Discussion:
Today's Classical Music News - July 9, 2006
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m***@scena.org
2006-07-09 18:30:42 UTC
Permalink
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Editor's Choice

CD Reviews, (San Francisco Chronicle)
New CD's, (New York Times)
Middle C in the middle of the sea , (Guardian Unlimited)
Photo of Mozart's widow found, (BBC )
Pavarotti recovering from cancer surgery , (Globe And Mail)
Plus More...

2006-07-09

Many variables affect cost of your Miami Performing Arts Center ticket
(Article, Daniel Chang - Miami Herald)
Hong Kong Philharmonic Orchestra plays it cool during heatwave (News,
Independent Online)
Billy Joel Symphonic Fantasies concerto coming to Brott Festival (News,
Matthew Chung - Canada.com)
'Composer' woos children to the concert hall (Article, Jackie Burrell -
San Jose Mercury News)
Outgoing assistant drives Cleveland Orchestra (Review, Elaine Guregian
- Akron Beacon Journal)
Master of the house (Article, Laura Emerick - Chicago Sun-Times)
Greece - the musical (Article, Guardian Unlimited)
Conductor Leonard Slatkin (Article, Los Angeles Times)
CD Reviews (CD Review, Joshua Kosman - San Francisco Chronicle)
New CD's (CD Review, Anthony Tommasini - New York Times)
After an Injury, a Maestro Returns in Fighting Form (Article, Bernard
Holland - New York Times)
Never Mind the Monster, Watch Out for the Set of the Opera 'Grendel'
(Review, Daniel J. Wakin - New York Times)
Hilary Hahn & Natalie Zhu have that wow factor (CD Review, John Terauds
- Toronto Star)

© La Scena Musicale 2000-2006
Matthew B. Tepper
2006-07-09 19:32:58 UTC
Permalink
Post by m***@scena.org
Billy Joel Symphonic Fantasies concerto coming to Brott Festival (News,
Matthew Chung - Canada.com)
Outside of the pop music world, and/or the marketing department of his
record label, IS THERE ANYBODY WHO GIVES A FUCK ABOUT THIS?
Post by m***@scena.org
After an Injury, a Maestro Returns in Fighting Form (Article, Bernard
Holland - New York Times)
"Members of the Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra said their playing improved
dramatically when Wilhelm Furtwängler merely stood in the back of the
rehearsal hall."

Well, ONE member did, anyway.
Post by m***@scena.org
Hilary Hahn & Natalie Zhu have that wow factor (CD Review, John Terauds
- Toronto Star)
So are they being reviewed here because they're fine musician, or merely
because they're purty gurlz?
--
Matthew B. Tepper: WWW, science fiction, classical music, ducks!
My personal home page -- http://home.earthlink.net/~oy/index.html
My main music page --- http://home.earthlink.net/~oy/berlioz.html
To write to me, do for my address what Androcles did for the lion
I ask you to judge me by the enemies I have made. ~ FDR (attrib.)
Steven de Mena
2006-07-09 19:54:46 UTC
Permalink
Post by Matthew B. Tepper
Post by m***@scena.org
Billy Joel Symphonic Fantasies concerto coming to Brott Festival (News,
Matthew Chung - Canada.com)
Outside of the pop music world, and/or the marketing department of his
record label, IS THERE ANYBODY WHO GIVES A FUCK ABOUT THIS?
I don't even think they care. From what I have read this pianist has not
even met Billy Joel personally. The pianist arranged some of the solo piano
pieces and some other person orchestrated it.
Post by Matthew B. Tepper
Post by m***@scena.org
After an Injury, a Maestro Returns in Fighting Form (Article, Bernard
Holland - New York Times)
"Members of the Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra said their playing improved
dramatically when Wilhelm Furtwängler merely stood in the back of the
rehearsal hall."
Well, ONE member did, anyway.
Don't get that one.
Post by Matthew B. Tepper
Post by m***@scena.org
Hilary Hahn & Natalie Zhu have that wow factor (CD Review, John Terauds
- Toronto Star)
So are they being reviewed here because they're fine musician, or merely
because they're purty gurlz?
Pretty? And didn't that CD come out about a year ago?

Steve
a***@aol.com
2006-07-09 20:30:55 UTC
Permalink
Post by Steven de Mena
Post by Matthew B. Tepper
"Members of the Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra said their playing improved
dramatically when Wilhelm Furtwängler merely stood in the back of the
rehearsal hall."
Well, ONE member did, anyway.
Don't get that one.
I believe it was Werner Tharichen, one of Furtwangler's timpanists in
the BPO. He told the story of how they were rehearsing with another
conductor for a forthcoming Salzburg appearance (I think) and he
claimed that when Furtwangler walked into the hall to listen to the
rehearsal the sound of the orchestra changed upon his arrival......

It was certainly attributed to him by Andrew Shivas in The Art of
Tympanist and Drummer (Dennis Dobson, London).

Kind regards,
Alan M. Watkins
Richard S. Sandmeyer
2006-07-09 20:46:22 UTC
Permalink
Post by a***@aol.com
Post by Steven de Mena
Post by Matthew B. Tepper
"Members of the Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra said their playing improved
dramatically when Wilhelm Furtwängler merely stood in the back of the
rehearsal hall."
Well, ONE member did, anyway.
Don't get that one.
I believe it was Werner Tharichen, one of Furtwangler's timpanists in
the BPO. He told the story of how they were rehearsing with another
conductor for a forthcoming Salzburg appearance (I think) and he
claimed that when Furtwangler walked into the hall to listen to the
rehearsal the sound of the orchestra changed upon his arrival......
It was certainly attributed to him by Andrew Shivas in The Art of
Tympanist and Drummer (Dennis Dobson, London).
Kind regards,
Alan M. Watkins
I recall he actually tells this story on one of the "Art of Conducting"
videos (on Teldec DvD).
--
Rich Sandmeyer
rich dot sand at verizon dot net
Peter T. Daniels
2006-07-09 20:38:48 UTC
Permalink
Post by Matthew B. Tepper
Post by m***@scena.org
Billy Joel Symphonic Fantasies concerto coming to Brott Festival (News,
Matthew Chung - Canada.com)
Outside of the pop music world, and/or the marketing department of his
record label, IS THERE ANYBODY WHO GIVES A FUCK ABOUT THIS?
Since you've heard the work, why don't you tell us what you don't like
about it?

Doubtless you wet yourself when you found that Keith Jarrett was
recording Bach and Mozart.
--
Peter T. Daniels ***@att.net
Steven Bornfeld
2006-07-09 22:51:05 UTC
Permalink
Post by Peter T. Daniels
Post by Matthew B. Tepper
Post by m***@scena.org
Billy Joel Symphonic Fantasies concerto coming to Brott Festival (News,
Matthew Chung - Canada.com)
Outside of the pop music world, and/or the marketing department of his
record label, IS THERE ANYBODY WHO GIVES A FUCK ABOUT THIS?
Since you've heard the work, why don't you tell us what you don't like
about it?
Doubtless you wet yourself when you found that Keith Jarrett was
recording Bach and Mozart.
LOL!

I've heard very little about it (haven't heard it myself). What little
I remember hearing about it was something like recycled rehashed
deracinated Rachmaninoff.

Steve
Peter T. Daniels
2006-07-10 01:52:53 UTC
Permalink
Post by Steven Bornfeld
Post by Peter T. Daniels
Post by Matthew B. Tepper
Post by m***@scena.org
Billy Joel Symphonic Fantasies concerto coming to Brott Festival (News,
Matthew Chung - Canada.com)
Outside of the pop music world, and/or the marketing department of his
record label, IS THERE ANYBODY WHO GIVES A FUCK ABOUT THIS?
Since you've heard the work, why don't you tell us what you don't like
about it?
Doubtless you wet yourself when you found that Keith Jarrett was
recording Bach and Mozart.
LOL!
I've heard very little about it (haven't heard it myself). What little
I remember hearing about it was something like recycled rehashed
deracinated Rachmaninoff.
They said his piano pieces bore a similar relation to Chopin.

So what?

Schubert was also primarily a song composer, and he wrote a number of
longer works that are much admired. As well as far too many that are far
too long.
--
Peter T. Daniels ***@att.net
Michael Haslam
2006-07-10 07:24:11 UTC
Permalink
Post by Peter T. Daniels
Schubert was also primarily a song composer, and he wrote a number of
longer works that are much admired. As well as far too many that are far
too long.
How many is far too many? And how long is far too long?
--
MJHaslam
Remove accidentals to obtain correct e-address
"Can't you show a little restraint?" - Dr. David Tholen
Peter T. Daniels
2006-07-10 13:23:09 UTC
Permalink
Post by Michael Haslam
Post by Peter T. Daniels
Schubert was also primarily a song composer, and he wrote a number of
longer works that are much admired. As well as far too many that are far
too long.
How many is far too many? And how long is far too long?
Even one bad work is too many.

Ever sat through, say, the two-piano fantasy?

Schumann's "himmlische Länge" didn't refer to most of those
extravaganzas.
--
Peter T. Daniels ***@att.net
Michael Haslam
2006-07-10 23:28:58 UTC
Permalink
Post by Peter T. Daniels
Post by Michael Haslam
Post by Peter T. Daniels
Schubert was also primarily a song composer, and he wrote a number of
longer works that are much admired. As well as far too many that are far
too long.
How many is far too many? And how long is far too long?
Even one bad work is too many.
Time for a new thread: Which composers have never written a bad piece?
Post by Peter T. Daniels
Ever sat through, say, the two-piano fantasy?
I think it's, as you say in the US, one piano-four hands. I don't think
Schubert wrote any music for two pianos. I could be mistaken.
Post by Peter T. Daniels
Schumann's "himmlische Länge" didn't refer to most of those
extravaganzas.
I don't know this at all.
--
MJHaslam
Remove accidentals to obtain correct e-address
"Can't you show a little restraint?" - Dr. David Tholen
Matthew B. Tepper
2006-07-11 02:45:29 UTC
Permalink
Post by Michael Haslam
Time for a new thread: Which composers have never written a bad piece?
Duparc? ;--)
--
Matthew B. Tepper: WWW, science fiction, classical music, ducks!
My personal home page -- http://home.earthlink.net/~oy/index.html
My main music page --- http://home.earthlink.net/~oy/berlioz.html
To write to me, do for my address what Androcles did for the lion
I ask you to judge me by the enemies I have made. ~ FDR (attrib.)
Michael Haslam
2006-07-11 07:06:45 UTC
Permalink
Post by Matthew B. Tepper
Post by Michael Haslam
Time for a new thread: Which composers have never written a bad piece?
Duparc? ;--)
Yes, he was very self-critical and destroyed everything he wrote except
the (?)13 songs that are published. Duruflé was similarly discerning
over his own music although he "gave up" on one of his compositions
after it was published; he refused to teach or perform the Toccata from
his Suite Op. 5. I can't think of a bad piece by Messiaen although I'm
sure there are people on rmc who would be happy if they never heard
another note by him.

