How many here were participants in Classicalinsites?

[Archaic Torso of Apollo]

This is fun. I think I'll see how many of these figures I can keep dredging up from the distant past.

Kwoon: A graduate student at some prestigious university, but he was absolutely notorious as an extreme case of multiple-recording-itis. He was on a quest to collect every single recording of Rachmaninoff PC 3, and he even collected multiples of pieces he didn't like. At any one time he would have 100s of CDs "still in wrapper." He also had a crush on Anne-Sophie Mutter, for which he was mocked a few times.

Dan Ferguson: An American expat in Japan. One of those guys who liked to argue politics. Had very fixed, rigid opinions on recordings - I think he was a serious audiophile.

Joel Lazar: A conductor who had been Jascha Horenstein's personal assistant. Had lots of good inside info on the music biz.

Guy Fairstein: A New Yorker who might have been part of R. Stein's circle, though I'm hazy on the details. His wife Linda was both a novelist and the prosecutor in the notorious Central Park Jogger case.

Jennifer Grucza: A student at MIT who was also a serious amateur violist.

Dickson: Lived in Georgia and played the clarinet. I think he might have been at that dinner I mentioned earlier.

Brendan Funnell: An Australian who was first an atheist and then a Christian mystic. Railed against modern music as interfering with "natural kinematic motion," or some such thing. Apparently one of those guys who couldn't listen to music without making a "system" out of it.

I.J. Reilly: One of the cool "atonal crappers." Was into eccentric composers like Nancarrow and Antheil. Much later I realized that his name came from the novel A Confederacy of Dunces.

[Florestan]

"how good can Mozart be, if no one can tell his music from that of a nobody."

You asked the wrong question. The right one is "How come that during the Classical Era composers were so exceptional that even a nobody can be mistaken for Mozart?" 

[Archaic Torso of Apollo]

And the hits just keep on coming:

ER Bostonides: He was a classics teacher at a private school, originally from Boston (hence the nick). When I moved to NJ, he invited me over to listen to his monster stereo. I went back several times, because there was jack to do in Central Joisey on a weekend and it was a fun thing to do.

Randall Wetmore: Young man with "the confidence of youth" (i.e. dogmatic opinions, fervently held). A nice guy when I met him. Was influenced by Anstendig, and became a proponent of vinyl, and later SACD.

Heck: Bassoonist with an orchestra in Massachusetts. Generally an OK guy, but if you criticized the Chicago Symphony Orchestra in any way, he was likely to spit venom at you.

David Orea: I only remember him because he was from Mexico, at a time when there wasn't much non-Anglophone participation.

Andy Linkner: Another modern music fan; gave me some useful recs for Nordic composers.

Jean Wysocki: Another of those fun people who were exploring classical music and open to all kinds of experiences, which they then reported on.

Bryon Gunsch (Phrodeau): Apparently he ran a theater group in Minnesota, or something like that.

[(poco) Sforzando]

Kwoon: A graduate student at some prestigious uDan Ferguson: An American expat in Japan. One of those guys who liked to argue politics. Had very fixed, rigid opinions on recordings - I think he was a serious audiophile.

Guy Fairstein: A New Yorker who might have been part of R. Stein's circle, though I'm hazy on the details. His wife Linda was both a novelist and the prosecutor in the notorious Central Park Jogger case.

I imagine Kwoon must have picked up multiple copies of the Yunchan Lim recording. Or at least downloaded them.

Guy was very friendly with Frank Berglas. Guy I think listened only to Mahler and Bruckner. We had balcony seats at Carnegie for a Boulez Mahler 3 (were you not there, Scott?), and on one occasion the three of us drove from NYC down to Princeton for some "hunting and gathering." I remember having to be in NYC at 7am for that. Couldn't do that now.

[(poco) Sforzando]

Randall Wetmore: Young man with "the confidence of youth" (i.e. dogmatic opinions, fervently held). A nice guy when I met him. Was influenced by Anstendig, and became a proponent of vinyl, and later SACD.

Randall was also a dogmatic proponent of Rene Leibowitz, and a dogmatic right-winger. He and I were friendly for a time, but his politics got the better of me. Especially his ardent support of the war in Iraq, for which he had no thoughts of signing up himself.

