YOU CAN GET PEOPLE to buy nonsense and even entertainment junk, doesn't mean it signifies anything. I remember when they successfully gulled more than a million people into buying . . . And Ladies of the Club because the old bat who wrote it was old and previously unpublished, but I'll bet almost no one read that massive pile of crap once they started.
There's lots of crap that gets peddled, most of the big-name writers of my lifetime were heavily sold through promotion and discussion of their stuff while they were alive but most of them, including some of the biggest names with the biggest careers fell almost immediately into non-readership as soon as they dropped off the twig. I once asked who reads John Updike or Gore Vidal unless some college teacher assigns them. Most of the books published are in that category, including lots of NYT best sellers. No, most of publishing is as much PR as selling junk food or over-priced tech, it's no more elevated than that.
Update: More Hate: No, I've never been fat, I used to be called scrawny then wiry and I've lost weight since then (tendency to hyperthyrodism). If I weighed 500lb wouldn't make what I said about the asshole who snarked about the death of the Granados' by drowning less true. He's an asshole.
I've known several very fat people who were among the most generous people I've known and I've known more than a few of my fellow thin men who were selfish, stingy uncaring assholes. BMI has little to do with whether or not someone is a good person. I'm hardly as nice as many of the fat people of my acquaintance, a number of them would not push back on this like I have and would be a lot more polite than I'm willing to be with such a total asshole as you are.
FROM OUR DEPARTMENT OF REDUNDANCY DEPARTMENT:
ReplyDelete"And Ladies of the Club because the old bat who wrote it was old..."
You just can't help yourself, Sparky. I should add that this is particularly hilarious in that the subtext of your adolescent rant is bad writing. :-)
Temporarily posted so I can point out the stupid idiot who posted this is stupid and he as so many who are merely college credentialed doesn't know what redundancy is and what it isn't, depending on a slogan of pop prescriptive grammar instead of thinking. If they had to fall back on thinking they'd most certainly fall into folly, anyway.
DeleteOh, and BTW, speaking of idiots like you, here's a clue sweetums. Writers -- like artists in all fields -- go in and out of fashion and occasionally revived all the fucking time. You are aware, for example, that Vivaldi was all but unknown in classical music circles until the arrival of the LP era?
ReplyDeleteReally? You didn't know that? Why am I not surprised?
Posted in reference to his trolling of me last weekend, so that I can point out that that trope of LP record note erudition would seem to have been news to the great violinist Fritz Kreisler who wrote an ersatz Vivaldi Concerto for him to perform in the 1920s, recording it in the 1940s before LPs because he figured people would more likely accept a piece by Vivaldi than the same piece by Fritz Kreisler, changing it to "in the style of Vivaldi" after the skepticism of musicologists as to its authenticity forced him to admit he wrote it. While he may have been unknown to the lower end of mid-brow record buyers, Vivaldi was hardly unknown among musicians, especially those who played baroque music. While I am not interested enough to look for the performance history of Vivaldi or such things as the famous J.S. Bach transcriptions of about a dozen of his concertos for solo keyboard, I would bet that there were any number of those performed and perhaps recorded before mid-brows discovered an LP of The four Seasons.
Delete"I would bet that there were any number of those performed and perhaps recorded before mid-brows discovered an LP of The four Seasons."
ReplyDeleteIn other words, you have no idea what you're talking about and are depending on the splendid research of Dr. Otto Yerass.
Fact: Vivaldi was not repertoire till after the beginning of the LP era. Mid-brows? Go fuck yourself, you hick nitwit snob piece of shit.
I presented evidence to back up my contention that Vivaldi's music was certainly known of before the LP era, or do you think I pulled Kreisler's ersatz Vivaldi concerto out of there, maybe him as well. Herr Kreisler was known for his humor so he might have had an amusing remark or at least a charming witticism about your notion of that's where I produced those from. I think you're pissed off because I correctly identified the source of your, um, knowledge of Vivaldi's posthumous career. I would like to know the performance history of the Bach transcriptions of the Vivaldi and other Italian concertos because I'll bet those were played not infrequently, especially the ones for organ, certainly in the period after the Bach Gesellschaft Edition was published.