The work of composers from more distant times have sometimes been
whittled down to their best pieces but I can't imagine Tallis or Byrd
writing a bad piece, or Palestrina or Victoria. On the other hand some
of the pieces by lesser composers in eg The Fitzwilliam Virginal Book
are less than great.
--
MJHaslam
Remove accidentals to obtain correct e-address
"Can't you show a little restraint?" - Dr. David Tholen
Andy Evans
2006-07-11 10:53:07 UTC
Permalink
Post by Michael Haslam
Time for a new thread: Which composers have never written a bad piece?
Alternatively which modern composers have never written a
comprehensible piece so nobody even knows.
Michael Haslam
2006-07-11 10:59:08 UTC
Permalink
Post by Andy Evans
Post by Michael Haslam
Time for a new thread: Which composers have never written a bad piece?
Alternatively which modern composers have never written a
comprehensible piece so nobody even knows.
I can't think of one off-hand.
--
MJHaslam
Remove accidentals to obtain correct e-address
"Can't you show a little restraint?" - Dr. David Tholen
Sam
2006-07-11 12:14:01 UTC
Permalink
Post by Michael Haslam
Post by Andy Evans
Post by Michael Haslam
Time for a new thread: Which composers have never written a bad piece?
Alternatively which modern composers have never written a
comprehensible piece so nobody even knows.
I can't think of one off-hand.
I remember this question asked before. When someone suggested
Brahms, a poster brought up the Triumphlied as an example. Since I've
still never heard it, I can't say.
Matthew B. Tepper
2006-07-11 14:39:54 UTC
Permalink
Post by Sam
I remember this question asked before. When someone suggested
Brahms, a poster brought up the Triumphlied as an example. Since I've
still never heard it, I can't say.
I just got an idea for a CD coupling that piece with Beethoven's "Der
glorreiche Augenblick"!
--
Matthew B. Tepper: WWW, science fiction, classical music, ducks!
My personal home page -- http://home.earthlink.net/~oy/index.html
My main music page --- http://home.earthlink.net/~oy/berlioz.html
To write to me, do for my address what Androcles did for the lion
I ask you to judge me by the enemies I have made. ~ FDR (attrib.)
David Gray Porter
2006-07-12 22:33:30 UTC
Permalink
Post by Andy Evans
Post by Michael Haslam
Time for a new thread: Which composers have never written a bad piece?
Alternatively which modern composers have never written a
comprehensible piece so nobody even knows.
Bernstein and the NY Phil tried to play a piece that some Noo Yawk composer
of the pre-1965 serialism school wrote for them -- they couldn't play it --
it was unplayable under those conditions. Crap like 17:10-1/2 off the beat.
He could have written the same piece using Cage-Brown-Feldman notation and
it would have been more honest and the same piece, but these
math-jocks--Boulez comes to mind (Mr. Pierre Boul-shitte) are as anal as any
neoclassicist and nowhere near as fun in the sack. They think their
logarithmic density creates great art but its a great flatulence.

Back then it was the hip thing to have an unplayable score in a big folder
under your arm as you waltzed about the parties in New York City. I'd
rather make funny noises on tape.
Ian Pace
2006-07-12 22:46:47 UTC
Permalink
Post by David Gray Porter
Post by Andy Evans
Post by Michael Haslam
Time for a new thread: Which composers have never written a bad piece?
Alternatively which modern composers have never written a
comprehensible piece so nobody even knows.
Bernstein and the NY Phil tried to play a piece that some Noo Yawk
composer of the pre-1965 serialism school wrote for them -- they couldn't
play it -- it was unplayable under those conditions. Crap like 17:10-1/2
off the beat.
Perfectly playable - many composers have written things like that (and more
complex still) and many performers have realised them successfully.
Post by David Gray Porter
He could have written the same piece using Cage-Brown-Feldman notation and
it would have been more honest and the same piece,
No, it would produce a very different result, rhythms likely to fall into
more familiar patterns.

Ian


but these
Post by David Gray Porter
math-jocks--Boulez comes to mind (Mr. Pierre Boul-shitte) are as anal as
any neoclassicist and nowhere near as fun in the sack. They think their
logarithmic density creates great art but its a great flatulence.
Back then it was the hip thing to have an unplayable score in a big folder
under your arm as you waltzed about the parties in New York City. I'd
rather make funny noises on tape.
David Gray Porter
2006-07-13 16:48:02 UTC
Permalink
Post by Ian Pace
Post by David Gray Porter
Post by Andy Evans
Post by Michael Haslam
Time for a new thread: Which composers have never written a bad piece?
Alternatively which modern composers have never written a
comprehensible piece so nobody even knows.
Bernstein and the NY Phil tried to play a piece that some Noo Yawk
composer of the pre-1965 serialism school wrote for them -- they couldn't
play it -- it was unplayable under those conditions. Crap like
17:10-1/2 off the beat.
Perfectly playable - many composers have written things like that (and
more complex still) and many performers have realised them successfully.
Then you don't know how to play these pieces (by the Americans)

In the Ives Universe piece, he has all these different meters and rhythms
going on, but if you really break it down, he never wanted or expected
thnosder Heavens groups, going in rations of 3-4-5-7 to their main beat, to
be mathematically exact -- he wanted the groups proceeding at that pace, but
the alignment could vary moment to moment. But like in the collapse in the
4th Symphony, he didn't know how to notate it in a way that was known in
1915 except by using barlines that line up.
Post by Ian Pace
Post by David Gray Porter
He could have written the same piece using Cage-Brown-Feldman notation
and it would have been more honest and the same piece,
No, it would produce a very different result, rhythms likely to fall into
more familiar patterns.
Good players know how to avoid that with nuances and independence.
Ian Pace
2006-07-13 20:25:03 UTC
Permalink
Post by David Gray Porter
Post by Ian Pace
Post by David Gray Porter
Post by Andy Evans
Post by Michael Haslam
Time for a new thread: Which composers have never written a bad piece?
Alternatively which modern composers have never written a
comprehensible piece so nobody even knows.
Bernstein and the NY Phil tried to play a piece that some Noo Yawk
composer of the pre-1965 serialism school wrote for them -- they
couldn't play it -- it was unplayable under those conditions. Crap
like 17:10-1/2 off the beat.
Perfectly playable - many composers have written things like that (and
more complex still) and many performers have realised them successfully.
Then you don't know how to play these pieces (by the Americans)
Rather than making generalisations about what 'the Americans' want, perhaps
you could say what the specific piece of the 'pre-1965 serialism school
was'?
Post by David Gray Porter
In the Ives Universe piece, he has all these different meters and rhythms
going on, but if you really break it down, he never wanted or expected
thnosder Heavens groups, going in rations of 3-4-5-7 to their main beat,
to be mathematically exact -- he wanted the groups proceeding at that
pace, but the alignment could vary moment to moment.
Yes, but the sense of metric ratios can still be communicated.
Post by David Gray Porter
But like in the collapse in the 4th Symphony, he didn't know how to notate
it in a way that was known in 1915 except by using barlines that line up.
If he'd notated it differently, I guarantee you what we would hear would be
quite different.
Post by David Gray Porter
Post by Ian Pace
Post by David Gray Porter
He could have written the same piece using Cage-Brown-Feldman notation
and it would have been more honest and the same piece,
No, it would produce a very different result, rhythms likely to fall into
more familiar patterns.
Good players know how to avoid that with nuances and independence.
I have heard an awful lot of performers playing music with time-space
notation, and can guarantee that the results are much more likely to fall
into those more familiar patterns than when complex rhythmic ratios are
notated.

Incidentally, I trust you do know that Cage (in the Music of Changes, for
example) sometimes notated rhythms as precise, numerical and complex as
anyone?

Ian
d***@aol.com
2006-07-13 01:56:46 UTC
Permalink
Post by David Gray Porter
Bernstein and the NY Phil tried to play a piece that some Noo Yawk composer
of the pre-1965 serialism school wrote for them -- they couldn't play it --
it was unplayable under those conditions. Crap like 17:10-1/2 off the beat.
I suspect you're talking about the Wolpe Symphony. The NY Phil's
problem was not the music but the fact that they'd never seen anything
like it before.
Post by David Gray Porter
He could have written the same piece using Cage-Brown-Feldman notation and
it would have been more honest and the same piece, but these
math-jocks--Boulez comes to mind (Mr. Pierre Boul-shitte) are as anal as any
neoclassicist and nowhere near as fun in the sack. They think their
logarithmic density creates great art but its a great flatulence.
You obviously don't know anything about Boulez or Boulez's music or his
relationship to a quickly repudiated "total serialism." But your
defensiveness is showing.

-david gable
David Gray Porter
2006-07-13 16:36:32 UTC
Permalink
Dude, I know more about music and Boulez than you want to hear.
Post by d***@aol.com
Post by David Gray Porter
Bernstein and the NY Phil tried to play a piece that some Noo Yawk composer
of the pre-1965 serialism school wrote for them -- they couldn't play it --
it was unplayable under those conditions. Crap like 17:10-1/2 off the beat.
I suspect you're talking about the Wolpe Symphony. The NY Phil's
problem was not the music but the fact that they'd never seen anything
like it before.
The point is, they couldn't play it and it was chic to have a piece under
your arm that the NYP couldn't play.

Wolpe,,, Isn't that the Marxist guy that Feldfman used to have arguments
with?
And one time Wolpe looks out his wondow ontro the street, and asks Morty
what his music would play like for some guy crossing the street, and the guy
crossing the street (unbeknownst to Wolpe) was Jackson Pollack, who Morty
knew?
Post by d***@aol.com
Post by David Gray Porter
He could have written the same piece using Cage-Brown-Feldman notation and
it would have been more honest and the same piece, but these
math-jocks--Boulez comes to mind (Mr. Pierre Boul-shitte) are as anal as any
neoclassicist and nowhere near as fun in the sack. They think their
logarithmic density creates great art but its a great flatulence.
You obviously don't know anything about Boulez or Boulez's music or his
relationship to a quickly repudiated "total serialism." But your
defensiveness is showing.
-david gable
William Sommerwerck
2006-07-11 12:10:59 UTC
Permalink
This is a meaningless question, unless one can rationally define what "good"
or "bad" is, an impossibility. Composers don't even know -- Strauss disowned
the "Burlesque", but it's a fun piece -- good thing he didn't destroy it.

If I had to pick such a composer, it would be Varese. He published no
"experimental" music -- all his pieces were finished works.
d***@aol.com
2006-07-11 17:19:08 UTC
Permalink
Post by William Sommerwerck
If I had to pick such a composer, it would be Varese. He published no
"experimental" music -- all his pieces were finished works.
But he burned quantities of his early music. We don't know the bad
pieces because he destroyed them. Then again, I don't think the Poème
électronique is any good, although it might have been fun wandering
through the Pavilion listening to it when it was new.

-david gable
Matthew B. Tepper
2006-07-11 19:38:03 UTC
Permalink
"***@aol.com" <***@aol.com> appears to have caused the
following letters to be typed in news:1152638348.109690.301310
Post by d***@aol.com
Post by William Sommerwerck
If I had to pick such a composer, it would be Varese. He published no
"experimental" music -- all his pieces were finished works.
But he burned quantities of his early music. We don't know the bad
pieces because he destroyed them. Then again, I don't think the Poème
électronique is any good, although it might have been fun wandering
through the Pavilion listening to it when it was new.
Then again, it might be a good candidate for SACD release....
--
Matthew B. Tepper: WWW, science fiction, classical music, ducks!
My personal home page -- http://home.earthlink.net/~oy/index.html
My main music page --- http://home.earthlink.net/~oy/berlioz.html
To write to me, do for my address what Androcles did for the lion
I ask you to judge me by the enemies I have made. ~ FDR (attrib.)
d***@aol.com
2006-07-11 21:25:16 UTC
Permalink
Then again, it [Poème électronique] might be a good candidate for SACD release....
[chuckle] Good point!

