Composers about Composers - Stupidest Statements

[Florestan]

Probably the most famous is Tchaikovsky's labeling Brahms as a scoundrel and a giftless bastard. Bad enough, but at least he wrote that in his private diary. Publicly, he went along Brahms quite well, to the point of getting drunk together.

Delius, however, is on public record with this statement:

If a man tells me he likes Mozart, I know in advance that he is a bad musician.

Now, if you know of a more stupidest (sic!) statement a composer made about a fellow composer, please let me know. Thank you.



 

[DavidW]

"Listening to the fifth symphony of Ralph Vaughan Williams is like staring at a cow for 45 minutes." - Copland

[DavidW]

And from Stravinsky: "All you need to write like him [Messiaen] is a large bottle of ink."

[Iota]

And from Stravinsky: "All you need to write like him [Messiaen] is a large bottle of ink."

Stravinsky was wicked, cruel even sometimes, calling for example Rachmaninov, Rach-not-man-enough. But his barbs had the advantage at least of being clever and often funny. Not sure I'd say the same of Delius' comment.

[Florestan]

Stravinsky was wicked, cruel even sometimes, calling for example Rachmaninov, Rach-not-man-enough.

Wow! Never heard about this before. Source, please?

I'd say this is up there with Delius.

[Karl Henning]

My memory is no complete compendium, but the only comment of Stravinsky's on Rakhmaninov I recollect is something like, "Six feet of Russian gloom." Which must have impressed him (Stravinsky having been on the short side.)

[(poco) Sforzando]

"Listening to the fifth symphony of Ralph Vaughan Williams is like staring at a cow for 45 minutes." - Copland

What's so stupid about that?

[(poco) Sforzando]

What Stravinsky also said:

Stravinsky described Rachmaninoff's earliest pieces as "watercolors" but said that "at twenty-five he turned to 'oils' and became a very old composer. But," he continued, do not expect me to denigrate him for that. In fact he was an awesome man, and there are too many others to be denigrated long before him.

https://www.academia.edu/16092712/Rachmaninoff_and_Stravinsky_in_Los_Angeles_to_1943#:~:text=Stravinsky%20described%20Rachmaninoff%E2%80%99s%20earliest%20pieces%20as%20%E2%80%9Cwatercolors%E2%80%9D%20but

[Florestan]

What's so stupid about that?

Stupid is indeed not the right term. Imbecilic is more like it.

[Florestan]

What Stravinsky also said:

https://www.academia.edu/16092712/Rachmaninoff_and_Stravinsky_in_Los_Angeles_to_1943#:~:text=Stravinsky%20described%20Rachmaninoff%E2%80%99s%20earliest%20pieces%20as%20%E2%80%9Cwatercolors%E2%80%9D%20but

Stravinsky was also a big time idiot when it came to fellow composers.

You can/may quote me.

[Lisztianwagner]

Again from Stravinsky: "I say that in the aria 'La donna è mobile', for example, which the elite thinks only brilliant and superficial, there is more substance and feeling than in the whole of Wagner's Ring cycle".

[Karl Henning]

Stravinsky was also a big time idiot when it came to fellow composers.

You can/may quote me.

I suspected it would not be long before this thread became the "Whip Stravinsky" Chamber. 

[JBS]

I suspected it would not be long before this thread became the "Whip Stravinsky" Chamber.

Well, there's always Boulez.

Wagner and Berlioz made some biting comments along the way, although no specific examples spring to my mind.

And Wagner was the target of more than a few remarks, like Rossini's on Lohengrin.

[(poco) Sforzando]

I suspected it would not be long before this thread became the "Whip Stravinsky" Chamber.

"A masterpiece, and by an American composer" - Stravinsky on Carter's Double Concerto
"Doomed to a total failure in a deaf world of ignorance and indifference he inexorably kept on cutting out his diamonds, his dazzling diamonds, the mines of which he had such a perfect knowledge." - Stravinsky on Webern
"At 80, I have found new joy in Beethoven."
"The Great Fugue ... now seems to me the most perfect miracle in music. It is also the most absolutely contemporary piece of music I know, and contemporary forever ... Hardly birthmarked by its age, the Great Fugue is, in rhythm alone, more subtle than any music of my own century ... I love it beyond everything."

Right. Keep 'em coming.

[lordlance]

I agree with Stravinsky on Grosse Fugue. It's startling for its time and sounds modern even now. Beethoven had no peers in his time except perhaps Schubert and Rossini (both being quite relative to Beethoven's life and a bit of a stretch IMO.)

[hopefullytrusting]

I suspected it would not be long before this thread became the "Whip Stravinsky" Chamber.

One of the reasons I love Stravinsky so much is the very same reason I love Jonathan Franzen so much - they have actual opinions that they aren't afraid to say out loud.

[Iota]

Wow! Never heard about this before. Source, please?

I'd say this is up there with Delius.

Oh gosh, I have no idea about the source. It was told to me twenty or thirty years ago by a composer friend (and like me a Rachmaninov lover), and I had no reason to doubt it at the time. A quick google reveals nothing so perhaps it's apocryphal. I haven't seen said friend for ages, but I'll ask him next time our paths cross.
Genuine or not though, I still wouldn't equate it with the Delius, which just seems like the product of a lazy mind saying I don't like Mozart, so anybody else that does is stupid.
The 'Stravinsky quote is both funny (in a wicked way), and has an element of musical truth to it from Stravinsky's aesthetical pov. The fact that I love Rachmaninov's music makes no difference to my appreciation of Igor's satirical sharpness.

[DavidW]

One of the reasons I love Stravinsky so much is the very same reason I love Jonathan Franzen so much - they have actual opinions that they aren't afraid to say out loud.

I mean that is probably why Dave Hurwitz has such a large following.

[DavidW]

And Wagner was the target of more than a few remarks, like Rossini's on Lohengrin.

I think Handel has drawn the most criticism, though. It seems the one thing that has unified composers across the ages was sneering at Handel's music, especially his operas.

[(poco) Sforzando]

I think Handel has drawn the most criticism, though. It seems the one thing that has unified composers across the ages was sneering at Handel's music, especially his operas.

Beethoven thought Handel the greatest composer who ever lived. Then again, it's questionable how much of Handel's music Beethoven could have known. I'm really not aware of any composers sneering at Handel's operas; they were scarcely known until the middle of the 20th century.