Olga Janina's
Speaker 1: cigar smoking. I immediately thought, oh, I've got to do
Speaker 1: something with Kooniak, right, since cigars and Kogiak are so
Speaker 1: closely linked. And I was like, well, I'm gonna play
Speaker 1: around with something that's kind of like a sidecar, and
Speaker 1: I'll I'll sub out a different liquor for the the
Speaker 1: orange liqueur that's normally in that right. Nobody can see me,
Speaker 1: but I'm nodding along like I'm learning. I got to
Speaker 1: a place it was pretty good, but I still wasn't
Speaker 1: sure if that was the one for this episod. And
Speaker 1: then I had this idea for a cocktail called a
Speaker 1: smashed Piano. I'm sorry, I need a minute. Okay, I
Speaker 1: got my minute. I love anytime that I destroyed Maria with.
Speaker 1: It's really my goal in all things. It works like
Speaker 1: every episode I was died. So the smashed Piano. I
Speaker 1: wanted to make a drink that is white, like you
Speaker 1: know modern day piano keys. I believe we call that ivory, right,
Speaker 1: but the drink is and ivory drink might look like
Speaker 1: it had gone off. Not quite. So this is a
Speaker 1: very easy what I would call a one to three drink,
Speaker 1: because there's just one ounce of each. It's an ounce
Speaker 1: of white rum, an ounce of Saint Germain, which is
Speaker 1: elderberry liquor, and then an ounce of your milky substance.
Speaker 1: I did oat milk, but could do You could do
Speaker 1: a dairy milk. You could do any other like plant
Speaker 1: based milk or nut based milk you want, and you
Speaker 1: just give that a nice gud shake and your shaker
Speaker 1: over ice and pour it ideally into like a chilled
Speaker 1: glass and it is this yummy, creamy It's very dessert
Speaker 1: e because the that liquor is quite sweet and the
Speaker 1: milk adds kind of enhances that sweetness. You don't really
Speaker 1: taste any bite from the rum and it's just like
Speaker 1: a lovely little after dinner dessert drink, I think. So
Speaker 1: I have two questions for you. Yes, do you have
Speaker 1: a glass recommendation for this one? Because it is a
Speaker 1: dessert drink. I went to my favorite the Coop, which
Speaker 1: how most dessert drinks are are often served because that
Speaker 1: nice wide mouth on it gives you, like easy you
Speaker 1: can take a nice big sip and get that sweet,
Speaker 1: sugary full mouth feel. I would throw it in your
Speaker 1: fridge for a little while, or even the freezer if
Speaker 1: you're short on time, and just pre chill your glass
Speaker 1: because it just makes it that much better. And my
Speaker 1: second question for you them let me interview. Okay, now,
Speaker 1: the Elderberry I'm a big fan of, but it's only
Speaker 1: come up once before and I can't recall what drink
Speaker 1: it was that you made with it. Do you remember?
Speaker 1: I know this was in season one, so I actually
Speaker 1: wasn't so that was actually the drink that we did um,
Speaker 1: which was not one that I came up with. It
Speaker 1: was one that I found. It was an early drink.
Speaker 1: Then the Julia Tafauna pimpanella that's right, which just has
Speaker 1: like the tiniest amount of Saint Germaine. It's only a
Speaker 1: quarter of an ounce because it can really like overtake
Speaker 1: a drink, and if you didn't want to super sweet drink,
Speaker 1: you would not want to put as much as an
Speaker 1: ounce in, but did You can always dial that back
Speaker 1: if it's a little too sweet for you and do
Speaker 1: more like three quarters of an ounce or even a half.
Speaker 1: But I like a one one one because it's easy.
Speaker 1: You can use the same jigger cup and you're good. Excellent.
Speaker 1: That sounds delicious. Thank you. Uh, smashed piano, I got
Speaker 1: a smash piano. I have this dream, this is truly
Speaker 1: my dream of life, is that some poor soul will
Speaker 1: walk into a bar and ask for one of these
Speaker 1: weird drinks that I've come up like, I don't know
Speaker 1: what you're talking about, and they're like, listen to this, No,
Speaker 1: I swear it's real. It's real. I would like a
Speaker 1: smashed piano and I'll be like, I don't know what
Speaker 1: that is. I heard it on the internet. And with that,
Speaker 1: and with that you heard it here on the internet.
Speaker 1: We hope you'd keep hearing us here on the internet
Speaker 1: and that you come back and join us next week
Speaker 1: for more cackling and cocktails as well as more stalking.
Speaker 1: The drink I have planned for an upcoming episode is
Speaker 1: going to be one that Maria loves. I believe in
Speaker 1: my heart and soul. Is it going to have Is
Speaker 1: it going to be a brown beverage? It is going
Speaker 1: to be a brown spirit at the heart of it.
Speaker 1: But I'm doing something a whack of noodle with it. Well,
Speaker 1: I can't wait. It's going to be exciting for me.
Speaker 1: I get this. So we hope to see you back
Speaker 1: here next week on Criminalia and remember drink responsibly. Criminalia
Speaker 1: is a production of Shonda land Audio in partnership with
Speaker 1: I Heart Radio. For more podcasts from Shondaland Audio, please
Speaker 1: visit the I Heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever
Speaker 1: you listen to your favorite shows.