-david gable
fields
2006-07-12 10:26:17 UTC
Permalink
Post by d***@aol.com
Post by William Sommerwerck
If I had to pick such a composer, it would be Varese. He published no
"experimental" music -- all his pieces were finished works.
But he burned quantities of his early music. We don't know the bad
pieces because he destroyed them. Then again, I don't think the Poème
électronique is any good, although it might have been fun wandering
through the Pavilion listening to it when it was new.
-david gable
I've always found Poeme Electronique brilliant, and I regret that the
original multitrack tape was lost. Of course, I don't hear the
individual sounds as the slightest bit astonishing, but my interest in
it lies not in astonishment but rather its gently romantic phrasing.
--
Matthew H. Fields http://www.matthewfields.net
Music: Splendor in Sound

"And no, if evolution is a net decrease in entropy, then its opposite is
not stasis, but a net increase in entropy." --Peter T. Daniels
David Gray Porter
2006-07-12 22:25:38 UTC
Permalink
Post by d***@aol.com
Then again, I don't think the Poème
électronique is any good, although it might have been fun wandering
through the Pavilion listening to it when it was new.
"Hoooo-gaaahhhhh!"

Handel and a friend were walking around town one day and they heard some
wind music being played. Handel asked the guy what he thought of that
music, and the guy said something like It stinks. Handel said he thought
the same when he wrote it.
William Sommerwerck
2006-07-12 22:59:41 UTC
Permalink
Then again, I don't think the Poème électronique is any
good, although it might have been fun wandering through
the Pavilion listening to it when it was new.
Please attribute correctly. I did not write this.
JohnGavin
2006-07-11 12:21:50 UTC
Permalink
Post by Michael Haslam
Post by Matthew B. Tepper
Post by Michael Haslam
Time for a new thread: Which composers have never written a bad piece?
Duparc? ;--)
Yes, he was very self-critical and destroyed everything he wrote except
the (?)13 songs that are published. Duruflé was similarly discerning
over his own music although he "gave up" on one of his compositions
after it was published; he refused to teach or perform the Toccata from
his Suite Op. 5.
That Toccata is my favorite French organ Toccata by far. Durufle was
much to hard on himself.

Never written a bad piece?
Ravel and Durufle

If they did, they threw it in the garbage can.
Paul Goldstein
2006-07-11 14:22:03 UTC
Permalink
In article <***@35g2000cwc.googlegroups.com>, JohnGavin
says...
Post by JohnGavin
Post by Michael Haslam
Post by Matthew B. Tepper
Post by Michael Haslam
Time for a new thread: Which composers have never written a bad piece?
Duparc? ;--)
Yes, he was very self-critical and destroyed everything he wrote except
the (?)13 songs that are published. Durufl=C3=A9 was similarly discerning
over his own music although he "gave up" on one of his compositions
after it was published; he refused to teach or perform the Toccata from
his Suite Op. 5.
That Toccata is my favorite French organ Toccata by far. Durufle was
much to hard on himself.
Never written a bad piece?
Ravel and Durufle
If they did, they threw it in the garbage can.
I don't hear anything bad in Brahms' oeuvre, either. I don't like all of his
music equally, but he too seems to have withheld any bad things he may have
written along the way.
Peter T. Daniels
2006-07-11 14:31:33 UTC
Permalink
Post by Michael Haslam
Post by Matthew B. Tepper
Post by Michael Haslam
Time for a new thread: Which composers have never written a bad piece?
Duparc? ;--)
Yes, he was very self-critical and destroyed everything he wrote except
the (?)13 songs that are published. Duruflé was similarly discerning
Dukas?
--
Peter T. Daniels ***@att.net
Michael Haslam
2006-07-11 22:03:41 UTC
Permalink
Post by Peter T. Daniels
Dukas?
Perhaps I'm the only person that wouldn't mind never hearing the
Sorcerer's Apprentice ever again. What else did he write?
--
MJHaslam
Remove accidentals to obtain correct e-address
"Can't you show a little restraint?" - Dr. David Tholen
Peter T. Daniels
2006-07-11 22:26:02 UTC
Permalink
Post by Michael Haslam
Post by Peter T. Daniels
Dukas?
Perhaps I'm the only person that wouldn't mind never hearing the
Sorcerer's Apprentice ever again. What else did he write?
Kind of, one of each thing: an opera, a symphony, etc. (Fewer than 10
things in all.) Mostly he was a beloved composition teacher.
--
Peter T. Daniels ***@att.net
Michael Haslam
2006-07-11 23:31:30 UTC
Permalink
Post by Peter T. Daniels
Post by Michael Haslam
Post by Peter T. Daniels
Dukas?
Perhaps I'm the only person that wouldn't mind never hearing the
Sorcerer's Apprentice ever again. What else did he write?
Kind of, one of each thing: an opera, a symphony, etc. (Fewer than 10
things in all.) Mostly he was a beloved composition teacher.
And the man that dissed the Franck D minor symphony on the grounds that
it included a Cor Anglais [US English Horn].
--
MJHaslam
Remove accidentals to obtain correct e-address
"Can't you show a little restraint?" - Dr. David Tholen
Lora Crighton
2006-07-12 00:06:51 UTC
Permalink
Post by Michael Haslam
Post by Peter T. Daniels
Kind of, one of each thing: an opera, a symphony, etc. (Fewer than 10
things in all.) Mostly he was a beloved composition teacher.
And the man that dissed the Franck D minor symphony on the grounds that
it included a Cor Anglais [US English Horn].
What did he have against English Horns?
--
Io la Musica son, ch'ai dolci accenti
So far tranquillo ogni turbato core,
Et or di nobil ira et or d'amore
Poss'infiammar le più gelate menti.
Ken Meltzer
2006-07-12 00:11:04 UTC
Permalink
Post by Lora Crighton
Post by Michael Haslam
Post by Peter T. Daniels
Kind of, one of each thing: an opera, a symphony, etc. (Fewer than 10
things in all.) Mostly he was a beloved composition teacher.
And the man that dissed the Franck D minor symphony on the grounds that
it included a Cor Anglais [US English Horn].
What did he have against English Horns?
He believed that no real symphony (and he mentioned Beethoven and
Haydn) ever included an English horn. He didn't seem to know about
Haydn's No. 22 ("Philosopher") which has two.
Best,
Ken
David Gray Porter
2006-07-12 22:21:59 UTC
Permalink
Post by Ken Meltzer
Post by Lora Crighton
Post by Michael Haslam
Post by Peter T. Daniels
Kind of, one of each thing: an opera, a symphony, etc. (Fewer than 10
things in all.) Mostly he was a beloved composition teacher.
And the man that dissed the Franck D minor symphony on the grounds that
it included a Cor Anglais [US English Horn].
What did he have against English Horns?
He believed that no real symphony (and he mentioned Beethoven and
Haydn) ever included an English horn. He didn't seem to know about
Haydn's No. 22 ("Philosopher") which has two.
Best,
Ken
A "real" symphony! BWAH HA HA!! You can always tell a diletante wqhen he
opens his yap and something like that falls out!

Back in the '70s I met this guy from Europe who kept telling us that
Americans didn't know what "the real hash" was like. Hey, the stuff we had
was good enough! Got you higher than hell!

How about that moron who was going to murder (yes) Rossini for putting a
snare drum in an opera (Gazza Ladra)? Now there's a sap. And the guys who
dissed Nielsen for putting a snare drum in his 4th Sympony? These guys are
all fools, like that moron violinist of the bob-n-weave school of High
Show-offington that I met at a gig who dismissed Ives's sonatas. As Percy
Granger said of them, they care more about their beer [or themselves] than
their music, and they can't count.

Who knows what the fuck a "real" symphony is anyway? As Ives said,
"Symphony = 'with sounds' = my symphony!"

A better question would be, Which composer has gotten a bad piece of ass
sometime? HA HA HA HA!!!!! I'm sure Liszt would make the Top Ten with all
the notches in his staff!
a***@aol.com
2006-07-12 22:55:24 UTC
Permalink
Post by David Gray Porter
Post by Ken Meltzer
Post by Lora Crighton
Post by Michael Haslam
Post by Peter T. Daniels
Kind of, one of each thing: an opera, a symphony, etc. (Fewer than 10
things in all.) Mostly he was a beloved composition teacher.
And the man that dissed the Franck D minor symphony on the grounds that
it included a Cor Anglais [US English Horn].
What did he have against English Horns?
He believed that no real symphony (and he mentioned Beethoven and
Haydn) ever included an English horn. He didn't seem to know about
Haydn's No. 22 ("Philosopher") which has two.
Best,
Ken
A "real" symphony! BWAH HA HA!! You can always tell a diletante wqhen he
opens his yap and something like that falls out!
Back in the '70s I met this guy from Europe who kept telling us that
Americans didn't know what "the real hash" was like. Hey, the stuff we had
was good enough! Got you higher than hell!
How about that moron who was going to murder (yes) Rossini for putting a
snare drum in an opera (Gazza Ladra)? Now there's a sap. And the guys who
dissed Nielsen for putting a snare drum in his 4th Sympony? These guys are
all fools, like that moron violinist of the bob-n-weave school of High
Show-offington that I met at a gig who dismissed Ives's sonatas. As Percy
Granger said of them, they care more about their beer [or themselves] than
their music, and they can't count.
Who knows what the fuck a "real" symphony is anyway? As Ives said,
"Symphony = 'with sounds' = my symphony!"
A better question would be, Which composer has gotten a bad piece of ass
sometime? HA HA HA HA!!!!! I'm sure Liszt would make the Top Ten with all
the notches in his staff!
In La Gazza Ladra Mr Rossini should be murdered (twice probably) for
two snare drums, not one, the part for Player II being slightly harder
than the part for Player I.

No snare drum in Nielsen 4 but two timpanists having a battle in the
finale with upward glissandi a third apart.

I think in Nielsen snare drum you probably mean Symphony No 5 with the
potentially interesting improvisation for same.

Haydn Philosopher was written for two English horns (Cor Anglais)
replaced by flutes in a subsequent edition. Some go back to the
original, some don't. I prefer the original.

It's probably like the difference between Aunt Jemima's Quick Grits and
Aunt Jemima's Old Fashioned Grits. Who knows?

Kind regards,
Alan M. Watkins
David Gray Porter
2006-07-13 16:43:36 UTC
Permalink
Post by a***@aol.com
It's probably like the difference between Aunt Jemima's Quick Grits and
Aunt Jemima's Old Fashioned Grits. Who knows?
NO self-respektin Suthenah uses instant grits.

