Klarinet Archive - Posting 000184.txt from 2005/06

From: "dnleeson" <dnleeson@-----.net>
Subj: RE: [kl] re: Somehow I passed my own test
Date: Wed, 08 Jun 2005 14:04:28 -0400

But let us look at the converse. I hear negative comments from
intelligent musicians about Mozart. My friend Percy Grainger,
hated Mozart. And I have a book of bad quotations about him
including one that suggests that "Mozart died too late rather
than too early." That's a quote from a now-deceased Canadian
pianist.

Here, the shoe is on the other foot. When I see such comments I
don't generalize and give Ben's argument in reverse and say that
there is a bad attitude about the classical period.

If somebody doesn't like contemporary music or classical music or
any kind of music, and uses poor language in speaking about it,
there is no purpose served in a broadside making accusations
relating to the scope of that dislike.

Dan Leeson
DNLeeson@-----.net

-----Original Message-----
From: Joseph Wakeling [mailto:joseph.wakeling@-----.net]
Sent: Wednesday, June 08, 2005 10:41 AM
To: klarinet@-----.org
Subject: Re: [kl] re: Somehow I passed my own test

dnleeson wrote:

> Anyone can hold this view. I certainly did not, nor did the
majority
> of responses to my comment about not finding favor in this
particular
> Adams composition. But it is a generalization to have come back
with
> the comments about elitist and holier thn thou attitudes, as if
there
> were a flood of such opinions offered. You point out just one.

In this case, sure---and nobody was suggesting that you or many
others
on this list have a bad attitude to modern material. But it's
certainly
true that dismissive, contemptuous attitudes towards contemporary
music
are widespread and that these viewpoints are often ones of
automatic
rejection rather than reasoned thought.

I think that Ben's response was to these attitudes of dismissal
and not
to the more complex, thought-out viewpoints that you and some
others
displayed towards the Adams piece (and others).

For what it's worth, I'm not overly fond of Gnarly Buttons
myself. It's
a *fun* piece for sure, but it's not terribly deep IMO.
Certainly
nothing compared to a masterpiece of minimalism such as Reich's
Music
for 18 Musicians. And when it comes to recent clarinet
masterpieces I'm
not sure anything can touch the recent Concerto by Elliott
Carter.

-- Joe

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