The Classical Music Guide Forums

barney

It may not always have been done with bullets, but reasonless violence has been around since Cain and Abel. I don't think that Americans are nastier than other people, they just have access to guns. How could a 15-year-old have a gun to go shooting people with. As I've said before, most of the rest ...

barney

Very sweet. Thanks for posting.

barney

Any number of classical singers have sung Broadway songs as encores, and sometimes as part of the man program. José van Dam sang "Some enchanted evening";Thomas Quasthoff, "I did it my way." And this is nothing new. Great singers of the past sang ballads etc. in their concerts, and Caruso sang Geor...

barney

Bostonians have always been confident about their abilities. In the late 19th century a Bostonian told William Gladstone that Shakespeare was "a great man. Why I doubt if there are six his equal in the whole of Boston!"

barney

I was fortunate enough to hear the CSO do Shostakovich 13 last year. I happened to be in Chicago for the season-opener. Believe me, their brass still had it.

barney

I mean by that what they sometimes see as colonialism and condescension, and we see as things like human rights. My experience, personally and in reading, is that Asians are wary of being patronised - Asians in Asia, I mean, not Australia. There's little point in talking to China about human rights ...

barney

It's ironic that the Western musical tradition is increasingly honoured in Asia as it declines in its own home. And this at a time when much of Asia is consciously rejecting much of the Western legacy. But I'm grateful for it.

barney

I've admired the Shostakovich cycle so far. I don't have all the CDs though.

barney

I don't think the protesters have the slightest concern for the cultural institutions or the people who love them. To the protesters, they are relics of a patriarchal, racist etc oppression.

barney

This YouTube link popped up on my computer, not sure why, but I clicked on it. I quite enjoyed his take. Apparently John Oliver is quite well known, just not to me.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WHqyOXx ... uNtiIi%3A6

barney

OK, you can have that.

Mind you Gluck was more popular but you have outlined why - that Haydn's operas were for private audience.

barney

I never saw Bugs Bunny as Leopold before. Many thanks for posting that.

barney

Idomeneo and Clemenza are rather like Haydn's operas: they contain some beautiful set pieces, but opera seria was already on the way out. I quite like Idomeneo, but in the opera house I'd far rather see Figaro, Giovanni, Cosi, Magic Flute or Abduction, none of which has ever gone stale for me. And s...

barney

Surely part of the problem is the size of the Met. If I recall aright, it holds about 3800, and there is a performance most nights. Even in a city the size of New York, that's a lot of tickets to sell. Melbourne's State Theatre, which is by no means small, holds about 2100 in a city of about 5 milli...

barney

Yes, it's staggering that anyone would play with people's lives and livelihoods that way, lighting fires. Yet they do. I gather they often have some sort of pathology, but in my view they are fully responsible. After all, most of us could claim to have some sort of pathology if we gave in to it. I s...

barney

Yes, I too thank you. I live in a dead-end street that ends 50 yards away in a large native reserve, which I live, and where I walk my dogs twice a day. It is to the north west, precisely the direction from which any fire would carry embers to my house. Less than a kilometre away is a vastly bigger ...

barney

If Donald Trump has been able to redraw the electoral boundaries/college to suit himself then he can expect the same thing to happen to him next time!! More than one person can play that game. I don't want to preempt our American experts, but I don't think it is Trump that has gerrymandered boundar...

barney

I honestly believe he would stand no chance of success in a country like Australia or Britain where national braggadocio is not a way of life. Barney do you guys have to deal with the unfair electoral college and gerrymandering-Hillary won the popular vote! Regards, Len :( No, we don't. Our elector...

barney

I disagree with you about American exceptionalism. The fact that enough of you voted for Trump for him to win the electoral college shows that you are at least at petty, indifferent, stupid, resentful and self-interested as the citizens of any other nation. Or even more so. But so what? Like it or ...

barney

Quite right; all politicians, of whatever stripe, routinely lie. As I've said before, the morality of a society runs vertically through all the strata/classes/professions/races rather than horizontally through one. Who can ever forget the immortal lines in the Stanley Donen film, " Charade ": "Why ...

barney

Double ouch, Barney!! I don't feel I could have gone that far in criticizing the US, which is still in my affections. Just use the short-form "deplorables" and we'll all understand. No, I explicitly do not mean that. It is more nuanced than that. But Trump brilliantly exploited the politics of divi...

barney

Cheaper fares have made flying far more democratic. I don't want to go back to the days when only the rich could fly. And is not Melbourne-Sydney one of the world's busiest routes? You can do that for next to nothing on Tiger (which I wouldn't dream of doing because they are so unreliable) up throug...

barney

No, it's not my choice. The Ludwig for me is a bit of a curiosity. But even so, I don't mind artists trying different things, as long as it is done with integrity rather than a mere desire to shock, as in regiestheater. It's always open to me not to go or not to listen.

barney

Thanks, John. Fascinating.
Love the "have you nothing inbetween?" He was just 50 years too early for modern microtonal music.

barney

"From yesterday, when she solemnly took the gavel in the House to usher in the impeachment of a rogue presidency until this matter is finally resolved one way or the other, the eminence grise, if not the de facto President, of our nation is Nancy Pelosi." I think you are right about this, and I also...

