The Classical Music Guide Forums

some guy

Ah, you are sweet. Thanks for the nice replies. As for me, I have had stage 4 prostate cancer since 2019. I have gotten really good care. I'm on really ferocious drugs at the moment that make me extremely comfortable without making me too muzzy. Little bit. And I am busy living, so the dying part do...

some guy

Hey y'all. And no, I am not returning. No worries!! But I am dying. You know, the usual. And I've got a thank you for y'all. Many years ago, someone here reacted to Roslavet's Chamber Symphony, saying that it was the ugliest thing he'd ever heard. Given who it was, and no, I do not remember who, I t...

some guy

Another example of a thesis supported only by ignoring all the evidence that doesn't support it. Which is great if you can get only people who don't know about what you're suppressing to read your stuff. The world is more ragged and more complex than the childish simplicities advanced here, and adva...

some guy

Just a reminder that there are listeners for whom new music is not too much effort but an instantaneous joy. There are few of those listeners on this particular board (one?), but those listeners do exist, listeners who actively seek out music they've never heard before (the model of listening that w...

some guy

"Just don't bash the things you don't like as if your not liking them is a criticism of them. " If people don't like something the odds are they're not going to be interested in 'criticizing' it anyway.... Classical music forums, as I believe you already know, are full of expressions of personal di...

some guy

The opening post of this thread was an answer to an implied question: are there any standards that apply to new music, or is it just "anything goes"? The answer was "yes, there are standards that apply to new music, for both listeners and the music itself." That is, even though new music cannot be u...

some guy

John F wrote: ↑
Thu Sep 19, 2019 8:01 am
Any or all of this may be useless to you, but I'm not making a general statement, I'm talking about me.

I found it quite useful and mostly pretty encouraging as well.

some guy

One of the pleasures of listening to 'old' music is that I didn't need to read a lecture and instructions on how to like and enjoy it. That happened spontaneously because most of it speaks with an immediacy to the widest possible audience at any one time. One of my pleasures listening to new music ...

some guy

Dedicated to JohnF, who gave me the idea. New music gives a lot of classical listeners no end of grief, apparently. And a lot of listeners return the compliment, with interest, complaining about all the things new music does or fails to do. I recently read a long post on FB about how the hideosities...

some guy

the point of doing any art is to do something that hasn't already been done There are other reasons for "doing art" and other criteria for judging it than total originality from the ground up. Of course works of art differ from each other to some degree, but there's no need for the differences to b...

some guy

I would take it even farther. I would say that even with "so far," it's still not OK; it still expresses 19th century ideas of canon and quality. I find those ideas problematic even when applied to music of the past, of a hundred or two hundred years ago (or more). But applied to music of the presen...

some guy

I never liked any of the Johnston music I heard when I was young.

But one of my dearest friends was a student of Johnston's and constantly praises him.

And now this.

OK. Ben Johnston it is then. After all, liking more things is better than liking fewer things....

Thanks, diegobueno.

some guy

That was a fun show. Her enthusiasm for new music is charming, and while the show, sadly typical for PBS, is rather tame, the music she played was still good to listen to. I would wish that there had been more music and less talk, but Claire was easy to listen to, so.... Lots of enjoyable music out ...

some guy

Skalkottas is a delightful and delightfully varied composer. He wrote a lot of things that more timid listeners can like instantly. And he wrote a lot of things that less timid listeners can like instantly. This piece, from 1942, was one of the two pantonal pieces that first really tickled my ears. ...

some guy

But Barney, isn't that the point of "all female" collections, to feature a group that has been systematically ignored, regardless of merit? In favor of systematically favoring another group, also regardless of merit. "Based on merit" just hasn't happened yet. Collections like this are a way of nudgi...

some guy

https://www.empreintesdigitales.com/en/ ... ?tri=genre

This is the section of EmpreintesDIGITALes that has their 31 female composers. It's not comprehensive, just a good place to start.

some guy

You might be interested in another Beethoven allusion, in Kancheli's Vom Winde Beweint. That doesn't come until the second movement, but it comes right at the beginning of that. It's upside down, at first, which is a bit of a tease. The rhythm is similar, but the pitches go up instead of down at fir...

some guy

"modernism" has to do with quite a lot more than just atonality, which is a term originally coined to describe music that everyone in the world would now recognize as being tonal. That's simply not true. It simply is true, John, as I suspect you already know. The term "atonality" was coined by a gr...

some guy

Do I have anything to say about that, John? Of course. One, "modernism" has to do with quite a lot more than just atonality, which is a term originally coined to describe music that everyone in the world would now recognize as being tonal. And even if "atonality" can be supplied some reasonable cont...

some guy

Still at it, I see. Lance says he is someone "who wants to take in as much music from periods where beauty of music is food for the ears...." But Lance, that's why I listen so much to music from the past one hundred years. Because it's so beautiful. Not the "neo-romantic" stuff, either, but Varèse a...

some guy

Thanks but is there any other piece of music he wrote you might recommend? I will try Cheap Imitation again sometime-maybe something will suddenly connect for me. If not there is sure much else out there for me to enjoy! Regards, Len I could recommend several. All of it is out there for you to enjo...

some guy

Well, it's easy to say this, but probably difficult to actually do, but first you have to change your attitude. When that's done, then you are free to change how you listen. Which is what will enable you to "get" something out of Cheap Imitations. Specifics? Well, you obviously think that Cage is su...

some guy

Approaching things according to what you already understand may seem like a good idea, at first. But is it? If you try to understand Cage by how well he does for you what oh say Puccini does for you, or Wagner, or Bellini, then you're going to be continually disappointed. Cage is never going to do f...

some guy

Very nice review. Almost completely empty of silliness, which is very refreshing.

some guy

Dear Lenny,

You have left out the possibility of there being any justification for the knocking.