No self-respecting Northerner will eat grits, period. Kind of like millet.
Matthew B. Tepper
2006-07-13 19:27:19 UTC
Permalink
Post by David Gray Porter
Post by a***@aol.com
It's probably like the difference between Aunt Jemima's Quick Grits and
Aunt Jemima's Old Fashioned Grits. Who knows?
NO self-respektin Suthenah uses instant grits.
No self-respecting Northerner will eat grits, period. Kind of like millet.
I like grits.
--
Matthew B. Tepper: WWW, science fiction, classical music, ducks!
My personal home page -- http://home.earthlink.net/~oy/index.html
My main music page --- http://home.earthlink.net/~oy/berlioz.html
To write to me, do for my address what Androcles did for the lion
I ask you to judge me by the enemies I have made. ~ FDR (attrib.)
unknown
2006-07-13 22:56:38 UTC
Permalink
Post by David Gray Porter
Post by a***@aol.com
It's probably like the difference between Aunt Jemima's Quick Grits and
Aunt Jemima's Old Fashioned Grits. Who knows?
NO self-respektin Suthenah uses instant grits.
No self-respecting Northerner will eat grits, period. Kind of like millet.
All you have to do is call it "polenta" instead of "grits" and a self-
respecting Northerner will happily eat it (yes, I know, there's a
deminimus difference).

wr

Allen
2006-07-13 00:41:55 UTC
Permalink
Post by David Gray Porter
A better question would be, Which composer has gotten a bad piece of ass
sometime? HA HA HA HA!!!!! I'm sure Liszt would make the Top Ten with all
the notches in his staff!
Well, both Schubert and Beethoven for starters, if they truly did
contract syphilis. No solid evidence, though, as far as I know.
Allen
William Sommerwerck
2006-07-13 01:38:25 UTC
Permalink
Post by Allen
Post by David Gray Porter
A better question would be, Which composer has gotten
a bad piece of ass sometime? HA HA HA HA!!!!! I'm sure
Liszt would make the Top Ten with all the notches in his staff!
That would hurt! <grin>
Post by Allen
Well, both Schubert and Beethoven for starters, if they truly did
contract syphilis. No solid evidence, though, as far as I know.
Let's add Harry Partch, who supposedly contracted syphilis while 'boing
during the Depression.
David Gray Porter
2006-07-13 16:38:11 UTC
Permalink
Post by William Sommerwerck
Post by Allen
Post by David Gray Porter
A better question would be, Which composer has gotten
a bad piece of ass sometime? HA HA HA HA!!!!! I'm sure
Liszt would make the Top Ten with all the notches in his staff!
That would hurt! <grin>
Post by Allen
Well, both Schubert and Beethoven for starters, if they truly did
contract syphilis. No solid evidence, though, as far as I know.
Let's add Harry Partch, who supposedly contracted syphilis while 'boing
during the Depression.
Hopefully Harry got treatment for it.
This would be about the time he built that kitarra in a WPA adult ed class,
right? The instrument used in "The Letter," right? I've seen that thing.
It's cool!
David Gray Porter
2006-07-13 16:40:55 UTC
Permalink
Post by David Gray Porter
A better question would be, Which composer has gotten a bad piece of ass
sometime? HA HA HA HA!!!!! I'm sure Liszt would make the Top Ten with
all the notches in his staff!
Well, both Schubert and Beethoven for starters, if they truly did contract
syphilis. No solid evidence, though, as far as I know.
Allen
Nicolas Slonimsky told me (and others) that when someone disinterred Bach's
skull for a photo (and I've seen that one) they also disinterred Beethoven,
but LvB's skull had collapsed due to the results of syphillis.
Peter T. Daniels
2006-07-12 04:06:23 UTC
Permalink
Post by Michael Haslam
Post by Peter T. Daniels
Post by Michael Haslam
Post by Peter T. Daniels
Dukas?
Perhaps I'm the only person that wouldn't mind never hearing the
Sorcerer's Apprentice ever again. What else did he write?
Kind of, one of each thing: an opera, a symphony, etc. (Fewer than 10
things in all.) Mostly he was a beloved composition teacher.
And the man that dissed the Franck D minor symphony on the grounds that
it included a Cor Anglais [US English Horn].
Surely it was a French English horn, and not an American one?

There's a lot more to dislike about the Franck symphony than its
orchestration.

(I mentioned to you privately last week that the Grande Pièce
Symphonique put me to sleep at the organ recital, as it always does.)
--
Peter T. Daniels ***@att.net
Michael Haslam
2006-07-12 08:05:08 UTC
Permalink
Post by Peter T. Daniels
Post by Michael Haslam
Post by Peter T. Daniels
Dukas?
And the man that dissed the Franck D minor symphony on the grounds that
it included a Cor Anglais [US English Horn].
Surely it was a French English horn, and not an American one?
All English Horns are American, or German at a pinch.
Post by Peter T. Daniels
There's a lot more to dislike about the Franck symphony than its
orchestration.
(I mentioned to you privately last week that the Grande Pièce
Symphonique put me to sleep at the organ recital, as it always does.)
Do you know the wonderful parody of the CF symphony by Peter Warlock? It
is published for Piano Duet (sic) as the second of two Cod Pieces (!)
although the intention was for a set of four pieces scored for small
band IIRC.

There is something special about the three organ Chorales and the Franck
Sonata (or the Frank Sinatra as it is known by performers) is
marvellous, even though it requires an improbable stretch from the hands
of the pianist.
--
MJHaslam
Remove accidentals to obtain correct e-address
"Can't you show a little restraint?" - Dr. David Tholen
Peter T. Daniels
2006-07-12 13:48:09 UTC
Permalink
Post by Michael Haslam
Post by Peter T. Daniels
Post by Michael Haslam
Post by Peter T. Daniels
Dukas?
And the man that dissed the Franck D minor symphony on the grounds that
it included a Cor Anglais [US English Horn].
Surely it was a French English horn, and not an American one?
All English Horns are American, or German at a pinch.
Post by Peter T. Daniels
There's a lot more to dislike about the Franck symphony than its
orchestration.
(I mentioned to you privately last week that the Grande Pièce
Symphonique put me to sleep at the organ recital, as it always does.)
Do you know the wonderful parody of the CF symphony by Peter Warlock? It
is published for Piano Duet (sic) as the second of two Cod Pieces (!)
although the intention was for a set of four pieces scored for small
band IIRC.
But suicide intervened?
Post by Michael Haslam
There is something special about the three organ Chorales and the Franck
Sonata (or the Frank Sinatra as it is known by performers) is
marvellous, even though it requires an improbable stretch from the hands
of the pianist.
So play it on a smaller instrument ... Malcolm Bilson said he couldn't
readily switch between fortepiano and piano because of the different
keyboard sizes.
--
Peter T. Daniels ***@att.net
a***@aol.com
2006-07-12 23:42:08 UTC
Permalink
Post by Peter T. Daniels
Post by Michael Haslam
Post by Peter T. Daniels
Post by Michael Haslam
Post by Peter T. Daniels
Dukas?
Perhaps I'm the only person that wouldn't mind never hearing the
Sorcerer's Apprentice ever again. What else did he write?
Kind of, one of each thing: an opera, a symphony, etc. (Fewer than 10
things in all.) Mostly he was a beloved composition teacher.
And the man that dissed the Franck D minor symphony on the grounds that
it included a Cor Anglais [US English Horn].
Surely it was a French English horn, and not an American one?
There's a lot more to dislike about the Franck symphony than its
orchestration.
(I mentioned to you privately last week that the Grande Pièce
Symphonique put me to sleep at the organ recital, as it always does.)
--
Peter T. Daniels
The symphony is a nice piece to play if not to listen to.

Another nice piece to play but possibly not to listen to is The
Accursed Huntsman, somewhat more difficult than his Symphony.

A piece beloved of Mr Smetacek and Jean Fournet.

Kind regards,
Alan M. Watkins
William Sommerwerck
2006-07-13 01:37:02 UTC
Permalink
Post by a***@aol.com
Another nice piece to play but possibly not to listen to is The
Accursed Huntsman, somewhat more difficult than his Symphony.
But it has a great title -- The Ill-Spoken Chaser.

I happen to like this piece.
David Gray Porter
2006-07-13 16:39:15 UTC
Permalink
Post by William Sommerwerck
But it has a great title -- The Ill-Spoken Chaser.
Diet Pepsi with Johnny Walker Red.
d***@aol.com
2006-07-12 00:21:10 UTC
Permalink
[Dukas wrote] Kind of, one of each thing: an opera, a symphony, etc. (Fewer than 10
things in all.) Mostly he was a beloved composition teacher.
It's an interesting experience to listen to Dukas's opera Ariane et
Barbe-Bleue only to discover the music Messiaen's is rooted in.

-david gable
William Sommerwerck
2006-07-12 00:54:27 UTC
Permalink
Actually, the question should be "Which composers have had the good sense to
suppress their bad pieces before anyone else heard them?".
Peter T. Daniels
2006-07-12 04:07:32 UTC
Permalink
Post by d***@aol.com
[Dukas wrote] Kind of, one of each thing: an opera, a symphony, etc. (Fewer than 10
things in all.) Mostly he was a beloved composition teacher.
It's an interesting experience to listen to Dukas's opera Ariane et
Barbe-Bleue only to discover the music Messiaen's is rooted in.
Was Messiaen old enough to have known Dukas?
--
Peter T. Daniels ***@att.net
Michael Haslam
2006-07-12 08:09:18 UTC
Permalink
Post by Peter T. Daniels
Post by d***@aol.com
[Dukas wrote] Kind of, one of each thing: an opera, a symphony, etc.
(Fewer than 10 things in all.) Mostly he was a beloved composition
teacher.
It's an interesting experience to listen to Dukas's opera Ariane et
Barbe-Bleue only to discover the music Messiaen's is rooted in.
Was Messiaen old enough to have known Dukas?
Dukas:
Born October 1, 1865 in Paris, France
Died May 17, 1935 in Paris, France

