The Troll Void

[knight66]

He was also some kind of social worker or care worker; if you could believe anything he wrote. He once posted a photograph of himself; he looked so normal it was a bit unnerving. He had registered under a female persona for a while until his P&M fetish surfaced through the invented identity.

Mike

[Philoctetes]

He was also some kind of social worker or care worker; if you could believe anything he wrote. He once posted a photograph of himself; he looked so normal it was a bit unnerving. He had registered under a female persona for a while until his P&M fetish surfaced through the invented identity.

Mike

Yeah, when I first saw what he looked like; it definitely wasn't what I expected. He was a genuinely nice person, who just had some queer obsessions. I thoroughly enjoyed him.

Although, I like pretty much everyone.

[zamyrabyrd]

High in this list would be Contrapunctus, who constantly praised Glenn Gould in every context he could find (including using ridiculous honorifics such as "high lord"), until disappearing, briefly returning and announcing that he liked other pianists just as much now (possibly the most surprising u-turn I've ever seen on this or related forums). He didn't seem to have a bad bone in his body, nor malicious intent - he was just obsessed with that pianist and brought it into as many conversations as he could, derailing things severely

Glenn Gould was a funny guy to begin with, so it is not surprising a lot of mileage was gotten out of spoof and counter-spoof. Personally, while dodging the bullets, I did come to appreciate Gould more and more...

ZB

[Szykneij]

He is busy with his career and gets married next year.

   Wow -- many of his posts were so misogynistic, good luck to the (I assume) girl!

[ibanezmonster]

Then you're not a troll. Trolls never apologize to anyone for anything.

You guys have not mentioned the greatest CMG troll of all time, one who made even the many-talented Saul look like a rank amateur. I refer to none other than the great Mark Anstendig, the great might-have-been conductor and photographer, whose rantings and ravings against digital sound and defense of the LP were the most obsessive and bizarre collection of pseudo-thoughts I have encountered anywhere on the Net or off. One of Mark's pet theories, for example, was that Fiordiligi in "Per Pieta" was experiencing a female orgasm at the end of that aria, and that this could only be heard properly by Schwartzkopf on the Boehm recording, but only in analog, because when it was transferred to CD all the "expressive nuances" were lost. When I asked Mark if the soprano was actually supposed to frig herself on stage, and pointed out that nothing in the text or music supported such an interpretation, he got on his high horse and commenced an even ravier set of ravings than ever. They don't make 'em like Mark anymore. But once he was banned from CMG, he seems never to have resurfaced anywhere else (thank God). Good times, good times.

Do you have any links to this? That would be an amusing read.

[Gurn Blanston]

Do you have any links to this? That would be an amusing read.

CMG keeps all their old posts archived back to the beginning of time. If you can get an approximate date from Poco (and I'm thinking this was around 2005) then you can search their archive. It is (was?) divided up into quarters of the year.

[Josquin des Prez]

Well at least i'm still around. Ok i'm sick and everything but i can still pull out a good trolls every now and then, right?

[Gurn Blanston]

Well at least i'm still around. Ok i'm sick and everything but i can still pull out a good trolls every now and then, right?

Yeah, OK, I'll grant you that. But I don't think of you as sick, so much as.... well, OK, sick it is (I know what you really mean, but...).

[karlhenning]

. . . Sydney Grew used to annoy me with his bizarre locutions; the invented word 'Homosexualist' clearly made him smack his lips.

Hmm . . . FWIW (who knows if SG knew), that is a transliteration of an actual Russian word (itself, an adaptation of the English, to be sure).

[Archaic Torso of Apollo]

A bit of research reveals that the original Sydney Grew was a writer on music, born in 1879, and was associated with Gramophone magazine. And indeed, he wrote in a rather pompous and affected style, as we can see from this article, can we not:

http://www.gramophone.net/Issue/Page/December%201929/29/766786/THE+YEARS+RECORDS

As to whether the original Mr. Sydney Grew was a "homo-sexualist," we are not in a position to know.

[Cato]

On obsessions: I once knew a Latinist in Germany, who was obsessed with Silesia.  A very nice avuncular man, but EVERY conversation ultimately was twisted to touch, no matter how illogically, "Schlesien."

I recall the following dialogue quite well:

"Ah Herr T !  Nice to see you after a year!  What are you doing in Advanced Latin these days?"

"The usual: but did you know that the weather in Silesia is most excellent today?"   

