riddle Shostakovich

[Scarpia]

Not from the book!! That's a blatant lie!!!!!
Dr. Henning. Anyone who owns a copy can refer to the pages I have cited. What are you doing?!

Since your passion seems to mainly be for classifying things, I suggest you give up classical music and take up stamp collecting.

[Benny]

"Whatever!", to quote our drug-addicted younger generation. Reason will not prevail here. I cite and it's rejected. I draw attention to composers, non-Soviet composers, who wished to be more "real," less Romantic, and it's rejected too. I argue with the scholar that poetry is very real, in some instances, and greatly influenced some composers, but he persists with the dogma that classical music is abstract and must be differentiated from other arts. I refer to technologically realistic works, but no comment on that. I mention how Bartok's Miraculous Mandarin has recently been analyzed as a portrayal of the underside of urban life, but it's ridiculed.

Frankly, I really don't give a hoot about your close mindedness. And, incidentally, you do demonstrate, one after the other, what I mean in my signature.


Take care of your cherished ideas.

[Benny]

Go to hell, Scarpia. You really don't make any sense anyway.

[Scarpia]

Frankly, I really don't give a hoot about your close mindedness. And, incidentally, you do demonstrate, one after the other, what I mean in my signature.

I think if there is someone here who could learn from your signature, it is you.   

[Benny]

And this from a person who never stopped to think about the first post in this thread before he opened his mouth, again, and again, and again. Which I stated before. Which you still don't understand. Which is why I believe you make no sense.

[Scarpia]

And this from a person who never stopped to think about the first post in this thread before he opened his mouth, again, and again, and again. Which I stated before. Which you still don't understand. Which is why I believe you make no sense.

One way to respond to the first post of the thread is to reject the idea that it is useful to put a label on Shostakovich.

Aside from that, threads are conversations, and are not slavishly tied to the original post.  It is perfectly valid to respond to an notion raised in the course of the discussion without referring everything to the original post.

Again, the rigidity of your thinking is an impediment to discussion.

[Benny]

More smoke in my eyes. You never so responded to the original thread, only to my suggestion that there's a "realist" vein among some composers. And what was your response? That I had a tendency to classify! In a threat about classification!!! Your logic, sir, is not really impressive.

[karlhenning]

Ah, Benny — master of the non-answer!

[Scarpia]

More smoke in my eyes. You never so responded to the original thread, only to my suggestion that there's a "realist" vein among some composers. And what was your response? That I had a tendency to classify! In a threat about classification!!! Your logic, sir, is not really impressive.

That is correct, I disagree with the implication in the original post that there is a necessity, or even an advantage, in classifying Shostakovitch.  That is just as valid a response to the original post as any other.  I fail to see what logic has to do with it.

[karlhenning]

One way to respond to the first post of the thread is to reject the idea that it is useful to put a label on Shostakovich.

Aside from that, threads are conversations, and are not slavishly tied to the original post.  It is perfectly valid to respond to an notion raised in the course of the discussion without referring everything to the original post.

Again, the rigidity of your thinking is an impediment to discussion.

QFT

[karlhenning]

[P]lease list 40 works by Shostakovich which are "realist," and the musical characteristics of each which justify the label.

The question stands, Benny.

Only if you can give up the comfort of your smoke-machines, to be sure.

[Benny]

You know as well as I do that any artistic mind cannot be so cataloged in every work, Dr. Henning. My reference to Bartok is about specific works, not his entire life production. Similarly with everybody else, including Honegger. To state that some composers had a tendency to be "realist" is not to compile a list of forty works in which they were.

(parenthetically, your notion that classical music can never be realist leaves room for absolutely no such work!)

Shostakovich can be understood as using irony to challenge conventional representations of reality (my signature, right?)

Don't tell me that you know the meaning of his irony!! Nobody can have such a certainty. If I am correct and his sarcasm and irony serve a critical purpose, if I'm correct and his blunt representations of unwanted realities serve to challenge conventionally accepted "reality," then he is indeed a very realist composer.

[Benny]

In reply to your silly quantitative request, I would thus encourage you to question how you understand his irony in classical music.

[karlhenning]

You know as well as I do that any artistic mind cannot be so cataloged in every work, Dr. Henning.

Not asking for every work, smokemeister, I asked only for 40.  I figured that 40 works out of 147 might justify a label.

And, what a surprise!  Another non-answer from the Bennster!  What a clown!

[karlhenning]

In reply to your silly quantitative request

Hah, hah, hah! I guess asking for a definition was a "silly quantitative request," too!

No, no surprise -- you aren't ready to give up your smokescreen.  If you were an emperor, Benny, what sort of wardrobe do you suppose you would have, hmmm?

[Benny]

You're calling names --indicative that reason is no longer the operative field. My logic is sound. I'm not questioning yours like you did mine. I rest confident in my beliefs, however temporary they are, in 2010. You can hang on to your totally exclusive dogma about reality in classical music.

In the end, my mind is willing to consider the possibility, as Ross put it, that composers thought about this.

In your comments, you revealed that you blocked that possibility out.

That's the truth. Anyone who has been following this exchange knows it too.

Live with the "absolute" impact of your words.


(and keep your personal attacks going; they're being treated just like your own smoke screens).

[greg]

Dude... someone needs to seriously chill. You're really starting to make me laugh, and I'm almost starting to feel bad about it...

[Benny]

I need to chill. It's so damn hot this year. Have you got a recipe? Bet you that Shostakovich was pretty tense in 1942 (what? no laughing smiley around here?)

[greg]

If you live anywhere near where I do, I can understand. I work outside, and if I actually focused on how much I constantly sweat, I would probably start throwing stuff.

[Benny]

I did that five days ago -- focusing on how much I was sweating. Ten minutes into this scenario I asked myself: "Is it worth it?"

The answer was, well, complicated. Economically, it was negative. A stupid exercise. But then I thought about my pores and their particular needs and I stuck in there for another hour or so.