DeleteDon't believe everything you read on the backs of LPs or coming out of the mouths of radio classical music announcers (they, as you, skimmed the record jacket). As to the modern period in which public performance, touring virtuosos and the idea of a "repertoire" of non-operatic music you talk of developed, Vivaldi's public performance certainly was aided by the recordings, which, by the way, of The Four Seasons preceded the LP. I wouldn't be surprised if radio play of those earliest recordings was what led to the early LPs. I did do some looking around and found that Arnold Dolmetsch was making and publishing transcriptions of Vivaldi's music, especially through the Bach transcriptions even earlier, I don't know if those were played at his early music concerts but I doubt he would have withheld them from those. A number of early composers whose music fell from wider public notice were revived through Dolmetsch, his family and his students and associates. I've played some of Vivaldi's music, as an accompanist, I recall something I believe was a Carl Fischer edition but, alas, I don't recall the date of its publication. Wish I knew, it might be relevant.
You also know that J.S. Bach was completely out fashion for a century until Felix Mendelssohn spearheaded a revival, right?
ReplyDeleteOh you didn't know that? Why am I not surprised? :-)
The idea that the music of JS Bach was unknown until Mendelssohn did the famous performance of the St. Matthew Passion is ridiculous. Mozart knew some of it, arranging some of the fugues for string trio and composing pieces that, while not "in the style of" display simlarities to Bach's music, Beethoven knew it (as did any number of those around him at least one of whom commented on his mastery of Book 1 of the Well Tempered Clavier) Chopin whose preludes were inspired by the WTC, those who read Forkel's biography of him, those who studied his Chorales published posthumously by his sons, certainly organists knew at least some of his music.
DeleteHowever, here, even if that myth were true it wouldn't do what you think it does because Mendelssohn's performance was from, as I recall 1837, well before the LP era, or do you figure it's recorded on 12" vinyl? I doubt there's much of anything you could say about music I didn't know years ago, obviously I'm even aware of the false bits of common received erudition such as you learned from skimming the backs of LPs.
There is evidence that Mendelssohns' knowledge of Bach was a common family possession as one of his aunts ran a salon which featured performances of Bach's music - as I recall reading she was a student of W.F. Bach who certainly would have taught his fathers music. Speaking of which, it's certain that CPE Bach would have taught his father's music - musicians are the ones who really keep a composers' music alive, not the audience.
Bach was not repertoire until Mendelssohn repopularized him. This is a matter of historical record.
ReplyDeleteIt boggles the mind that you're both incredibly obtuse and a shameless liar.
You clearly have an anachronistic view of what "repertoire" would have been in the early 19th century, Most keyboard music, other than organ music, most chamber music would have been played at home, in private. The playing of even entire Beethoven Sonatas on concert programs is a later development. I'm not sure that because the fully common thing it became until after Mendelssohn's death. At any rate your claim is frivolous because familiarity with Bach's music was clearly common among practicing and, especially professional musicians all during the period from is life until the publication of the BG Edition in the mid 19th century. Mendelssohn's own familiarity with it was, in fact, a family tradition, his great aunt apparently participated in performances of his Motets in the 1790s inim Berlin. Mendelssohn's knowledge of the St. Matthew Passion is based in a hand-written copy his grandmother presented to him as a young man, he was familiar with other works through his father who not only was a collector of Bach manuscripts but a generous donor of them to German institutions. It is not credible to believe that all of that happened without any of them ever playing the works.
DeleteMaybe I should point out that until Clara Schumann popularized the practice of playing from memory in concert, almost all performances were played from the written music. It makes me curious to see when that use of what I'd guess was a theatrical concept, having "a repertoire" for concerts and recital performance started. Words have a history, sometimes they can reveal a more general history, especially of performance practice. Though I know you read someone disdaining historically performed practice somewhere and despise it, was it on a record album? An LP reissue of an old-fashioned, romantic style distortion of Bach?
Delete"However, here, even if that myth were true it wouldn't do what you think it does because Mendelssohn's performance was from, as I recall 1837, well before the LP era, or do you figure it's recorded on 12" vinyl? "
ReplyDeleteIt's official -- you're clinically insane and an illiterate.
Oh, you don't seem to realize that 1837 was before the LP era and you figure you've got the authority to "officially" declare someone criminally insane and illiterate on the evidence that I know that. I don't know about official, but it's obvious that you are too stupid to understand how time works.
Delete