Update to the post below: As a
literate person could have gathered from what I wrote, Chopin is not
my favorite composer. However, his music is an important part of
the piano literature so a piano major could hardly get out of a
reputable piano program at a university without playing him. It's a
difference between a musician and a toodler that a musician can play
music he doesn't especially love, doing what the composer asks be
done and being able to produce an acceptable performance. Orchestral
musicians are regularly asked to do that as they don't get to decide
what they're required to play.
Another trait of a
real musician is that they can respect a composer whose music they
don't particularly like, acknowledging, as I can the music of
Chopin, its originality for its period, its inventiveness, its
audacity and its technical competence if not brilliance. A toodler
thinks it's all a matter of preference and if you don't like it - or
more likely think that you're not supposed to like it, toodlers don't usually have very mature personalities. Especially not when they're
trying to get themselves out of having made a fool of themselves in
public. The bigger fools among them are quite able to do that over
and over again without learning from the experience.
Let me just say
that I have more respect for the opinion of Robert Schumann,(Hats off,
Gentlemen, a genius!), Johannes Brahms, Debussy (“Chopin is the
greatest of all. For with the piano alone he discovered
everything."), Bartok (hear the example linked to), not to
mention a huge number of some of the greatest pianists to have ever
touched the instrument .... than for a washed up, third-tier,
pop-music reviewer. I don't have to like Chopin's music in
preference to others, but I have no problem admitting that it is
great music. Anyone who doesn't understand that, in just about every
way, Chopin was a greater composer than Gottschalk, Grieg,
Granger,.... is a silly billy.
Update: You give me material and I feel like using it, I'm going to use it, Stupy.
Update: You give me material and I feel like using it, I'm going to use it, Stupy.
Who the fuck ever said Gottschalk and Granger were better than Chopin?
ReplyDeleteJeebus, Sparky, if that straw man was any more fully stuffed he'd have to go to the Emerald City and ask the Wizard for a brain.
"The bigger fools among them are quite able to do that over and over again without learning from the experience. "
ReplyDeleteDo you have any mirrors in your house, or is there some kind of Dracula thing going on at Chez Sparky?
In other words, you can't answer my question.
ReplyDeleteQuel surprise.
" It's a difference between a musician and a toodler that a musician can play music he doesn't especially love, doing what the composer asks be done and being able to produce an acceptable performance. Orchestral musicians are regularly asked to do that as they don't get to decide what they're required to play. "
ReplyDeleteSo can the people who play in wedding bands. If that's your idea of a great creative way to spend your life, enjoy.