Michael

some guy

Let's look at an example from contemporary classical music. John Corigliano's Symphony No. 1 (1990) quotes Albeniz's Tango in D extensively note for note. This isn't taking an "idea" from the Tango, as with Beethoven's variations on themes from "Die Zauberflöte," it's taking the music itself - and ...

some guy

Peanuts.

I kept telling these guys, when they were young, to go into sports. But did they listen to me?

Nah.

some guy

That's egg on my face, Len.

Apologies all round.

(Egg is so hard to get off, too, has anyone noticed? Wow.)

some guy

Over three months ago. But good that someone here finally noticed. Here's something that's old news, too: "His work, often dissonant, made abundant use of the musical interval known as the diminished fifth, or tritone. A painfully unstable two-note chord, known historically as “the devil’s interval,...

some guy

orthodox Catholics with no known lapses. Well, that's interesting. The knowing is more important than the lapses themselves. So you can have any number of unknown lapses. But what if you're canonized and then someone discovers a lapse in your murky past? Do you then get uncanonized? This particular...

some guy

Well, that was certainly a more obvious evasion than your previous efforts.

Not sure how to measure success, here, though. You have certainly succeeded in evasion. But evasion is in itself an admission of failure.

So it's a conundrum.

(It may or may not be wrapped in something else.)

some guy

Alright, so we've got some disagreement. Which is neither here nor there. Just about any statement I make here is an opinion. I think that was clear in my comment on Copland, Vaughan Williams, and Britten. That means anyone is free to disagree and it won't upset me. And I would hope my comments don...

some guy

I have been attending new music concerts since the 1980s, when I could, and more aggressively since 2005, because I could, and I have seen nothing like what John is talking about. Those generalizations may indeed be applicable to symphony concerts or traditional opera venues like the Met, but nothin...

some guy

jbuck919 wrote: I think you owe Ted an apology.

And I think you should read the post that immediately precedes yours.

some guy

Ted and John, my apologies.

I was out of line.

some guy

David Means. They just yesterday gave it a first run in Minnesota, which was apparently quite good. David's having a DVD made of it, anyway, to be available in Prague. I had some copies of the novel printed for the show in Prague, too. I do not recommend that. It wasn't too much, I guess, but it was...

some guy

Thoughts? You need to get out more? I dunno. But I always wonder when people say they've never heard of something. I know that's supposed to be a super snarky diss of the something, but what it really is is a super revealing comment on how little the person knows. I'm sure I'll take the usual flack...

some guy

enough time has to have elapsed for a broad, lasting consensus to form, not just among performers but critics, music historians, musicologists, and other opinion-makers and -shapers. (Sorry, some guy, but that's how it is.) Hahaha, John. You should really read more carefully. Yeah, that's how canon...

some guy

The list was not terribly impressive, but even so, there were many names on it which are BIG, though probably only to that infamous "specialized audience for contemporary music," which is a convenient way to marginalize what should really be the norm, convenient for those who locate the norm somewhe...

some guy

No problemo, as I remember saying when I was a kid in California.

I had to learn a new phrase when I got to Spain.

some guy

Wallingford wrote:It's likely that Mendelssohn respected and/or admired Mendelssohn, who was almost his equal as a child prodigy.

Could you fix this typo? Now I'm curious about who respected who.

some guy

That's a nice piece, Mel. Thanks for posting it. Haas is a very well-known composer, known especially for In Vain, which I have a recording of, though I think that that's the only Haas I have. Sweet concerto, though. I like that it manages to sound more like a piece of music with a prominent piano p...

some guy

"Les mamelles de Tirésias." Very naughty. What a strange remark. What a strange response. You could look up "naughty" in the dictionary, where one of its meanings is "mildly rude or indecent, typically because related to sex." Describes "Mamelles" to a T. So "very mildly rude or indecent," is it? :...

some guy

John F wrote:"Les mamelles de Tirésias." Very naughty.

What a strange remark.

some guy

I have loved Nielsen ever since I bought that Nonesuch recording with Horenstein for the cover, one of maybe four things I have ever bought for its cover. As I listened to the other things, it gradually became clear to me that far from being the odd man out, the sixth is the culmination of everythin...

some guy

You know, it did occur to me to wonder if you were making a clever joke. But mispellings are pretty rife on international sites. (I perpetrated one myself the other day, saying "parra" when what I meant was "para," so....) Anyway, sorry you had to explain that. I did chuckle once you did, though. :)

some guy

In order to be argumentum ad hominem, it has to be directed at one person, not many. Directed at many is called argumentum ad populum. And in order to be either, it has to be a substitute for the real argument, substituting a remark about what someone has said with a remark about the someone. Auntie...

some guy

I see young women using the term all the time. Lance is not a young woman. Black people refer to each other as "nigger" all the time, too. It would not be appropriate for me, a white person, to do so, however. It would, at the very least, be incivil. Lance asked a sincere question. I took it be so,...

some guy

I'm thinking of the whole of western music, not just sonata-allegro form, which is indeed based on the play of tonality (related to harmony but not the same thing). I wouldn't say that of other forms and periods, from a Bach chaconne or fugue to Schoenberg's Klavierstücke. If you would, then we'd d...

some guy

Nice article. I wish it weren't condensed, but it's better than nothing. Boulez's 90th birthday is Thursday. He says that the form and the expression of most Western art music come from the harmony. There's a lot of truth in that; I'd say it's true about the expression, less so about the form. This ...

Search found 1643 matches