Messiaen:
1908–92

so, yes. More specifically, Messiaen studied with Dukas at the Paris
Conservatory.
--
MJHaslam
Remove accidentals to obtain correct e-address
"Can't you show a little restraint?" - Dr. David Tholen
Peter T. Daniels
2006-07-12 13:49:10 UTC
Permalink
Post by Michael Haslam
Post by Peter T. Daniels
Post by d***@aol.com
[Dukas wrote] Kind of, one of each thing: an opera, a symphony, etc.
(Fewer than 10 things in all.) Mostly he was a beloved composition
teacher.
It's an interesting experience to listen to Dukas's opera Ariane et
Barbe-Bleue only to discover the music Messiaen's is rooted in.
Was Messiaen old enough to have known Dukas?
Born October 1, 1865 in Paris, France
Died May 17, 1935 in Paris, France
1908â*“92
so, yes. More specifically, Messiaen studied with Dukas at the Paris
Conservatory.
Then we should expect that his work shows his teacher's influence ...
--
Peter T. Daniels ***@att.net
Matthew B. Tepper
2006-07-12 14:47:05 UTC
Permalink
***@macflat.com (Michael Haslam) appears to have caused the
following letters to be typed in news:1hicumc.1elfep1rch9w7N%
Post by Michael Haslam
Post by Peter T. Daniels
Post by d***@aol.com
[Dukas wrote] Kind of, one of each thing: an opera, a symphony, etc.
(Fewer than 10 things in all.) Mostly he was a beloved composition
teacher.
It's an interesting experience to listen to Dukas's opera Ariane et
Barbe-Bleue only to discover the music Messiaen's is rooted in.
Was Messiaen old enough to have known Dukas?
Born October 1, 1865 in Paris, France
Died May 17, 1935 in Paris, France
1908–92
so, yes. More specifically, Messiaen studied with Dukas at the Paris
Conservatory.
Any idea if Darius Milhaud ever met Camille Saint-Saëns? Their lives
overlapped sufficiently, but S-S was travelling for most of his later
years. I imagine they both knew some of the same people, for example
Gabriel Fauré.
--
Matthew B. Tepper: WWW, science fiction, classical music, ducks!
My personal home page -- http://home.earthlink.net/~oy/index.html
My main music page --- http://home.earthlink.net/~oy/berlioz.html
To write to me, do for my address what Androcles did for the lion
I ask you to judge me by the enemies I have made. ~ FDR (attrib.)
Paul Goldstein
2006-07-12 15:19:30 UTC
Permalink
In article <***@207.217.125.201>, Matthew B. Tepper
says...
Post by Matthew B. Tepper
Any idea if Darius Milhaud ever met Camille Saint-Saëns? Their lives
overlapped sufficiently, but S-S was travelling for most of his later
years. I imagine they both knew some of the same people, for example
Gabriel Fauré.
I don't know the answer to your question, but one could say of Milhaud what
Saint-Saens said of himself: the he produced music the way an apple tree
produces apples.
Matthew B. Tepper
2006-07-12 15:58:54 UTC
Permalink
Tepper says...
Post by Matthew B. Tepper
Any idea if Darius Milhaud ever met Camille Saint-Saëns? Their lives
overlapped sufficiently, but S-S was travelling for most of his later
years. I imagine they both knew some of the same people, for example
Gabriel Fauré.
I don't know the answer to your question, but one could say of Milhaud
what Saint-Saens said of himself: the he produced music the way an
apple tree produces apples.
I can think of several composers of whom I might say that, only more
unkindly, and with a specific mention of fertilizer.
--
Matthew B. Tepper: WWW, science fiction, classical music, ducks!
My personal home page -- http://home.earthlink.net/~oy/index.html
My main music page --- http://home.earthlink.net/~oy/berlioz.html
To write to me, do for my address what Androcles did for the lion
I ask you to judge me by the enemies I have made. ~ FDR (attrib.)
Matthew B. Tepper
2006-07-12 03:06:45 UTC
Permalink
Post by Michael Haslam
Post by Peter T. Daniels
Dukas?
Perhaps I'm the only person that wouldn't mind never hearing the
Sorcerer's Apprentice ever again. What else did he write?
Some piano music, all of which (I think) has been collected onto a Simax CD
as played by a Norwegian named Tor Espen Aspaas. I haven't heard it yet, but
I used to possess an Orion LP (d'ye remember Orion?) with Dukas' "Variations,
Interlude and Finale on a theme by Rameau" played by Vladimir Pleshakov, and
I positively adored that piece. I lacked any recording of it on CD (should
have bought the Margaret Fingerhut on Chandos, oh well), so I picked up the
Aspaas recently and hope to give it a spin soon.
--
Matthew B. Tepper: WWW, science fiction, classical music, ducks!
My personal home page -- http://home.earthlink.net/~oy/index.html
My main music page --- http://home.earthlink.net/~oy/berlioz.html
To write to me, do for my address what Androcles did for the lion
I ask you to judge me by the enemies I have made. ~ FDR (attrib.)
Jon E. Szostak, Sr.
2006-07-12 03:25:42 UTC
Permalink
I find his 'La Péri' ballet quite enjoyable.

Jon E. Szostak, Sr.
Post by Michael Haslam
Post by Peter T. Daniels
Dukas?
Perhaps I'm the only person that wouldn't mind never hearing the
Sorcerer's Apprentice ever again. What else did he write?
--
MJHaslam
Remove accidentals to obtain correct e-address
"Can't you show a little restraint?" - Dr. David Tholen
Matthew B. Tepper
2006-07-12 04:36:39 UTC
Permalink
Post by Jon E. Szostak, Sr.
I find his 'La Péri' ballet quite enjoyable.
That fanfare is the best part.
--
Matthew B. Tepper: WWW, science fiction, classical music, ducks!
My personal home page -- http://home.earthlink.net/~oy/index.html
My main music page --- http://home.earthlink.net/~oy/berlioz.html
To write to me, do for my address what Androcles did for the lion
I ask you to judge me by the enemies I have made. ~ FDR (attrib.)
Steven de Mena
2006-07-12 04:52:05 UTC
Permalink
Post by Matthew B. Tepper
Post by Jon E. Szostak, Sr.
I find his 'La Péri' ballet quite enjoyable.
That fanfare is the best part.
You mean there is more to it??

Steve
a***@aol.com
2006-07-12 00:50:07 UTC
Permalink
Post by Matthew B. Tepper
Post by Michael Haslam
Time for a new thread: Which composers have never written a bad piece?
Duparc? ;--)
--
Matthew B. Tepper: WWW, science fiction, classical music, ducks!
Unanswerable question I would have thought but personally I have yet to
hear a "bad piece" by John Sheppard (c1515-1559) and some of his
harmonics are as extraordinary as any I have encountered. Not to
mention dissonance, often attributed in the period to Thomas Tallis but
Mr Sheppard had something to say on this subject, too.

Sticking with predominantly choral composers, I cannot think of a "bad
piece" by the late Mr Sviridov (1915-1998) either.

It is late and I am off to bed trying to think of a "bad piece" by
Benjamin Britten......

Kind regards,
Alan M. Watkins
Peter T. Daniels
2006-07-12 04:09:12 UTC
Permalink
Post by a***@aol.com
Post by Matthew B. Tepper
Post by Michael Haslam
Time for a new thread: Which composers have never written a bad piece?
Duparc? ;--)
--
Matthew B. Tepper: WWW, science fiction, classical music, ducks!
Unanswerable question I would have thought but personally I have yet to
hear a "bad piece" by John Sheppard (c1515-1559) and some of his
harmonics are as extraordinary as any I have encountered. Not to
mention dissonance, often attributed in the period to Thomas Tallis but
Mr Sheppard had something to say on this subject, too.
Sticking with predominantly choral composers, I cannot think of a "bad
piece" by the late Mr Sviridov (1915-1998) either.
It is late and I am off to bed trying to think of a "bad piece" by
Benjamin Britten......
Curiously, his couple of piano solos aren't top-drawer; and a few of the
occasional anthems are sometimes singled out for disdain. I don't love
Owen Wingrave or Phaedra, either.
--
Peter T. Daniels ***@att.net
Michael Haslam
2006-07-12 08:18:01 UTC
Permalink
Post by a***@aol.com
Unanswerable question I would have thought but personally I have yet to
hear a "bad piece" by John Sheppard (c1515-1559) and some of his
harmonics are as extraordinary as any I have encountered. Not to
mention dissonance, often attributed in the period to Thomas Tallis but
Mr Sheppard had something to say on this subject, too.
Absolutely agree about Shepherd's music. From a slightly earlier period
you should check out some of the Eton Choir Book for juicy dissonance;
try Browne's Stabat Iuxta Christi Crucis (hope that title's right).
Post by a***@aol.com
Sticking with predominantly choral composers, I cannot think of a "bad
piece" by the late Mr Sviridov (1915-1998) either.
It is late and I am off to bed trying to think of a "bad piece" by
Benjamin Britten......
Just *thinking* of his Psalm 150 brings me out in a rash. His setting of
the (UK) National Anthem must count as a miss, too.
--
MJHaslam
Remove accidentals to obtain correct e-address
"Can't you show a little restraint?" - Dr. David Tholen
Ortrud Jones
2006-07-12 04:56:48 UTC
Permalink
WOLFGANG AMADEUS MOZART

I would have said Beethoven, but his Wellington's Victory is two bits
shy of the horrendously cheesy and embarassing Tchaikovsky 1812
Overture...

-Ortrud Jones
Post by Michael Haslam
Time for a new thread: Which composers have never written a bad piece?
.
Eric Grunin
2006-07-12 05:23:17 UTC
Permalink
Post by Michael Haslam
Time for a new thread: Which composers have never written a bad piece?
Bach, of course. Monteverdi maybe.

[This question may be more interesting than it looks. Before the 18th
Century, there wasn't much point in publishing something if it wasn't
pretty good.]

Lots of modern composers come to mind, which makes me wonder if my
criteria for 'bad' aren't too narrow.

I can't think of anything 'bad', in the sense of empty and boring, in
Ruggles, Varese, Feldman, Boulez, or Dallapicolla.

[Of course, many would consider them all bad, all the time, but this is
true of every composer.]

There are a couple of pieces each by Stravinsky and Webern that I can't
sit through. Berg has 'Der Wein', Bartok has 'Kossouth', Babbitt has
'All Set'. With Messiaen there's either lots that's bad or none,
depending on your taste.

I'll have to think about this some more.

Regards,
Eric Grunin
www.grunin.com/eroica
Ortrud Jones
2006-07-12 05:30:03 UTC
Permalink
Argh, how could I have forgotten?? In addition to Mozart, Bach!!!

-Ortrud Jones
Post by Eric Grunin
Bach, of course. Monteverdi maybe.
.
d***@aol.com
2006-07-12 05:50:18 UTC
Permalink
Post by Eric Grunin
I can't think of anything 'bad', in the sense of empty and boring, in
Ruggles, Varese, Feldman, Boulez, or Dallapiccola.
Now I get to pick on Boulez. I must say I find Polyphonie X and
Structures 1 entirely devoid of the least interest. I'm certain I
wouldn't have any use for those two early essays in musique concrète
if I'd ever heard them either. (Some obscure label has actually issued
them on CD: they're the only Boulez pieces available on CD that I've
made no effort to acquire.) I also think Messagesquisse is so simple
minded I could almost have written it myself. At least it's music,
which is more than can be said of PX and S1.
Post by Eric Grunin
There are a couple of pieces each by Stravinsky and Webern that I can't
sit through.
I don't think everything Stravinsky wrote is of equal interest, but
from fairly early on his craftsmanship was so good, I don't think
there's anything I honestly can't sit through. I can live without . .
. oops! Better not say. Heck, I even love Perséphone (so you can't
fill the blank with it, although you can with other
ultra-that-kind-of-French music). I can also live without those two
things for two pianos.
Post by Eric Grunin
Berg has 'Der Wein',
Oh, I love Der Wein. I think it's on the level of the Violin Concerto.
But you gotta hear the Beardslee/Craft recording. Jessye Norman and
Boulez are not nearly sultry enough. (Berg was at his very greatest
earlier than Der Wein or the VC.)
Post by Eric Grunin
Bartok has 'Kossuth',
Yeah, but it's juvenilia. Besides, I once got paid to write a CSO
program note for the damned thing. At the risk of alienating Matthew
Tepper, the piece of juvenilia I most detest is Charles Ives'
Variations on America. Then again, I've never heard Siegfrieds
Schwert. (Eric Grunin, Matthew Tepper, and Larry Rinkel will know who
wrote that. I wonder who else will.)
Post by Eric Grunin
Babbitt has
'All Set'.
Hey. That's the only fun thing he ever wrote!
Post by Eric Grunin
With Messiaen there's either lots that's bad or none,
depending on your taste.
Lots. The Turangalila Symphony is hysterical in its unbridled
awfulness (although I hope one good friend of mine doesn't see this
post). "Little more can be needed to write such things than a large
supply of ink." -Stravinsky

-david gable
Ian Pace
2006-07-12 09:14:28 UTC
Permalink
Post by Eric Grunin
With Messiaen there's either lots that's bad or none,
depending on your taste.
DG: Lots. The Turangalila Symphony is hysterical in its unbridled
awfulness (although I hope one good friend of mine doesn't see this
post). "Little more can be needed to write such things than a large
supply of ink." -Stravinsky

I have problems with but still like the Turangalila Symphony. But if you
want really really bad Messiaen try the Rondeau or the Fantasie Burlesque
for piano (especially the latter). The Theme and Variations for violin and
piano isn't too great, either - has one variation that always makes me think
of Messiaen in the Wild West (and not in the sense that he does later in his
masterpiece Des Canyons aux Etoiles).

