Composers about Composers - Stupidest Statements

[Karl Henning]

Your question's certainly a valid one. The conflation of those two things or their like, is common just about everywhere I think.

Very true. 

[Jo498]

I'm not checking this, so it may be myth, but Weber is supposed to have said, with reference to the seesawing chromatic bass-line at the beginning of the 1st movement coda of the 7th symphony: "Now at last Beethoven is ready for the madhouse".  A bass-line very like those used to express menace in an opera called Der Freischütz - I forget who composed that one.

I remember that quote but I was not entirely sure that it was about that passage, could have been about the finale. One might grant Weber than he matured in another 5 or 7 years and also that what might have sounded "mad" in absolute music could make sense expressing a demonic presence like Samiel.
Grillparzer (not a composer) who wrote a eulogy for Beethoven's funeral called Weber's "Euryanthe"  a raping of beauty that in Classical Greece would have persecuted & punished by the state (and probably should be again!)

[(poco) Sforzando]

Schoenberg satirized Stravinsky as "der kleine Modernsky."

[Daverz]

Perhaps Yuja Wang should be engaged to play the piano solo?

Ah, good old misogyny, the wit of halfwits.

[(poco) Sforzando]

Ah, good old misogyny, the wit of halfwits.

Thanks! love you too.

[Kalevala]

I think there was some self-loathing in there. when young. Britten admired Brahms a good deal. I have no insight on just why he turned on Brahms, but it was a dramatic change.

I wonder whether or not it might have something to do with Britten perhaps feeling that his music and talents were underappreciated by society at large (vs. Brahms' music)?

K

[Karl Henning]

Schoenberg satirized Stravinsky as "der kleine Modernsky."

I thought at first that this was in the Opus 28 Three Satires, but I was mistaken.

[Lisztianwagner]

I thought at first that this was in the Opus 28 Three Satires, but I was mistaken.

As a matter of fact, it should be, isn't it in the text of Vielseitigkeit?

[Karl Henning]

Stravinsky on Richard Strauss: "I do not like the major works, and I do not like the minor works."

Of Strauss, Schoenberg said something to the effect of: What I once thought I learned from him, I am grateful to say I misunderstood.

[(poco) Sforzando]

I thought at first that this was in the Opus 28 Three Satires, but I was mistaken.

It is. Wikipedia:

Schoenberg criticized Igor Stravinsky's new neoclassical trend in the poem "Vielseitigkeit" (in which he derogates neoclassicism, and obliquely refers to Stravinsky as "Der kleine Modernsky"), which he used as text for the second of his Drei Satiren, Op. 28.[66] The third of the Drei Satiren, "Der neue Klassizismus", also takes aim at the neoclassical trend in general.[67]

Yours,
Your friendly neighborhood halfwit.

[Karl Henning]

As a matter of fact, it should be, isn't it in the text of Vielseitigkeit?

You're absolutely right. My mistake was to look for it in N^o. 3, Der neue Klassizismus

[Karl Henning]

It is. Wikipedia:
Yours,
Your friendly neighborhood halfwit.

I was so very nearly right!

[(poco) Sforzando]

Ah, good old misogyny, the wit of halfwits.

I'm not going to let this go unanswered. There is no misogyny here. I mentioned Yuja Wang deliberately, and would have not said the same thing about Martha Argerich, Alicia de la Rocha, Annie Fischer, Beatrice Rana, or any number of other fine women pianists. But as anyone who follows Yuja Wang's career has noticed, she does everything she can to market herself as a sex object, wearing garishly colorful, skin-tight, skimpy outfits plainly intended to draw attention to her feminine assets rather than her musical talents. The fact that almost every one of her New York Philharmonic and Carnegie Hall appearances next season is sold out is not just a reflection of her pianism. Sex sells.

[Archaic Torso of Apollo]

From the Boulez stuff quoted above:

You know, in the history of music, there are composers without whom the face of music would be completely different, and composers whom if they had never existed, it would have made no difference whatsoever.

Reminds me that his whole approach was a kind of ideological, teleological one. Composers were good if they "advanced" music in certain ways (such ways being defined by Boulez, of course). If they didn't advance music, they were irrelevant, regardless of whether you enjoyed their music or not.

It seemed to me a crippling ideological straitjacket to put on. As listeners, we are lucky that we can ignore this kind of rhetoric and just enjoy the music, whether it fulfills Boulez's cramped intellectual paradigm or not.

[Karl Henning]

From the Boulez stuff quoted above:

You know, in the history of music, there are composers without whom the face of music would be completely different, and composers whom if they had never existed, it would have made no difference whatsoever.

Reminds me that his whole approach was a kind of ideological, teleological one. Composers were good if they "advanced" music in certain ways (such ways being defined by Boulez, of course). If they didn't advance music, they were irrelevant, regardless of whether you enjoyed their music or not.

It seemed to me a crippling ideological straitjacket to put on. As listeners, we are lucky that we can ignore this kind of rhetoric and just enjoy the music, whether it fulfills Boulez's cramped intellectual paradigm or not.

Yes!

[Karl Henning]

But as anyone who follows Yuja Wang's career has noticed, she does everything she can to market herself as a sex object, wearing garishly colorful, skin-tight, skimpy outfits plainly intended to draw attention to her feminine assets rather than her musical talents. The fact that almost every one of her New York Philharmonic and Carnegie Hall appearances next season is sold out is not just a reflection of her pianism. Sex sells.

That was undeniably the impression given when she appeared in what I think was her Symphony Hall début (one of the Rakhmaninov concerti, IIRC

[DavidW]

Ah, good old misogyny, the wit of halfwits.

I thought Todd might be conservative, but Larry is Victorian-era! OMG, she shows her knees in concert!? Scandalous!

[(poco) Sforzando]

I thought Todd might be conservative, but Larry is Victorian-era! OMG, she shows her knees in concert!? Scandalous!

She shows a lot more than her knees, dude.

[JBS]

I remember that quote but I was not entirely sure that it was about that passage, could have been about the finale. One might grant Weber than he matured in another 5 or 7 years and also that what might have sounded "mad" in absolute music could make sense expressing a demonic presence like Samiel.
Grillparzer (not a composer) who wrote a eulogy for Beethoven's funeral called Weber's "Euryanthe"  a raping of beauty that in Classical Greece would have persecuted & punished by the state (and probably should be again!)

I believe it was John Irving's Hotel New Hampshire that uses Grillparzer as the symbol of all the flaws of 19th century Austrian culture (if the 19th century is defined as pre-1914).

[(poco) Sforzando]

I thought Todd might be conservative, but Larry is Victorian-era! OMG, she shows her knees in concert!? Scandalous!

I must clarify as well that I was merely protesting the characterization of myself as a half-wit. This is false; I am at least a quarter-wit.