Cats and musicians 💫

 

A cat asleep on your lap has little interest in whether you have just changed the history of music.

These photographs bring together Igor Stravinsky, Maurice Ravel, Bernard Herrmann, John Cage, Dmitri Shostakovich, Alfred Brendel, Arturo Benedetti Michelangeli, Michel Legrand, Thelonious Monk and Vladimir Horowitz in moments of feline company.

What makes them so touching is the smallness of each gesture: a hand resting on fur, a kitten perched on a shoulder, a smile far from the concert platform. Familiar figures become wonderfully human.

Different musical worlds, one shared pleasure: the company of a creature perfectly happy to interrupt a masterpiece for a little attention.

And whatever the score says, the cat chooses the tempo.