Ian
Allen
2006-07-12 13:53:20 UTC
Permalink
***@aol.com wrote:
<snip>
Post by d***@aol.com
Yeah, but it's juvenilia. Besides, I once got paid to write a CSO
program note for the damned thing. At the risk of alienating Matthew
Tepper, the piece of juvenilia I most detest is Charles Ives'
Variations on America. Then again, I've never heard Siegfrieds
Schwert. (Eric Grunin, Matthew Tepper, and Larry Rinkel will know who
wrote that. I wonder who else will.)
The Variations is one of my favorites--on the organ, that is, not the
orchestral rearrangement. To each his own.
Allen
Christopher Culver
2006-07-13 02:16:53 UTC
Permalink
Post by d***@aol.com
Now I get to pick on Boulez. I must say I find Polyphonie X and
Structures 1 entirely devoid of the least interest. I'm certain I
wouldn't have any use for those two early essays in musique concrète
if I'd ever heard them either.
Structures Book 1 isn't musique concrete, it's total
serialization. And I for one find the result quite thrilling.

For me, Boulez wrote some immensely dull pieces after the second piano
sonata and before "Eclats" (Structures is the one exception). "Pli
selon pli" and "Le marteau" are just awkward. What he's wrote since
"Eclats", however, is magisterial. I think I'm going to put "Incises"
on again.
Post by d***@aol.com
(Some obscure label has actually issued
them on CD: they're the only Boulez pieces available on CD that I've
made no effort to acquire.)
Col legno is hardly an obscure label. I imagine most fans of
modern-classical music have at least a couple of discs from it.
Post by d***@aol.com
I also think Messagesquisse is so simple minded I could almost have
written it myself. At least it's music, which is more than can be
said of PX and S1.
Griffiths reports that Boulez considered expanded Messagesquisse into
a huge concerto for orchestra. What a pity that that never came to
pass, but what we got instead (Repons) was just fine.
Post by d***@aol.com
Lots. The Turangalila Symphony is hysterical in its unbridled
awfulness
Whenever I hear the "Joie du sang des etoiles" movement, I understand
perfectly why Boulez called it "brothel music".
--
Posted via a free Usenet account from http://www.teranews.com
d***@aol.com
2006-07-13 03:47:55 UTC
Permalink
Post by Christopher Culver
Structures Book 1 isn't musique concrete, it's total
serialization. And I for one find the result quite thrilling.
Christopher, I know perfectly well what the first book of Structures
is. (Among other things, it's a piece Boulez does nothing to encourage
the performances of and hasn't for decades.) Unfortunately, I have no
use for musique concrete or total serialism.
Post by Christopher Culver
For me, Boulez wrote some immensely dull pieces after the second piano
sonata and before "Eclats" (Structures is the one exception).
Are you sure you don't mean the second book of Structures? That's a
different kettle of fish.
Post by Christopher Culver
"Pli selon pli" and "Le marteau" are just awkward.
Pli selon pli is the greatest thing he's ever done. I sincerely hope
you make some headway with it one of these days.
Post by Christopher Culver
Col legno is hardly an obscure label. I imagine most fans of
modern-classical music have at least a couple of discs from it.
No doubt. Which is why I hate cross posting. This thread is being
posted in three groups. My post was aimed at rmcr, not the other two.
I guarantee you there are countless denizens of rmcr who do not own and
have not heard of the Col legno label. It IS an obscure label, a tiny
label with a niche market of which I'm an enthusiastic part. But were
those two musique concrete etudes actually released on Col legno?
That's not where I saw them listed.

-david gable
Christopher Culver
2006-07-13 03:53:54 UTC
Permalink
But were those two musique concrete etudes actually released on Col
legno? That's not where I saw them listed.
I was a bit off. Only "Polyphonie X" was released on the Col legno
disc I was thinking of. See http://tinyurl.com/gcde2
--
Posted via a free Usenet account from http://www.teranews.com
d***@aol.com
2006-07-13 05:07:53 UTC
Permalink
Post by Christopher Culver
I was a bit off. Only "Polyphonie X" was released on the Col legno
disc I was thinking of. See http://tinyurl.com/gcde2
I've got that disc. Originally they were supposed to issue a complete
recording of an early performance of Pli selon pli (the premiere?), but
Boulez asked them not to because his DG recording was in the works. At
least we get that early short version of Tombeau. (I saw those two
musique concrete etudes listed on some very small label that seemed to
release only recordings of musique concrete or only recordings of
electronic music. Can't remember the name.)

-david gable
g***@hotmail.com
2006-07-13 05:40:08 UTC
Permalink
Post by Christopher Culver
But were those two musique concrete etudes actually released on Col
legno? That's not where I saw them listed.
I was a bit off. Only "Polyphonie X" was released on the Col legno
disc I was thinking of. See http://tinyurl.com/gcde2
You and David are talking about different things.

There are two early tape pieces which I have never heard (neither had
David). That's what he meant by musique concrete, the obscure label
isn't Col Legno.

I like Structures I also, as it happens. I heard it on a Mace LP, if
memory serves.

Regards,
Eric Grunin
www.grunin.com/eroica
d***@aol.com
2006-07-13 07:37:03 UTC
Permalink
Post by g***@hotmail.com
I like Structures I also, as it happens. I heard it on a Mace LP, if
memory serves.
Yes you did. It was licensed by Mace (and published on horrible LP's
that resembled sandpaper in texture) from the Wergo recording of both
books recorded by the Kontarsky's in the 60's, a recording that Wergo
has also reissued on CD.

-david gable
g***@hotmail.com
2006-07-13 06:15:25 UTC
Permalink
Post by d***@aol.com
Now I get to pick on Boulez. I must say I find Polyphonie X and
Structures 1 entirely devoid of the least interest.
If he withdrew them (which I think he did), doesn't that clean the
slate?
Post by d***@aol.com
Post by Eric Grunin
There are a couple of pieces each by Stravinsky and Webern that I can't
sit through.
I don't think everything Stravinsky wrote is of equal interest, but
from fairly early on his craftsmanship was so good, I don't think
there's anything I honestly can't sit through.
Some of the middle-period choral works literally put me to sleep. (I
like Persephone, too.)
Post by d***@aol.com
Post by Eric Grunin
Berg has 'Der Wein',
Oh, I love Der Wein. I think it's on the level of the Violin Concerto.
But you gotta hear the Beardslee/Craft recording. Jessye Norman and
Boulez are not nearly sultry enough. (Berg was at his very greatest
earlier than Der Wein or the VC.)
Okay, I'll give it another go. (It's been decades.)
Post by d***@aol.com
Post by Eric Grunin
Bartok has 'Kossuth',
Yeah, but it's juvenilia.
So are those Boulez pieces, no?
Post by d***@aol.com
Then again, I've never heard Siegfrieds
Schwert.
Me neither. Actually Feldman's juvenalia have surfaced lately, and
they're pretty bad; but that's true of just about everyone besides
Mozart and Mendelssohn.
Post by d***@aol.com
Post by Eric Grunin
Babbitt has
'All Set'.
Hey. That's the only fun thing he ever wrote!
Cringeworthy. Equal in taste to Tippet's libretti.
Post by d***@aol.com
Post by Eric Grunin
With Messiaen there's either lots that's bad or none,
depending on your taste.
Lots. The Turangalila Symphony is hysterical in its unbridled
awfulness (although I hope one good friend of mine doesn't see this
post). "Little more can be needed to write such things than a large
supply of ink." -Stravinsky
Yes, that's just what I meant. It's either brothel-music or it isn't;
for me it isn't.


Regards,
Eric Grunin
www.grunin.com/eroica
d***@aol.com
2006-07-13 08:26:37 UTC
Permalink
Post by g***@hotmail.com
Some of the middle-period choral works literally put me to sleep. (I
like Persephone, too.)
I'm trying to think what there is besides the Mass and Symphony of
Psalms. (The pieces I wouldn't confess to finding slender yesterday
are Apollo and Orpheus.)
Post by g***@hotmail.com
So are those Boulez pieces [juvenilia], no?
Actually, they aren't. That would be excusable. (A few bars of music
Boulez wrote in his teens have been reproduced in Pierre Boulez: A
Symposium [ed. William Glock]).

The odd thing about Boulez is that he had already written not only the
Sonatine and first two piano sonatas but the first two versions of
Soleil des eaux and Visage nuptial when he started up with total
serialism. E-mail me and I will send you the 1957 world premiere of
the 1951 Visage nuptial. (You owe it to yourself to get your hands on
this.) You will NOT believe the kid wrote this thing, this big
explosive and colorful French expressionist/impressionist piece, by age
26. And it's right AFTER that that he decides he's got to get to the
bottom of "total serialism," has to see if you can create a musical
language from scratch. Polyphonie X and Structures 1 are the two
"totally serial" pieces he wrote. The disillusionment came quicker
than even I realized until part of the correspondence with Stockhausen
from the mid-50's was quoted in a volume of essays on Pli selon pli
recently published in Switzerland. Boulez is complaining about the
late entirely rectilinear Mondrian's, dismissing them as a dead end and
a disappointing let-down after "the marvelous period of the trees."
He's trashing Nono's Canto sospeso, which is a hell of a lot better
piece than either of Boulez's experiments in total serialism. "Is THAT
the sort of thing I want to do?" No, it isn't. Totally serial scores
are "timetables for trains that never depart." Years later he put his
finger on the paradoxical problem: "With total serialism you couldn't
control anything." By the time of Penser la musique au'jourd'hui, he's
excoriating both chance music and total serialism . . . or, as Charles
Rosen put it, anything that took musical control away from the
composer. During the same period there's a quiet shift in allegiance
made without fanfare from one set of grandparents, the serial Webern
and the Messiaen with the ideas about serializing rhythm, to the other
set of grandparents, Debussy and Berg. (Stockhausen makes a similar
shift . . . from points to groups, and he writes a big essay on Jeux
while writing Gruppen.)