[Archaic Torso of Apollo]

Guy was very friendly with Frank Berglas. Guy I think listened only to Mahler and Bruckner. We had balcony seats at Carnegie for a Boulez Mahler 3 (were you not there, Scott?), and on one occasion the three of us drove from NYC down to Princeton for some "hunting and gathering." I remember having to be in NYC at 7am for that. Couldn't do that now.

I wasn't at that one. For Carnegie, we were at the aforementioned Abbado/Berlin Mahler 9, and then at one of Boulez's concerts with the LSO in 2000 (an all-Hungarian program, featuring Ligeti and Bartok).

I did go to P-rex quite regularly, since I worked in the area at the time.

Randall was also a dogmatic proponent of Rene Leibowitz, and a dogmatic right-winger. He and I were friendly for a time, but his politics got the better of me. Especially his ardent support of the war in Iraq, for which he had no thoughts of signing up himself.

Yeah, I remember that too, although the Iraq business came a few years later. I remember also that Barry Z was a pretty standard liberal Democrat until 9/11 happened and he underwent a similar change.

[(poco) Sforzando]

Oh yeah, Barry was an ardent right-winger. He was very much under Corlyss's influence.

[T. D.]

Unfortunately, I cannot remember if I ever met Ralph/Rappy in real life as there were several IRL meetings of different German language classical boards, starting with the German language usenet group and later several others. But I don't think so, partly because I think I should remember otherwise and also because he would have been still a teenager at most of the meetings I remember to have attended.

Years ago, I also had brief email contacts with several rec.music.classical.recordings regulars, e.g. Lena/Lord Emsworth, and Ramon Khalona actually sent me a copy of a then introuvable Fricsay disc or two (and IIRC also some fotocopies of a partial discography) by mail from California to Germany; this was around 2003 when far less things were simply findable on the web. A very nice guy!

I remember Lena, very nice person and I loved her (assuming gender, always a risk on Internet) Lord Emsworth nick. Had many conversations on r.m.c.r.

Also had some interesting discussions on rmcr with Sergey Schepkin...before long he was either repelled by trolls or realized the futility of posting there. Learned a lot from Nic Hodges over the years.

On the psycho side, does anyone recall the "Studerbot" from r.m.c.r? Posted oodles of incomprehensible (seemingly) machine-generated messages about CHERYL STUDER. An exemplar of the seamy underbelly of Usenet. 

[foxandpeng]

I.J. Reilly: One of the cool "atonal crappers." Was into eccentric composers like Nancarrow and Antheil. Much later I realized that his name came from the novel A Confederacy of Dunces.

*coughs politely*

[Holden]

I was a member of CI under my current handle and remember many of the names mentioned. Corlyss, ho was mentioned in a previous post, died last year.

[Spotted Horses]

Jean Morel was in fact a highly respected conductor who led the conducting division at Juilliard for several decades. The wonder is that he accepted Anstendig, who of course had a brilliant conducting career no one's ever heard about.

Anstendig, as I recall, also told stories about being in a Master Class with Karajan, and how Karajan found him superior to fellow student Ozawa, especially after how brilliantly Anstendig conducted the close of Sibelius 5.

Randall Wetmore: Young man with "the confidence of youth" (i.e. dogmatic opinions, fervently held). A nice guy when I met him. Was influenced by Anstendig, and became a proponent of vinyl, and later SACD.

Now that you mention it, I also remember Wetmore well, Rene Leibowicz fanatic and Anstendig sycophant.

Kwoon: A graduate student at some prestigious university, but he was absolutely notorious as an extreme case of multiple-recording-itis. He was on a quest to collect every single recording of Rachmaninoff PC 3, and he even collected multiples of pieces he didn't like. At any one time he would have 100s of CDs "still in wrapper." He also had a crush on Anne-Sophie Mutter, for which he was mocked a few times.

Dan Ferguson: An American expat in Japan. One of those guys who liked to argue politics. Had very fixed, rigid opinions on recordings - I think he was a serious audiophile.

Joel Lazar: A conductor who had been Jascha Horenstein's personal assistant. Had lots of good inside info on the music biz.