And he was off mentally and spiritually to Silesia!   0:)

The obsession began when he discovered that an ancestor was born in Silesia, which had been part of Germany.  For some reason, this teacher's brain latched onto that, and Everything Silesian became a ne plus ultra for him suddenly.

So the Berliozian idée fixe transcends music quite easily.

[MishaK]

There was also a mysterious member called ' who, though not a troll; had a deeply irritating habit of making perfectly good and sound contributions to involved discussions, then to disrupt them by deleting all his posts. I often wondered what prompted that behaviour.

I completely forgot about " ' ".  Maybe because he erased his own history.

[jowcol]

Well at least i'm still around. Ok i'm sick and everything but i can still pull out a good trolls every now and then, right?

Sorry, but you don't come close, as there are documented cases of you actually doing research, providing examples and more detail on topic, and having a sense of humor.

Here's to hoping you feel better. 

[prémont]

There was also a mysterious member called ' who, though not a troll; had a deeply irritating habit of making perfectly good and sound contributions to involved discussions, then to disrupt them by deleting all his posts. I often wondered what prompted that behaviour.

DavidW has done similar things, nobody commenting about it. He may know.

[Sergeant Rock]

Mr. Grew is still a forum member--and here just two days ago although he hasn't posted since last August. Never a troll but one of the eccentrics (like Mr. Pink and Mr. PaulB). His posts were usually amusing...well, his language was anyway. On the philosopher Santayana:

Let it not be forgotten that he was also, as has been the case with nearly all truly great men, a homo-sexualist.

And without Grew I wouldn't have known this about Claudio Arrau

What a pity it was that Arrau got into such trouble in that public lavatory in Sydney! We remember the publicity very well as it happened at a time when we ourself were a youth coming to terms with homo-sexualism. On the night of Arrau's first appearance on the stage of Sydney Town Hall following his arrest, the sympathetic audience gave him a standing ovation even before he had time to seat himself at the pianoforte, which was encouraging to ourself as well as to Senor Arrau.

Richard Adeney that fine flautist relates in his recent autobiography "Flute" an amusing anecdote: "The LPO played several concerts with Claudio Arrau, the famous pianist. He was a quiet and self-controlled man, but, perhaps because of Pritchard's relaxing presence, during a rehearsal Arrau became entranced with one of the first violins, a blond young man. Because he was gazing so adoringly to his left away from the keyboard, he seemed to be hitting any old note, quite unlike his usual style of playing."

"The violinist, a conventional married man, was acutely embarrassed. 'What shall I do?' he asked me after the rehearsal. 'What's going to happen?' 'Well,' I said, 'don't do anything. He can't rape you on the platform in the middle of the concert. Don't be such a worry-guts.' There was no rape, but there was more gazing - and an awful lot of wrong notes."

Okay...maybe I really didn't need to know that 

Sarge

[Archaic Torso of Apollo]

Here's another semi-troll: Rod ("the Corkster") Corkin. A man who claims to love classical music but only listens to 2 composers; and is only capable of building up one composer (Handel) by putting down another (Bach). Lather, rinse, repeat....for 800+ posts 

[Florestan]

And without Grew I wouldn't have known this about Claudio Arrau


Okay...maybe I really didn't need to know that 

According to Wikipedia 

In 1937, Arrau married the mezzo-soprano Ruth Schneider, a German national, and they had three children: Carmen (1938–2006), Mario (1940–1988) and Christopher (1959).

Now, I know of many homosexuals who married a woman to save the appearance, but I've never heard of any who engendered three offsprings. 

Mr. SG had the annoying tendency of seeing homosexualists everywhere... maybe even where there was none.

[Brian]

Hmm . . . FWIW (who knows if SG knew), that is a transliteration of an actual Russian word (itself, an adaptation of the English, to be sure).

I'm sure Mr. Grew knew. After all, he was the fellow who continually developed his own Russian transliterations, most memorably Skryabine.

[MishaK]

Now, I know of many homosexuals who married a woman to save the appearance, but I've never heard of any who engendered three offsprings. 

I know one with two offspring. It's completely possible, though I certainly wouldn't want Mr. Grew as my only source of evidence. 

[Scarpia]

According to Wikipedia 

In 1937, Arrau married the mezzo-soprano Ruth Schneider, a German national, and they had three children: Carmen (1938–2006), Mario (1940–1988) and Christopher (1959).

Now, I know of many homosexuals who married a woman to save the appearance, but I've never heard of any who engendered three offsprings. 

Leonard Bernstein?