Meanwhile, Boulez hadn't gotten to the bottom of musique concrete and
wasted something like a year of his life in 1957 or 1958 cutting and
splicing recording tape to create this horrible abortion, about 45
minutes of the sound of paint drying amplified, the concrete parts of
Poesie pour pouvoir. (The six minutes of music for orchestra are
terrific little Webern Op. 6-size fragments approximately in the style
of Pli selon pli.) It's only at the premiere (1958) that it hit Boulez
what a disaster the tape part of the piece was. After the performance
he hastily removed the orchestral parts from the music stands himself
and never wasted a second on musique concrete again. Damned right he
withdrew Polyphonie X and Poesie pour pouvoir.
Post by g***@hotmail.com
Equal in taste to Tippett's libretti.
I'm even moderately sympathetic to the Midsummer Marriage libretto. I
can hear the sun drenching the midsummer music and therefore I accept
the basic outlines of the plot. Boy meets girl, has to prove himself a
la Tamino, marries girl. Papageno-Papagena-like second couple do the
same. It's only some of the text that's embarrassing, not the broad
outlines of the story.

-david gable
Ian Pace
2006-07-13 08:42:16 UTC
Permalink
Post by d***@aol.com
I'm even moderately sympathetic to the Midsummer Marriage libretto. I
can hear the sun drenching the midsummer music and therefore I accept
the basic outlines of the plot. Boy meets girl, has to prove himself a
la Tamino, marries girl. Papageno-Papagena-like second couple do the
same. It's only some of the text that's embarrassing, not the broad
outlines of the story.
The quality of the text itself is a pretty large part of what makes a
libretto good or bad, don't you think? After all, many people could create a
libretto out of a fine and already-existing story, but the result could be
terrible if they had no feel for sung dialogue or dramatic pacing (in the
way that is unique to opera, quite different to that on stage)?

Ian
d***@aol.com
2006-07-13 18:43:34 UTC
Permalink
Post by Ian Pace
The quality of the text itself is a pretty large part of what makes a
libretto good or bad, don't you think?
Not necessarily. A libretto has two distinct aspects: what might be
crudely described as the story or the plot and the verse itself. The
verse is much less important in an opera than in a verse drama, and
many a great opera composer has set wretched doggerel to powerfully
expressive effect. Not even the finest texts of Da Ponte, Wagner, or
Boito could stand on their own as literature. Then again, they were
never intended to.

In a verse drama, the drama is articulated by the verse as verse.
Hamlet stands or falls on how well Shakespeare's verse articulates the
dramatic conception. In an opera the principal role of verse is to
convey necessary information, music largely (if never entirely)
usurping the role played by verse in a verse drama. (Boulez has
commented on Wagner's gifts as a composer, as the author of a dramatic
conception, and as a versifier, separating out these three aspects of
his role as an opera composer. Boulez is much more impressed by the
conception of Tristan, which is indeed Wagner's and not merely the
reproduction of an old legend, than by Wagner's actual verse.)

In the late 19th century, there was an increased interest in the
quality of the verse set, for better but also for worse. Mussorgsky in
Boris, Debussy in Pélléas, Strauss in Salome, and Berg in Wozzeck all
made a more direct and extensive use of the actual verse in the plays
of Pushkin, Maeterlinck, Wilde, and Büchner that they made use of than
Mozart or Verdi ever dreamed of doing in the case of the plays on which
their operas were based, even in the cases of Figaro and Otello.
Twentieth-century opera composers have often sought to set stronger and
more autonomous verse. For all of Auden's love and understanding of
opera, the librettos that he wrote for Stravinsky and Henze are typical
examples. The trouble with the verse for The Rake's Progress is that
whole dimensions of it are wasted: its full value as verse cannot
possibly carry across the footlights. Because of its sheer density and
indeed the sheer density of its verbal music, it seems fussy.
Auden's verse mistakenly wants to maintain space normally usurped by
music in opera, and to some extent it's a distraction. I wouldn't
deny the possibility of using even the very greatest verse as the basis
for an opera (although it's not a necessary condition for great music
drama), but it would have to be written by a poet who understood the
role of verse in opera.

Tippett has attempted to be his own Auden. His ambitions as a
librettist outstripped his gifts as a poet, and some of us are amused
by both his pretensions and his naiveté. Nevertheless, Tippett had a
conception of opera (at least in Midsummer Marriage, the only opera I
know) that enabled him to avoid certain problems. His verse may be
embarrassing or pretentious, but the dramatic conception itself is
stripped to essentials. Paradoxically, despite whatever brief that can
be leveled against his poetry as such, Tippett wasn't interested in
creating the sort of extraordinarily wordy, fussy, and even chatty
dramas that Richard Strauss, for example, was. James Merrill could be
speaking for Tippett when he writes in The Changing Light at Sandover:

So my narrative
Wanted to be limpid, unfragmented;
My characters, conventional stock figures
Afflicted to a minimal degree
With personality and past experience--
A witch, a hermit, innocent young lovers,
The kinds of being we recall from Grimm,
Jung, Verdi, the commedia dell'arte.

Tippett's dramatic conception if not his actual verse is painted in
broad and elemental strokes. Plenty of space is left for his music to
do its work. And when the libretto is sung, Tippett's characters
seize on certain direct phrases, lingering over them, putting his verse
in its place, as when Mark explains why he is such good spirits at the
outset: "Because I love." Mark sings "Because I love"
repeatedly, then "I love" repeatedly, finally ending with singing
"love" melismatically. Another crucial bit of information is
conveyed with the words, "Jennifer my darling." The essential
datum that the verse is obliged to convey could not be more clear. In
other words, Tippett's setting of his own verse is quite unlike
Debussy's setting of Maeterlinck, where Debussy is scrupulous in
deferring to the verse, careful to avoid the sort of word repetition of
crucial phrases that Mozart, Verdi, Wagner, and Tippett find
indispensable. Word repetition lets us know what the music is about
while yielding expressive responsibility to music. (Wagner's musical
commentaries on Tristan and Isolde's situation are far richer than
his verse, however much we need verbal clues to follow the story.)

-david gable
Ian Pace
2006-07-13 20:33:49 UTC
Permalink
Post by Ian Pace
The quality of the text itself is a pretty large part of what makes a
libretto good or bad, don't you think?
Not necessarily. A libretto has two distinct aspects: what might be
crudely described as the story or the plot and the verse itself.

The two are not on equal standing. Many operatic plots existed long before
anyone turned them into a libretto. What makes a libretto good or otherwise
is the way the plot is translated into a textual and dramatic entity.
Occasionally you get original plots for librettos; even then a potentially
good plot can easily be ruined by a bad libretto. The dramatic pacing of an
operatic work is absolutely a function of the text (as well as the music, of
course).
Post by Ian Pace
The verse is much less important in an opera than in a verse drama, and
many a great opera composer has set wretched doggerel to powerfully
expressive effect.

What counts is its value as *operatic* text, whose criteria are different to
those of other mediums (including spoken drama). The value of a libretto
lies amongst other things in its amenability to being set to music. If you
actually read the second sentence I wrote - specifically 'After all, many
people could create a libretto out of a fine and already-existing story, but
the result could be terrible if they had no feel for sung dialogue or
dramatic pacing (in the way that is unique to opera, quite different to that
on stage)?' - you would have seen the clear distinction I'm making between
fine text intended for opera and text that
Post by Ian Pace
Not even the finest texts of Da Ponte, Wagner, or Boito could stand on
their own as literature. Then again, they were never intended to.
Once again, if you read what I actually typed, you'd see that's a point my
post already incorporates. 'Sung dialogue' has a criteria quite different to
other dialogue.

Ian
d***@aol.com
2006-07-13 20:40:38 UTC
Permalink
Ian,

Your prose is much fuzzier than mine, but you haven't in fact disagreed
with a single thing I wrote (which, in any case, was not aimed at you:
your post simply gave me an opportunity).

-david gable
d***@aol.com
2006-07-12 05:57:56 UTC
Permalink
Post by Eric Grunin
Bach, of course. Monteverdi maybe.
[This question may be more interesting than it looks. Before the 18th
Century, there wasn't much point in publishing something if it wasn't
pretty good.]
Everybody's giving Renaissance composers a pass. Orlando di Lasso was
as great a composer as any who ever lived, but there are quantities of
little motets in his (extraordinarily vast and varied) ouevre tossed
off in a hurry for this or that minor church function that are nothing
but tedious, perfectly correct little essays in 16th century
counterpoint. I can only imagine there are worse in Palestrina's
output. Palestrina was by far the more anal retentive of the two.

-david gable
JohnGavin
2006-07-12 15:47:17 UTC
Permalink
Post by d***@aol.com
Post by Eric Grunin
Bach, of course. Monteverdi maybe.
[This question may be more interesting than it looks. Before the 18th
Century, there wasn't much point in publishing something if it wasn't
pretty good.]
Everybody's giving Renaissance composers a pass. Orlando di Lasso was
as great a composer as any who ever lived, but there are quantities of
little motets in his (extraordinarily vast and varied) ouevre tossed
off in a hurry for this or that minor church function that are nothing
but tedious, perfectly correct little essays in 16th century
counterpoint. I can only imagine there are worse in Palestrina's
output. Palestrina was by far the more anal retentive of the two.
-david gable
Let's face it David, the Renaissance period is replete with a capella
Masses and instrumental, and keyboard works that could drive you insane
with boredom. Just listen to the endless Fantasys on Ut, Re, Me, Fa,
Sol from the Fitzwilliam Virginal Book. Of course there are treasures
too, but you definitely have to look for them. Josquin des Prez seems
to me one of the greatest.
d***@aol.com
2006-07-12 18:18:18 UTC
Permalink
Post by JohnGavin
Let's face it David, the Renaissance period is replete with a capella
Masses and instrumental, and keyboard works that could drive you insane
with boredom. Just listen to the endless Fantasys on Ut, Re, Me, Fa,
Sol from the Fitzwilliam Virginal Book. Of course there are treasures
too, but you definitely have to look for them.
As with any other period. One possible difference between the 15th and
16th centuries and some later periods is that there are so damned many
church musicians raised from boyhood competent to write contrapuntal
music for the church. A vast quantity of uninspired but thoroughly
competent music was cranked out, but it's precisely such an
environment that produced contrapuntal wizards like Dufay, Binchois,
Ockeghem, Busnois, Josquin, Lassus, etc. (I'm not so interested in
that great bureaucrat of counterpoint, Palestrina, who represents a
kind of academicization of a great tradition, but that's just me.
You certainly don't find the flights of fancy in his pure and careful
music that you do in Josquin's.)
Post by JohnGavin
Josquin des Prez seems
to me one of the greatest.
"Josquin is master of the notes, which must do as he wishes; other
composers must do as the notes wish." - Martin Luther

-david gable
Peter T. Daniels
2006-07-11 14:29:29 UTC
Permalink
Post by Michael Haslam
Post by Peter T. Daniels
Post by Michael Haslam
Post by Peter T. Daniels
Schubert was also primarily a song composer, and he wrote a number of
longer works that are much admired. As well as far too many that are far
too long.
How many is far too many? And how long is far too long?
Even one bad work is too many.
Time for a new thread: Which composers have never written a bad piece?
Post by Peter T. Daniels
Ever sat through, say, the two-piano fantasy?
I think it's, as you say in the US, one piano-four hands. I don't think
Schubert wrote any music for two pianos. I could be mistaken.
Don't I recall Tom Pniewski and Flip Howlett playing it in Statler
Auditorium one endless summer afternoon ... with candelabra on the
pianos?
Post by Michael Haslam
Post by Peter T. Daniels
Schumann's "himmlische Länge" didn't refer to most of those
extravaganzas.
I don't know this at all.
His supposed remark about the Ninth Symphony when he found it in a
chest.
--
Peter T. Daniels ***@att.net
Keith Edgerley
2006-07-11 21:07:51 UTC
Permalink
Post by Peter T. Daniels
Post by Michael Haslam
Post by Peter T. Daniels
Post by Michael Haslam
Post by Peter T. Daniels
Schubert was also primarily a song composer, and he wrote a number of
longer works that are much admired. As well as far too many that are far
too long.
How many is far too many? And how long is far too long?
Even one bad work is too many.
Time for a new thread: Which composers have never written a bad piece?
Post by Peter T. Daniels
Ever sat through, say, the two-piano fantasy?
I think it's, as you say in the US, one piano-four hands. I don't think
Schubert wrote any music for two pianos. I could be mistaken.
Don't I recall Tom Pniewski and Flip Howlett playing it in Statler
Auditorium one endless summer afternoon ... with candelabra on the
pianos?
While the piano duet (= one piano, four hands (a typically prissy US
translation of Klavier, vierhaendig)) is indeed usually played on one
instrument in a domestic environment, in public performance there is nothing
to prevent the duettists sitting at two separate keyboards. It may even be
more practical.

