Klarinet Archive - Posting 000351.txt from 2005/11

From: "dnleeson" <dnleeson@-----.net>
Subj: RE: [kl] Re: Mahler, et. al.
Date: Thu, 24 Nov 2005 16:45:03 -0500

You may call it purple prose, but those are simply astoundingly
excellent notes. You captured the very essence of the work for
both the dilletante and the expert.

Dan Leeson
DNLeeson@-----.net

-----Original Message-----
From: Oliver Seely [mailto:oseely@-----.edu]
Sent: Thursday, November 24, 2005 1:04 PM
To: klarinet@-----.org
Subject: [kl] Re: Mahler, et. al.

Thanks, Roger, for the clarification. Was "Kol
Nidrei" the piece about which a critic sniffed, "It
doesn't sound Jewish enough"? Possibly because
of this recollection I was uncertain about the
matter of Bruch's ethnicity when I requested a
microfiche of the autograph of the double
concerto, opus 88, from the Universit„ts- und Stadbibliothek K”
ln.

In my mind critics are in most cases a lower life
form. When I read the biographical notes for
Bruch in Grove I was angered by the reception the
composer's pieces received in his later years:
"His reverence for the music of Mendelssohn and
Schumann and his resistance to change meant
that works written at the end of his life, such
as the chamber music of 1918, sounded much the
same as those compositions dating from 60 years
earlier", so I did my part to set the record
straight in my preface to the double concerto in
which I wrote, purple prose notwithstanding,

"Bruch's clarinetist son Max Felix must have been
enchanted to receive this tunefully rich and
lusciously romantic composition from his father,
replete with folk structures drawn from earlier
suites. From the opening arpeggios of the first
movement to the final allegro molto triplets, one is
awestruck by the breathtaking beauty of the work
and a sense of wonder that it is not performed
more often. The composer was 73 when it was
first performed in 1911 to, some say, a hostile
audience more sympathetic with the experiments of
Stravinsky and Scriabin than with the
romanticism of Mendelssohn. That Bruch's style
may not have changed much from his works
composed forty years before ought not to matter a
whit to the lover of soulfully intense musical
companionship at its best."

Thanks again,

Oliver

Bruch just wrote "Kol Nidrei". He wasn't Jewish in any way.
This is a common
misapprehension.
Roger S.

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