Composers' Dirty Laundry

[karlhenning]

First post - I've been long told by Brian to post on here, as I'm a Music History/Musicologist major at a music school and always love a good discussion, but I'm also very lazy.

Welcome! Any friend of Brian's, &c.

Also, to throw out something, reflect on the rather creep origins of Berlioz's Symphonie Fantastique. Does our knowing about his stalker/obsessive tendencies color what we think or how we interpret the story.

"Stalker tendencies" I think is quite a harsh coloring of the circs (I allow that you're being rhetorical);  we aren't talking Mark David Chapman, for mercy's sake.

OTOH, I also think that Lenny was guilty of a stretch with his "Berlioz Takes a Trip" wheeze.

[DavidRoss]

OTOH, I also think that Lenny was guilty of a stretch with his "Berlioz Takes a Trip" wheeze.

Wasn't Berlioz a poppy head?

[snyprrr]

Maybe I should have titled this thread "Wasn't Berlioz a Poppy Head." I wonder if we would have gotten HERE, though...

wow- I was wondering how this thread ballooned to five pages, and then I read that Britten piece.

uh...I don't know what to say. That was one of the sickest things I've ever read (but of course that's exactly what I'd been hoping for!). oy oy oy...so, you all say that Wright's wrong? Honestly, I'm still reeling. My first question was, if Wright was born in 1946, he certainly wouldn't have been very old when he got all this, right?

I mean, can't anyone verify something as simple as Britten's alleged horrendous temper? I mean, I know gay spoiled brats who act like what Wright claims (just not famous). It seems to come with the territory. And honestly, Wright's assessment seemed like par for the course with megalomaniacs, like, is it really THAT shocking? But did all those other British composers (Walton, Arnold, etc) really hate Britten? With astounding claims one needs outstanding proof...any independent varification? Amazing how they apparently hated Britten's music. I have found it sort of lacking, perhaps, but never offensively, as I do with Philip Glass (a jew a jew, blame the jews!).

However, the Reger comment, yea (however Stanford could have simply been repeating a great line...not that I'm defending Wright, just that it could have been a repetition).

oh...I feel like I'm going to be sick.

I did also read his essay on Morals and Character, which is kind of the question I've been begging here, and I think Wright makes many interesting points (including Rachmaninov recovering).

Well, apparently none of us here at GMG have come up with a character quite like Wright's Britten, and for me, it seems neccesary to HAVE  a character so vile to do this comparing of art/morals (perhaps painters would be easier). I must admit, Britten's music has a distinctiveness about it that sort of sets it apart (one of those things I can't really put my finger in...oops, I mean, on).

I mean, with film directors, this kind of debate would seem easier, no? Hitchcock, Pasolini, Vanderhoven?, Visconti...I mean, a Calvinist director isn't going to direct "Salo." Go with what you know.

Someone here wrote, (paraphrasing) "pedophilia...anti-semitism...and if there is anything worse..." I'd love to know "what's worse." It seems like the general consensus that these are the worst things a man can be.

I don't want to touch "anti-semitism" right now, because a few differing points have been brought up, and I don't want to impede the flow of this Britten thing until we have beaten that to death first. (no idea which smiley face to "insert" here (oh boy, the puns are showing through...there goes my career).

Still, I think this Britten thing is important, because either it's (fairly) true, or it is slanderous libel, which is a crime also.

The problem if it is true is that that may mean there are other "untouchables" who have been given a pass.

Igor, have you ever attended a black mass?

Thankfully I am ambivilant towards Britten's music, so this thing doesn't really affect me. HOWEVER, had it been Finzi!!! I would probably be stinking drunk by now.

But please, can we get some more verifiables and less opinions? I think the "disturbing" factor warrents it.

Boy did I open a can of worms. I feel dirty.

[matti]

I think the pre-Pravda-editorial output indicates that Shostakovich possessed musical greatness regardless of the roller coaster which was his life after.  And he was certainly nothing mentally torn;  his musical discipline is legendary.

All true, of course, and I'm not trying to romanticize his misery at all. Under different circumstances his work would have been equally masterful, only different. But wouldn't you say being forced to constantly throw curveballs added an extra dimension to his compositions?

[Archaic Torso of Apollo]

When Wright eschews comments on the personal lives of his subjects and concentrates on their music he is informative and-as far as I can judge from his discussion of works I have heard-his musical judgments are pretty sound.

I beg to differ. I recall a Wright article which said (paraphrasing) "fine a composer as Mozart was, he pales in comparison to the genius that was Salieri."

He also wrote an extensive article trashing Beethoven's late quartets.

The guy is entertaining, though.

[snyprrr]

Why I just spent an hour trolling through British pedophile sites is beyond me, but apparently Lewis Carroll, Baden-Powell (founder of the boy scouts), Barrie (Peter Pan) and even my dear departed step father's hero Montgomery had some issues. Of course Britten figures also. That was David hemmings the actor? How bout that.

Uh....I really wasn't ready to step in such a pile. Sorry, call me naive, but Lewis Carroll, Barrie, and Baden-Powell? ugh ugh ugh

In the words of Johnny Carson, "I did not know that."

No confirmation of Wright, just the "established" theory that he never acted on his thoughts, an "intellectual pedophile," well, except for a story about a dual family trip (forget the boy's name) that ended with Britten leaving early after an apparently unsuccessful midnight bedroom visit to his friend.

