musical commentary

[calimac]

Lisa Irontongue is passing along a meme of asking for pieces you never want to hear again and pieces you want to hear more often.

The concert music I most devoutly wish never to hear again consists almost entirely of bloated, self-indulgent and self-aggrandizing sludge from the gasbag Giganticist period of the turn of the 20th century, and a Top Ten might look like this.

1. Mahler, Symphony No. 5
2. Mahler, Symphony No. 6
3. Mahler, Symphony No. 7
4. Mahler, Symphony No. 8
5. Mahler, Symphony No. 9
6. Mahler, Symphony No. 10
7. Strauss, Death and Transfiguration
8. Strauss, Ein Heldenleben
9. Strauss, Also Sprach Zarathustra
10. Brian, Gothic Symphony

It only remains to be noted that the openings of the last two works are absolutely gripping, and it's a pity that they soon both devolve into acres of worthless crap.

Everybody's lists of "want to hear more often" seems to focus on early and recent music. I can still find some 18th and 19th century composers I'd like to hear more often. To name one I have heard in concert a couple times, how about Arriaga? One striking piece of his I have heard played is this.

The orchestral supposed warhorse that's the most underplayed these days compared to its deserts is the Franck Symphony. It has three movements, and here they are in the best recording I've ever heard, by Pierre Monteux and the Chicago Symphony: first, second, third.

Over at my workplace, it appears that reviews of the Kronos Quartet attract angry responses even when I don't write them. One of our newest reviewers got slammed in comments for a "hit job" when, it seemed to me, his only crime was daring to give a negative review for a piece the commenter liked. I've been there, so I stepped in for the defense - even though I'd heard the work at another venue and liked it more, though possibly the venue accounts for the difference. I also know and like another piece on the program better than he does, but he justifies his opinion well, so I have no complaints.

Comments

[irontongue.livejournal.com]

I'm sorry, I actually do not understand what you mean by "By your own accounting, then, you do not rank Beethoven that highly," since I just termed him "arguably the greatest and most influential composer ever."

I believe if you look at orchestral statistics you'll find Mahler, overall, played a lot less by American orchestras than Beethoven. The crowding-out effect is much less.

I would be complaining equally about a three-week Mozart or Tchaikowsky fest, would not complain at all about a three-week Haydn fest. That's not because I think Haydn is a better or greater composer than M or T or LvB.

I have already said what I can say about works needing to be performed to live. I've never heard a Dufay mass in person and I have seen them programmed a tiny number of times: are you saying his masses are less alive than the Pastoral? Not to me, they're not.

That's a very black & white view of how programming works. We do not know whether MTT wanted something entirely different and couldn't get it because of costs - and he could still be completely thrilled to have three weeks of Beethoven.

I doubt that is the case, by the way, because of the upcoming third appearance of the Missa Solemnis: you have to plan something like that. I'm just saying that we don't know what we don't know.

[irontongue.livejournal.com]

I need to mention, also, that the SFS PR machine has successfully positioned MTT as a bold and innovative programmer. Anthony Tommasini mentioned MTT's programming in today's Times, in fact, as he does more or less annually. This season is specifically claimed to be another season of "risk taking." This is part of the reason for my bile.

[kalimac.livejournal.com]

Don't take your anger at the publicity out on the programming. They're not the same thing, Gort.

[kalimac.livejournal.com]

"Influential", so what? I cheerfully acknowledge that Mahler was influential. Doesn't mean I like him.

"Arguably the greatest" - "arguably" is what one says if one isn't reporting one's own opinion, but trying to discern the general opinion.

By attaching those two words, "arguably" and "influential", to that "greatest", you're hedging around your own opinion. It's what I would expect.

Even if you were to go around, like Schroeder, carrying a sign reading "Beethoven is the greatest!" the cognitive mismatch with your other statements on the subject would be painfully obvious.

Re Mahler, I was referring to SFS, not to orchestras in general. Even if MTT had an equal obsession with, say, the earlier symphonies of Brian, or Gliere, or somebody else who wrote equally long and empty epics but whom nobody plays, it would be worth noting how much space that's taking away from everybody else.

And it's not true that Mahler is played a lot less than Beethoven, except insofar as everybody is played less than Beethoven, even Mozart or Tchaikovsky, whom you are claiming are equally overplayed. I've compiled the statistics for symphonies from the League of American Orchestras website, and Mahler is the 6th most played symphonist, after only Beethoven, Brahms, Tchaikovsky, Mozart and Haydn - and the last two wrote many more than others, no single one of which is as popular as Mahler's First. More played than Schubert. More played than Dvorak. Let alone Shostakovich, Sibelius, or anyone else.

[irontongue.livejournal.com]

I'm not hedging around my own opinion so much as I am unwilling to play the "who is the greatest" game. I think nothing is gained from trying to rank great composers that way. I'm not going to call anyone the greatest.

I can't figure out how you'd choose between Beethoven and Bach, for example. (And why would you? Who cares?) There are people who would argue Brahms or Mozart or Schubert or Stravinsky. I can make cases for the greatness of each of these composers, but I'm not going to argue that one of them is the greatest.

I don't know what the reasonable grounds are for comparing any great symphonic composer to Josquin, whose contemporaries regarded and most modern scholars regard as the greatest composer of his time. Comparing Beethoven to Josquin: utterly meaningless. They are both great composers. I wish as many people knew the works of Josquin as know the works of Beethoven.

[kalimac.livejournal.com]

When I brought up greatness, I phrased it as absolute greatness of a given composer, not as "greatest." That brings up these comparisons which I agree are invidious and unhelpful.

It is possible to say one composer is truly or monumentally great, without having to bring up the question of who else might be equally great or greater. That is the language I was speaking.