Therefore the fact that you once saw two performers using two separate
pianos in a particular work does not prove a great deal.

Keith Edgerley.
Peter T. Daniels
2006-07-11 22:24:53 UTC
Permalink
Post by Peter T. Daniels
Post by Peter T. Daniels
Post by Michael Haslam
Post by Peter T. Daniels
Post by Michael Haslam
Post by Peter T. Daniels
Schubert was also primarily a song composer, and he wrote a number
of
Post by Peter T. Daniels
Post by Michael Haslam
Post by Peter T. Daniels
Post by Michael Haslam
Post by Peter T. Daniels
longer works that are much admired. As well as far too many that
are far
Post by Peter T. Daniels
Post by Michael Haslam
Post by Peter T. Daniels
Post by Michael Haslam
Post by Peter T. Daniels
too long.
How many is far too many? And how long is far too long?
Even one bad work is too many.
Time for a new thread: Which composers have never written a bad piece?
Post by Peter T. Daniels
Ever sat through, say, the two-piano fantasy?
I think it's, as you say in the US, one piano-four hands. I don't think
Schubert wrote any music for two pianos. I could be mistaken.
Don't I recall Tom Pniewski and Flip Howlett playing it in Statler
Auditorium one endless summer afternoon ... with candelabra on the
pianos?
While the piano duet (= one piano, four hands (a typically prissy US
translation of Klavier, vierhaendig)) is indeed usually played on one
instrument in a domestic environment, in public performance there is nothing
to prevent the duettists sitting at two separate keyboards. It may even be
more practical.
Therefore the fact that you once saw two performers using two separate
pianos in a particular work does not prove a great deal.
It proves that when I referred to the work as "the two-piano fantasy," I
was not wrong.

And when you say "four hands" you don't need to preface it with "one
piano."
--
Peter T. Daniels ***@att.net
Michael Haslam
2006-07-11 23:30:01 UTC
Permalink
Post by Peter T. Daniels
Post by Keith Edgerley
Post by Peter T. Daniels
Post by Michael Haslam
Post by Peter T. Daniels
Post by Michael Haslam
How many is far too many? And how long is far too long?
Even one bad work is too many.
Time for a new thread: Which composers have never written a bad piece?
Post by Peter T. Daniels
Ever sat through, say, the two-piano fantasy?
I think it's, as you say in the US, one piano-four hands. I don't think
Schubert wrote any music for two pianos. I could be mistaken.
Don't I recall Tom Pniewski and Flip Howlett playing it in Statler
Auditorium one endless summer afternoon ... with candelabra on the
pianos?
While the piano duet (= one piano, four hands (a typically prissy US
translation of Klavier, vierhaendig)) is indeed usually played on one
instrument in a domestic environment, in public performance there is nothing
to prevent the duettists sitting at two separate keyboards. It may even be
more practical.
Therefore the fact that you once saw two performers using two separate
pianos in a particular work does not prove a great deal.
It proves that when I referred to the work as "the two-piano fantasy," I
was not wrong.
Even if Schubert wrote no such piece?
Post by Peter T. Daniels
And when you say "four hands" you don't need to preface it with "one
piano."
Maybe we Brits just can't help it.
--
MJHaslam
Remove accidentals to obtain correct e-address
"Can't you show a little restraint?" - Dr. David Tholen
fields
2006-07-12 10:31:12 UTC
Permalink
Post by Peter T. Daniels
It proves that when I referred to the work as "the two-piano fantasy," I
was not wrong.
And when you say "four hands" you don't need to preface it with "one
piano."
I dare you to find a friend and play the piano parts of Bartok's Sonata
on one piano.

And I dare you to find a friend and play Smetana's 4-hand version of Ma
Vlast on two pianos.

You will discover practical problems in doing these things. They're not
insurmountable, but they require a lot of extra work that amounts to
re-composing the pieces.
--
Matthew H. Fields http://www.matthewfields.net
Music: Splendor in Sound
Michael Haslam
2006-07-12 11:05:23 UTC
Permalink
Post by fields
Post by Peter T. Daniels
It proves that when I referred to the work as "the two-piano fantasy," I
was not wrong.
And when you say "four hands" you don't need to preface it with "one
piano."
I dare you to find a friend and play the piano parts of Bartok's Sonata
on one piano.
And I dare you to find a friend and play Smetana's 4-hand version of Ma
Vlast on two pianos.
You will discover practical problems in doing these things. They're not
insurmountable, but they require a lot of extra work that amounts to
re-composing the pieces.
I've no experience of the Smetena but my instinct is that playing 4-hand
music designed for one piano on two will generally be a technically
easier change than vice versa but most of the fun and artistry of what
we in the UK call piano duets derives from the proximity of the players
and the sharing of the keys. Two-piano music, including the Bartok, has
its own challenges but starts from a different, non-domestic, premise.

Of course there are homes with two (preferably) grand pianos and I have
had great fun playing the two-piano repertoire in one such, as William
Walton did as a sixteen-yearold with the then Dean of Christ Church, but
it seems to me that there is a, for want of a better word, professional
aspect to two-piano music.
--
MJHaslam
Remove accidentals to obtain correct e-address
"Can't you show a little restraint?" - Dr. David Tholen
Peter T. Daniels
2006-07-12 13:55:46 UTC
Permalink
Post by fields
Post by Peter T. Daniels
It proves that when I referred to the work as "the two-piano fantasy," I
was not wrong.
And when you say "four hands" you don't need to preface it with "one
piano."
I dare you to find a friend and play the piano parts of Bartok's Sonata
on one piano.
And I dare you to find a friend and play Smetana's 4-hand version of Ma
Vlast on two pianos.
You will discover practical problems in doing these things. They're not
insurmountable, but they require a lot of extra work that amounts to
re-composing the pieces.
As usual, you wilfully misinterpret.

"Four-hand" piano music refers to two persons side by side at the same
instrument.

"Two-piano" music refers to two persons at two instruments.

Bartok wrote not a four-hand sonata, but a two-piano sonata.
--
Peter T. Daniels ***@att.net
Michael Haslam
2006-07-12 23:28:07 UTC
Permalink
Post by Peter T. Daniels
Post by fields
Post by Peter T. Daniels
It proves that when I referred to the work as "the two-piano fantasy," I
was not wrong.
And when you say "four hands" you don't need to preface it with "one
piano."
I dare you to find a friend and play the piano parts of Bartok's Sonata
on one piano.
And I dare you to find a friend and play Smetana's 4-hand version of Ma
Vlast on two pianos.
You will discover practical problems in doing these things. They're not
insurmountable, but they require a lot of extra work that amounts to
re-composing the pieces.
As usual, you wilfully misinterpret.
"Four-hand" piano music refers to two persons side by side at the same
instrument.
This is true, I gather, in the US. But don't pretend it is any more
logical than "piano duet" referring to two players side by side at the
same instrument, which is the UK usage, or that either term may be
interpreted correctly by the non-initiate.
Post by Peter T. Daniels
"Two-piano" music refers to two persons at two instruments.
Bartok wrote not a four-hand sonata, but a two-piano sonata.
Well, actually a sonata for two pianos and percussion; the title
specifies neither the number of pianists (2) nor the number of
percussionists (2 - or in modern orchestral parlance one timpanist and
one percussionist) all of whom need to use 2 hands.
--
MJHaslam
Remove accidentals to obtain correct e-address
"Can't you show a little restraint?" - Dr. David Tholen
Michael Haslam
2006-07-12 23:42:14 UTC
Permalink
Post by Peter T. Daniels
Post by Peter T. Daniels
Post by Michael Haslam
Post by Peter T. Daniels
Post by Peter T. Daniels
Schubert was also primarily a song composer, and he wrote a
number of longer works that are much admired. As well as far
too many that are far too long.
Ever sat through, say, the two-piano fantasy?
I think it's, as you say in the US, one piano-four hands. I don't think
Schubert wrote any music for two pianos. I could be mistaken.
Don't I recall Tom Pniewski and Flip Howlett playing it in Statler
Auditorium one endless summer afternoon ... with candelabra on the
pianos?
It proves that when I referred to the work as "the two-piano fantasy," I
was not wrong.
I think you are wrong in that the very long piano duet (4 hand) piece by
Schubert is the Grand Duo Sonata (in C) whereas the Fantasia (in F
minor), also for piano duet and possibly his most well-known piece for
that combination, is a considerably shorter piece with no longeurs and
considered to be a masterpiece.

There is a Decca recording of both pieces played by Britten and Richter;
duration of the F minor Fantasia c.17 minutes, duration of the Grand Duo
Sonata c.40 minutes.

I can't decide whether the Cornell candelabra would make the piece seem
longer or shorter.
--
MJHaslam
Remove accidentals to obtain correct e-address
"Can't you show a little restraint?" - Dr. David Tholen
Curtis Croulet
2006-07-09 23:40:44 UTC
Permalink
Post by Matthew B. Tepper
or merely
because they're purty gurlz?
Isn't that enough?
--
Curtis Croulet
Temecula, California
33°27'59"N, 117°05'53"W
.)
Matthew B. Tepper
2006-07-10 04:36:29 UTC
Permalink
Post by Curtis Croulet
or merely because they're purty gurlz?
Isn't that enough?
Given the state of today's journalism, I ought to have realized that it
would be a rhetorical question.
--
Matthew B. Tepper: WWW, science fiction, classical music, ducks!
My personal home page -- http://home.earthlink.net/~oy/index.html
My main music page --- http://home.earthlink.net/~oy/berlioz.html
To write to me, do for my address what Androcles did for the lion
I ask you to judge me by the enemies I have made. ~ FDR (attrib.)
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