I'll admit that I only got a few pages into the search before my lunch came up, so...

Anyhow...I can't even think right now (Lewis Carroll?). Sorry if I tend to believe the possibility of Wright's accusations, but I had a near miss when I was young (a priest), and have a few personal examples of artists who travelled down the road of "oh youth, thy flower buds."

I tend to believe the arts are full of mostly creeps.

I also ran into more art/morality forums which further deepened the issue we've been discussing. Sorry if I can't seem to formulate any thoughts right now, but it does seem like the actual notes of music are what is being held hostage.

I think I've learned more today about the artistic/human condition than I have for a while, and I'm not sure I'm willing to share that with you right now.

Perhaps when I started the thread I figured that by simple statistics there MUST be a monster composer out there somewhere, but I wasn't prepared to contemplate the things into which I have stepped. And I'm not neccesarily talking about Britten anymore.

Why do we tolerate behaviour in artists that we wouldn't in others? I'm starting to think the whole "art" thing is a load of crap if this is to be our double standard. Many serial killers think of their wet work as art, too.

"oh, but he wrote so beautifully.." yea, ok.

Dirty laundry, indeed. Yuk.

[Florestan]

There are exceptions, there are exceptions. They are just the lucky ones.

Your views on art and artists are romanticized and distorted.

[Dundonnell]

I beg to differ. I recall a Wright article which said (paraphrasing) "fine a composer as Mozart was, he pales in comparison to the genius that was Salieri."

He also wrote an extensive article trashing Beethoven's late quartets.

The guy is entertaining, though.

Sorry...I should have qualified my remarks to say that I was speaking only about Wright's articles on the British composers I cited on Musicweb.

[Superhorn]

  Oops!  I did mean to say fortunately about Britten. Freudian slip?
  That's what women psychiatrists wear under their dresses.
    I've also heard that one of the original lines in the libretto of Billy Budd was "clear the deck of seamen !  But they thought this was such a hilarious double entendre it was eliminated.
  Do coprophiliacs like to go to the poop deck of ships?


                           

[springrite]

Why don't we get rid of the pretentious excuse of "composers'...", thus making it appear to be related to music, and simply talk about "dirty laundry" or, even better, "dirty", period.

[karlhenning]

Great shots at http://www.dirtpile.com/.

The real dirt on that site:  They couldn't be bothered to hire a copy editor, so the Directory is misspelled.

[Joe Barron]

Why don't we get rid of the pretentious excuse of "composers'...", thus making it appear to be related to music, and simply talk about "dirty laundry" or, even better, "dirty", period.

Biography is nothing more than highminded gossip. Literature, too: Look at Oedipus. look at Hamlet. It's all dish. The fact that it's well-written is just a bonus. 

[Solitary Wanderer]

It's interesting that in classical music guides they always refer to Britten and Pears being 'lifelong partners etc' which sounds romanticised and idealistic, then you read some of the gossip from these pages and your toes curl...

[Bulldog]

Great shots at http://www.dirtpile.com/.

The real dirt on that site:  They couldn't be bothered to hire a copy editor, so the Directory is misspelled.

But they do have some good looking dirt to sell.

[Senta]

Sinfonia seductiva
By Brian
I. Allegro aggressivo
II. Toccata temptosa
III. Serenata sensitiva (quasi una casanova)
IV. Rondo alla pollaca in missionario posizione

OMG Brian I can't believe you HA!

Anyway - all this talk of Wagner and anti-semiticism, what about Wagner and homosexuality? King Ludwig II was obsessed with him and also infatuated romantically from what I understand - did Wagner ever return the affection? Or perhaps did he only to lead on Ludwig so he would fund completion of The Ring? I never continued with my Wagner research enough to dig up more on how faaar that relationship went.

Leonard Bernstein, everyone knows about his follies - I just can't quite figure out if he was truly bi or actually just gay and tried to keep up appearances.

I once read something interesting about Lukas Foss and his wife Cornelia - she had a longstanding affair with Glenn Gould, I think it was quite secret and not known until years later or something?

For more dirty laundry, albeit not from a composer, check out Toscanini's letters......oooh, raunchy stuff lol. Talk about a true Italian casanova!

[DavidRoss]

Anyway - all this talk of Wagner and anti-semiticism, what about Wagner and homosexuality? King Ludwig II was obsessed with him and also infatuated romantically from what I understand - did Wagner ever return the affection? Or perhaps did he only to lead on Ludwig so he would fund completion of The Ring? I never continued with my Wagner research enough to dig up more on how faaar that relationship went.

Leonard Bernstein, everyone knows about his follies - I just can't quite figure out if he was truly bi or actually just gay and tried to keep up appearances.

But who cares about homosexuality per se?  I realize that was considered shameful in a past age, but don't most of us today recognize people's sexuality as their private business--whether straight, gay, or in-between--as long as they don't violate the rights of others? 

[karlhenning]

But they do have some good looking dirt to sell.

Some of it downright historical.

[snyprrr]

Yaaah, one of my threads finally hit 100!!!
SNYPRrR'S FIRST 100!!!      SNYPRRR'S FIRST 100!!!   SNYPRrR'S FIRST 100!!!Woohoo...sorry it had to be this one!

[The Six]

snyprrr's going to remind us that he started this topic every page, now

[DavidRoss]

No bleach or starch, please.