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Epithet

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Posts posted by Epithet

  2. Alex Ross, The Rest is Noise

    in Jazz In Print - Periodicals, Books, Newspapers, etc...

    Posted

    [...]

    Sorry for the shorthand. I meant that Ross's fervent endorsement of the music of those particular contemporary composers means that he thinks that their "answers" to what is really the "Please, God -- is there some kind of modern concert music that good-sized audiences will like, this side of Lowell Leiberman or a string arrangement of Radiohead, 'cause if there isn't, I'm out of a f---ing job here" question are the right answers.

    God, how naively I read the original passage.

  3. Alex Ross, The Rest is Noise

    in Jazz In Print - Periodicals, Books, Newspapers, etc...

    Posted · Edited by Epithet

    [...]

    So what's the answer??

    Nobody seemed to know!

    Not to put too fine a point on it, but Ross is selling us a piece of bullshit here. On the one hand, unless a poll were taken of everyone in who happened to be in that railway carriage and overheard Mahler's question, the only somebodies literally present who could have replied were Alma, and Rosegger, assuming that Mahler's question was sincere. That they didn't have an answer means ... what?? On the other hand, that last sentence really exists to create the expectation that Ross himself has or will eventually come up with the answer. To the degree that he does, it seems to be Thomas Ades, John Adams, and Osvaldo Golijov.

    Hold on. Ross's answer to the question 'Does the poet mean the voice of the people at the present time or over time?' is 'Thomas Ades, John Adams, and Osvaldo Golijov'? Can you give me a semantic bridge to cross here?

    Finally, from p. 197, about S's "invention" of twelve-tone music in 1923: "In that mad year of hyperinflation, Schoenberg offered a kind of stabilization -- the conversion of a chaotic musical marketplace to a planned economy."

    Well, there was that one guy on Amazon whose one-star reviews of Schoenberg (early or late) likened the whole equality-of-the-tones thing to communism.

  4. Alex Ross, The Rest is Noise

    in Jazz In Print - Periodicals, Books, Newspapers, etc...

    Posted

    Another gem: "On the train back to Vienna [after the premiere of Strauss's "Salome"], Mahler expressed bewilderment over his colleague's success. He considered 'Salome' a significant and audacious piece .... and could not understand why the public took an immediate liking to it. Genius and popularity were, he apparently thought, incompatible. Traveling in the same carriage was ... poet and novelist Peter Rosegger. According to Alma [Mahler], when Mahler voiced his reservations, Rosegger replied that the the voice of the people is the voice of God -- Vox populi, vox dei. Mahler asked whether he meant the voice of the people at the present moment or the voice of the people over time. Nobody seemed to know the answer to that question." (My emphasis.)

    So what's the answer??

  6. Scriabin

    in Classical Discussion

    Posted

    My favorite is Michael Rudy, Op. 62 through 74, on Calliope

    Opus 65, but, hell yeah! How did you come upon this?

    I've had this LP since the early 80s. Don't know if it was ever reissued. Your mention of Op. 65 brought me a chuckle. I won $50 in my high school's piano competition for Op. 65 #3. :lol:

    My public library has a 1988 CD issue of it.

    I think that piece was the first Scriabin I tried to learn. I'd cramp like nobody's business at Rudy's tempos; I don't think I fingered the left hand right. Of course, I didn't have that financial incentive.

  13. Why 1/5 of Americans can't locate the U.S. on a world map

    in Miscellaneous - Non-Political

    Posted · Edited by Epithet

    On a related note, has anyone actually gone to or been involved in a beauty contest before? That's a whole different and scary world, right there. I have a story about a girl in college that I was trying to get with who did one of the pre-Miss Michigan contests. Wow. That's a story for another time.

    'Hey, you wanna see my organ?'

    *slap*

    'No, I mean my pipe organ.'

    *slap*

    Not that a B3's a pipe organ or anything.

  20. 26-hours (round-trip) van-ride with co-workers -- CD's to pack??

    in Miscellaneous Music

    Posted · Edited by Epithet

    If you look at Clem's "patronizing"/"enlighten" comment, it refers to the jazz stuff Rooster listed on page 1 (Clem: "mostly common stuff").

    The following quotes say to me at least that he's talking about the rock, not the jazz.

    it's patronizing of you or anyone to think these broads'll like "Blondie" better. Fanny lives!! (As does Donna Summer/Giorgio Moroder.)

    [...] yr taking the chance to "enlighten" (torment) those ladies w/mostly common stuff. that IS verrrry patronizing, even if you don't mean it that way. people can-- & should be-- much nuttier than they "appear," esp. when their tastes aren't being bought by constant mass media exposure. (i wasn't kidding abt that muzak crack.)

    The muzak crack, which is obviously in reply to the rock list:

    you better have a knife or a be a lot bigger than me bc i'd strangle you if i had to put up w/this goddamn noise pollution-- it's not enough we had to hear half that shit as MUZAK already?

    If Rooster really planned, in all seriousness, to "enlighten" these ladies with the Elton John tribute CD, Don Henley's greatest hits, and The Joshua Tree (what Clem calls "muzak"), "patronizing" wouldn't make sense at all. "Borderline insane" would be more like it.

    Guy

    Yeah, well, this is worse than Bible exegesis. Maybe you think giving these ladies the composer of Errol Flynn soundtracks is patronising, which is the alternative meaning. ('He's so dreamy!')

  22. 26-hours (round-trip) van-ride with co-workers -- CD's to pack??

    in Miscellaneous Music

    Posted

    edc just add this: he am NOT & will not criticize anyone for the size of 'dere collection; it's a consumer fetishist trap in almost all cases, mere accumulation... so whether you gots 40, 400 or 4000 pop/rock... my point tho' that you are into Andrew & am i remembering this right, Milhaud? & other stuff--

    think of the cultural/physical steps it took you, by comparison w/other people, to "find" those things. then, in turn, yr taking the chance to "enlighten" (torment) those ladies w/mostly common stuff. that IS verrrry patronizing, even if you don't mean it that way. people can-- & should be-- much nuttier than they "appear," esp. when their tastes aren't being bought by constant mass media exposure. (i wasn't kidding abt that muzak crack.)

    Clem,

    IIRC in a different thread you argued that people do need to be "enlightened" (tormented?) musically. (If I'm wrong on this be sure to correct me.) How do you square this with your criticism of Rooster for doing the same thing?

    Guy

    It's being 'enlightened' with 'musak' that's insulting.

  24. Classical Music Forum Poll

    in Forums Discussion

    Posted

    dude, it's TOTALLY valid bc there's no mass, critical or otherwise, clamoring for blues/r&b/etc etc... almost all of those threads devolve into Catalog of Ships anyway, which is probably why nobody is jonesing for it. as for the "rock" threads here... by & large they're a fucking embarassment: not bc i think the music is any greater/lesser but jokers are arguing w/the slimmest knowledge of the form...

    Clem, from what I've seen of the classical music threads on this forum, they are +90% comparison of different recordings. Actual discussion of the music is more rare. I don't think they're of any higher quality than the popular music threads.

    Guy

    Hey, no need to make this personal.

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