h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

Besides being talented as a "serious" concert pianist, he was quite a comedian. He had a dry wit, and his dignified demeanor made the physical humor he worked into his routines all the funnier. He based his routines of music-related humor, but I think he'll best be remembered for his "phonetic punctuation". I never saw him live, but I always enjoyed watching his performances on the local public broadcast station.

My father requested the videos for Christmas last year. I'd heard the phonetic punctuation bit before, but his performance had us .

His rendition of a night at the opera, starting with a conductor who walks sideways; through to the soprano who makes her entrance 'single pile' and who dies 'by stabbing herself between the two big trees.' Is absolutely brilliant, there is no other way of describing it.

I think my favorite routine of Borge's is the one where he cut-n-pastes pieces of music together, and then, having accomplished his masterpiece, plays a middle C on the piano and gets racous applause.

"I know two tunes, one is Claire de Lune and the other one...isn't"

"Tchaikovsky, Peter Ilych Tchaikovsky: Pete was born in Voitkysnk. When he was a little boy he didn't play in the streets of Voitkynsk, like the other little children of Voitkynsk...Because when he was one month old his parents moved to St Petersburg!"