Klarinet Archive - Posting 000068.txt from 2006/02

From: William Kelly <kell0786@-----.edu>
Subj: Re: [kl] That's music?
Date: Mon, 06 Feb 2006 11:00:12 -0500

Rafi emphasized the fact that it was the same tired old show that it has
been for decades now. The fact that it is the same is not so relevant; I
think we all understood more generally the complaint that it's simply trite
and inane. And so, to respond by saying that certain composers are likewise
performed over and over again, is likewise irrelevant. Secondly, you try
and capitalize on a false analogy: a performer doing the same (in this
case, dull) things over and over is not comparable to the phenomenon of
musicians returning to the same scores of the same composers over the
centuries.
As for the idea that "there's nothing interesting or amusing about it,"
referring to Mozart and Beethoven, and so on, I'm not sure how a person
could respond to that. I don't feel the need to, finding it more
pathological than anything else. It's also telling that you group Stamitz
(which one?) with Mozart and Beethoven.

There is another question that needs more comment, being less easy to see
through. Is Rafi a "snob"? I'm not sure what is meant by snob here. The
term usually denotes someone who wrongly looks down at someone or something
else out of mere prudery. Rafi has made an effort to distinguish between
greatness in music on the one hand and vacant kitsch on the other.
Reasonable people may differ in good faith but I don't care for the
accusation of snobbery when someone else's tastes are a bit closer to the
canon. If you insist that Rafi's efforts are the definition of a snob, than
please count me among the snobs.
But there is an extent to which reasonable people cannot differ, and Rafi
acquiesces to the sad egalitarianism when he says "but my taste in
music hardly runs higher than anyone else's its just my taste and you can
take it or leave it."
A good number of things in this world are in fact higher than a vast number
of other things, and thus a person whose tastes lie with the former may be
correctly said to have higher tastes. If someone wishes to obscure the
issue by using the phrase "higher and mightier" than I would accept that
too, though I don't see what might has to do with anything. I won't submit
to this notion of "just my tastes," the implication being one of absolute
parity in the world of the arts.
I just read something that I would like to share, from Roger Scruton's book
"Gentle Regrets: Thoughts from a Life." Recalling a college friend, he
writes:
"It never ceased to amaze me that Dave, who despised popular culture, had
nevertheless plunged into it and through it, and had discovered in doing so
a source of feeling every bit as intense as the songs of Schubert.
Dave's own attitude to this, however, was revealing. 'Look,' he said to me
when I questioned him, 'just about everything is phoney. Almost all blues
is phoney. But not quite all. And when you hit gold, the seam runs deep.
Finding that seem is hard. You have to work. That kind of work is
criticism.'" Later, he continues: "I learned as a teenager that aesthetic
judgement matters, that it is not merely a subjective opinion, unargues
because unarguable, and of no significance to anyone besides oneself. I saw
- thought I did not have the philosophy to justify this - that aesthetic
judgement lays a claim upon the world, that it issues from a deep social
impertive, and that it matters to us in just the way that other people
matter to us, when we strive to live with them in a community."

On 6 Feb 2006, Ormondtoby Montoya wrote:
> > I mean this is exactly what half of the world is
> > saying about Mozart, Bach, Beethoven,
> > Stamitz and all those buggers. It's been 250+
> > years already... give us a break.
>
> I can't agree with you, Bryan. It's true that most people enjoy
> hearing new music.... when it's musical. (Manhattan Transfer and
> Gershwin and Edgar Meyers, yes. Jagger.... sorry, no.) I think a
> better statement would be that most people don't enjoy hearing the
> _same_ music over and over and over and over again. We want new music
> also.
>
> But life without access (both listening and playing) to Beethoven,
> Mozart, Cartellieri, and so forth would be a bummer, imo.
>
>
> -------------------------------------------------------------------
> THE WOODWIND.ORG ANNUAL DONATION DRIVE IS GOING ON NOW! VISIT
> https://secure.donax-us.com/donation TO FIND OUT ALL THE FACTS!
> -------------------------------------------------------------------
> Klarinet is a service of Woodwind.Org, Inc. http://www.woodwind.org
>
>

-------------------------------------------------------------------
THE WOODWIND.ORG ANNUAL DONATION DRIVE IS GOING ON NOW! VISIT
https://secure.donax-us.com/donation TO FIND OUT ALL THE FACTS!
-------------------------------------------------------------------
Klarinet is a service of Woodwind.Org, Inc. http://www.woodwind.org