Guy Fairstein: A New Yorker who might have been part of R. Stein's circle, though I'm hazy on the details. His wife Linda was both a novelist and the prosecutor in the notorious Central Park Jogger case.

Jennifer Grucza: A student at MIT who was also a serious amateur violist.

Dickson: Lived in Georgia and played the clarinet. I think he might have been at that dinner I mentioned earlier.

More participants I remember well. I do remember Joel Lazar as a wonderful source of information, and Jennifer Grucza as one of the interesting participants that wasn't nuts, in some way.

[T. D.]

There was a gentleman named Don Satz, very knowledgeable about keyboard / baroque music. Didn't post that much but was an excellent source of information. He also reviews for various websites (e.g. Musicweb) and posts (maybe reviews too, I can't recall offhand) at bach-cantatas.com.

[(poco) Sforzando]

Anstendig, as I recall, also told stories about being in a Master Class with Karajan, and how Karajan found him superior to fellow student Ozawa, especially after how brilliantly Anstendig conducted the close of Sibelius 5.

Now that you mention it, I also remember Wetmore well, Rene Leibowicz fanatic and Anstendig sycophant.

More participants I remember well. I do remember Joel Lazar as a wonderful source of information, and Jennifer Grucza as one of the interesting participants that wasn't nuts, in some way.

My favorite memory of Joel Lazar is when he told Anstendig, "you are not a conductor." Anstendig was full of bizarre theories, such as the one where he insisted the last trill in Fiordiligi's Act Two aria represented the female orgasm (but only if you heard the Schwartzkopf-Karajan performing the little crescendo properly, and only on vinyl with Mark's own cartridge). I remember asking Mark if the soprano was expected to perform the action on stage, but did not get a reply.

Anstendig was right however in saying that conductors do not always play the last six chords of Sibelius 5 in strict rhythm. This is true, for example, of the otherwise superb Maazel-VPO. Mark of course did it correctly.

[Archaic Torso of Apollo]

Anstendig was full of bizarre theories,

Some I remember:

Ravel's Le Tombeau de Couperin (I think that was the piece) actually depicted an excursion to various gay bars. I have no idea how he came up with that one.

Mahler's 7th Symphony was actually intended as an "anti-heroic" symphony, I guess modeled as a riposte to the Eroica or something like that. No sources were given for this interpretation.

The New World Symphony was actually one of the saddest, most depressing pieces ever written. That's because Dvorak was very sad in America (actually he enjoyed his time there, if his own statements are anything to go by).

[(poco) Sforzando]

Some I remember:

Ravel's Le Tombeau de Couperin (I think that was the piece) actually depicted an excursion to various gay bars. I have no idea how he came up with that one.

Mahler's 7th Symphony was actually intended as an "anti-heroic" symphony, I guess modeled as a riposte to the Eroica or something like that. No sources were given for this interpretation.

The New World Symphony was actually one of the saddest, most depressing pieces ever written. That's because Dvorak was very sad in America (actually he enjoyed his time there, if his own statements are anything to go by).

Yes, the premiere of the New World at Carnegie Hall was an absolute triumph. IIRC, Dvorak called it a success "a la Mascagni," referring to the rapturous acclaim given Cavalleria Rusticana.

[DavidW]

There was a gentleman named Don Satz, very knowledgeable about keyboard / baroque music. Didn't post that much but was an excellent source of information. He also reviewed for various websites (e.g. Musicweb) and posted (maybe reviewed too, I can't recall offhand) at bach-cantatas.com.

You use past tense like he died!  He posts on TC.

[T. D.]

You use past tense like he died!  He posts on TC.

Sorry, I edited the post.
I didn't recall his surname right away, Googled and the hits I looked at were pretty old.

[Spotted Horses]

You use past tense like he died!  He posts on TC.

...and here, fairly recently. He (bulldog) was here for a while when TC crashed and it took some time before it was put together again.

[DavidW]

...and here, fairly recently. He (bulldog) was here for a while when TC crashed and it took some time before it was put together again.

Oh I didn't know he came back!

[Spotted Horses]

Oh I didn't know he came back!

"Fairly recently" is relative. Probably was years ago, I see he is no longer registered. Over the years he transitioned from obsessive posting about the Goldberg Variations to games, and he went back to TC since the games did not find as loyal a following here, as I recall.