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From: rlr@pyuxn.UUCP (Rich Rosen)
Newsgroups: net.music.classical
Subject: Re: Poor composers or poor listener (mild flame)
Message-ID: <667@pyuxn.UUCP>
Date: Mon, 14-May-84 13:57:31 EDT
Article-I.D.: pyuxn.667
Posted: Mon May 14 13:57:31 1984
Date-Received: Wed, 16-May-84 03:20:33 EDT
References: <259@uwvax.ARPA>
Organization: Bell Communications Research, Piscataway N.J.
Lines: 29

> > How about composers whose music is much worse than it sounds?
> > I would nominate Vivaldi*, Beethoven, Listz, Verdi, and Mahler. 
> > (Bruckner, Meyerbeer, Franck, Delius, and Resphigi are beneath
> > consideration!)
> > *Of whom Stravinsky said, "He wrote one cncerto 100 times".
> 
> I am tired of hearing remarks like this.  Music doesn't survive hundreds
> of years unless there's something to it.  What exactly do you mean by
> "worse than it sounds"?  That the music didn't make some sort of music-
> theoretical or philosophical advance? I suspect it merely means that you don't
> happen to be into it and/or that you have not studied it in any sense.

On the contrary, I think a lot of such condemnation come precisely from such
study.  Though people can certainly listen to and enjoy whatever they like,
those who do analyze what went into musical works have found a number of
important things.  Such as, although a piece of music may be well-loved and
although it has survived for hundreds of years, the composer was a hack and a
thief who stole the idea from a struggling, starving, and currently unheard of
composer with much more talent.  (Imagine that...)

> So please, let's leave blanket condemnations of composers and/or styles
> to the devotees of "awesomeness" in net.music.

No comment.

[I'm full of contradictions...]
-- 
Never ASSUME, because when you ASSUME, you make an ASS out of U and ME...
					Rich Rosen   pyuxn!rlr