barney

Grieg brought his piano concerto to Liszt who proceeded to play it at sght, solo and orchestral parts, to Grieg's amazement. Did any other musician have this extraordinary ability?. I am sure that in Swafford's biography of Brahms there is a story where he turned up for a concert to find the piano ...

barney

In New York 'Die Winterreise' is going to be performed live by Mattei, DiDonato, and Eric Owens. What, as a trio? Dividing the songs between them? I don't mind Winterreise sung by a woman, and have Christa Ludwig's account for example. But I don't like the idea of dividing the songs because I think...

barney

I second the Hotter/Moore and Hotter/Werba choices. I also like the Fischer-Dieskau with Moore. Matthias Goerne is a fine singer, with both Graham Johnson in the fabulous Hyperion series of complete Schubert lieder and later with Alfred Brendel. My collection of 20 just went up by two with a twin ac...

barney

Ah well, Lance, perhaps you are wise. And after all, you do have a lifetime's supply of other candidates.

barney

Wow, Lance, 70,000 LPs. I have about 1100, and I put them all on Ebay as a collection earlier this year for $1000 Australian (about $690 US). Not one nibble. A request for the catalogue of them from a US dealer, but I wasn't willing to let him cherry pick. My turntable is covered in 100 or so CDs, w...

barney

People do call it racist,and indeed our Prime Minister stooped to that re Gladys Liu,but I am unquestionably with you on this.

barney

How I hope you are right. But it just doesn't seem to matter, nothing affects Trump's base, and nothing he does disturbs the Republicans. They are totally corrupt in terms of the principles they abided by for decades; anything at all, so long as they stay in power. A really slimy group of people. Ex...

barney

Well, the Chinese are almost single-handedly keeping the Australian university system alive, coming here in droves and paying top dollars. I've no problem with that, but I have real problems with pusillanimous administrations that let Chinese authorities set the courses and have no problem with the ...

barney

Thanks so much Mike. Yes, I have lost it for now, but I can resubscribe. It was the archive of reviews, the digital archive. I'd go to gramophone.co.uk, then click on reviews. Mystifying that there is no log in button as there is on the link you put up.

barney

Look up his Siegfried's funeral music on YouTube. Electrifying.

barney

Good on the school. China is always pushing its weight around these days. For a while it seemed it would join the civilised group of nations. But its treatment of Tibet, of Uighurs, of Falun Gong, of Christians, its organ harvesting, its 1984-style facial recognition technology and its social credit...

barney

Is anyone on this board a subscriber to Gramophone magazine? I cannot find how to log in on its home page. Four times now I have asked the Exact Editions (publisher) support team, but no one has bothered to reply. I recently cancelled my subscription in frustration - they answered that, but not the ...

barney

Thanks John. I more - or perhaps less - understood that to the extent that I am very careful about revealing details online.

barney

Yes, he has clearly learned that lesson - he'd only make himself ridiculous by reacting badly. You have to smile, even through gritted teeth, and pretend to take the criticism seriously.
I say pretend, because I'm pretty sure that's what he was doing.

barney

Well, I'm another that didn't understand the difference between the extra s and not. I knew that some connections are secure, and that my browser will tell me or even refuse to open if they are not, but I didn't - don't - know what "secure" consists of.

barney

So post it again. I'm always trying to understand support for Trump (as opposed to dislike of his opponents, such as the Clintons).

barney

barney

Fair enough. I don't know her, though obviously she has a following, but I found her every bit as "look at me, look at me" as he was. But they were both pretty quick on the banter.

barney

I think it's one of the best productions I have been privileged to see. So full of colour and life, but not at the expense of the music.

barney

Interesting question, Lance. First, I think there's a gulf between Domingo, an old-fashioned Lothario who now seems a bit of a dinosaur but no worse than that because he took no for an answer, and Levine, an alleged paedophile and exploiter. With Levine, I am happy to play his performances myself. T...

barney

Timely to lighten the mood?
Re sewing mailbags:
Horatio Bottomley, the British independent MP jailed for fraudulent conversion in 1922, was discovered sewing mailbags by a prison visitor. “Ah Bottomley,” he remarked. “Sewing?” “No, reaping.”

barney

John F wrote: ↑
Sun Oct 27, 2019 1:48 pm
Wikipedia says he died of a heart condition, but I heard that he had a drinking problem.

Don't we all? We don't get enough of it. As Oscar Wilde, who Sue just cited in another thread, rightly observed, work is the curse of the drinking classes.

barney

Couldn't be bothered finishing that clip. Two graceless, charmless people, though both quick-witted. Got two thirds through.

You are right about hypocrisy. But we have to remember that it's universal and always upsetting, except when it's ourselves.

barney

As Brian says, we are trying to work out the new normal. But, human psychology being what it is, people will always make and receive sexual propositions that are unwelcome. Most of us have received some sort of rebuff in our lives from someone to whom we were attracted, though I can say I never made...

barney

Yes, it has become a Christmas staple, though first performed at Easter. I have attended more performances of Messiah than any other single work, I am sure - dozens of live performances. Both Jennens and Handel achieved extraordinary heights, in my view. The only times I have not enjoyed it is when ...

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