"Drinking the Kool-Aid"

Started by Bogey, August 04, 2013, 08:32:35 AM

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DavidW

At a concert that I attended a few months ago the audience went wild for Bolero, my reaction was meh.  And I was more excited than they were for Petrushka.  It was weird to be off from everyone else, including the people I went to the concert with.

Archaic Torso of Apollo

Shouldn't this thread be called "Throwing up the Kool-Aid"?
formerly VELIMIR (before that, Spitvalve)

"Who knows not strict counterpoint, lives and dies an ignoramus" - CPE Bach

Karl Henning

Quote from: DavidW on August 05, 2013, 02:20:53 PM
At a concert that I attended a few months ago the audience went wild for Bolero, my reaction was meh.  And I was more excited than they were for Petrushka.  It was weird to be off from everyone else, including the people I went to the concert with.

Aye, I've been to a few concerts like that  :)
Karl Henning, Ph.D.
Composer & Clarinetist
Boston MA
http://www.karlhenning.com/
[Matisse] was interested neither in fending off opposition,
nor in competing for the favor of wayward friends.
His only competition was with himself. — Françoise Gilot

Sergeant Rock

Quote from: karlhenning on August 06, 2013, 04:14:56 AM
Aye, I've been to a few concerts like that  :)

Oh yeah...like a lukewarm reception at Severance for a great Bruckner Ninth conducted by Barenboim (a symphony Danny Boy has always conducted masterfully) or, in Mannheim, a Berg Violin Concerto (Zimmerman violin, Rasilainen conducting) where more than half the audience refused to applaud (I'm not exaggerating when I say I was the only one in the entire balcony clapping). I left both concert halls shaking my head in disbelief.

Sarge
the phone rings and somebody says,
"hey, they made a movie about
Mahler, you ought to go see it.
he was as f*cked-up as you are."
                               --Charles Bukowski, "Mahler"

aukhawk

Haitink in Shostakovich.  Just missing the point, to my ears.

The new erato

Quote from: aukhawk on August 06, 2013, 06:43:45 AM
Haitink in Shostakovich.  Just missing the point, to my ears.
In the enigmatic 15th, I find Haitink great, perhaps because the point is so obscure.

DavidW

Quote from: Sergeant Rock on August 06, 2013, 04:29:09 AM
Oh yeah...like a lukewarm reception at Severance for a great Bruckner Ninth conducted by Barenboim (a symphony Danny Boy has always conducted masterfully) or, in Mannheim, a Berg Violin Concerto (Zimmerman violin, Rasilainen conducting) where more than half the audience refused to applaud (I'm not exaggerating when I say I was the only one in the entire balcony clapping). I left both concert halls shaking my head in disbelief.

Sarge

Wow.  Just wow.

DavidW

Time to throw up public radio listener's kool aid. 

American Public Radio offers a single movement of the most inoffensive music around, and then immediately returns to the yacking.  And then they repeat this formula forever.

"Now that we've heard a movement from CPE Bach's Sinfonia #6 [though they just say symphony sigh] let's return to our guest who runs the highly unique museum on bottle caps..." I'm making this up but it's not far from the real broadcast.

I'm not sure who their audience is and why they are so insipid but I throw up their kool aid!!

Okay I will grant you that they will occasionally depart from that format to offer Performance Today, but not that often.

Pat B

Quote from: DavidW on August 06, 2013, 07:43:23 AM
American Public Radio offers a single movement of the most inoffensive music around, and then immediately returns to the yacking.  And then they repeat this formula forever.
...
Okay I will grant you that they will occasionally depart from that format to offer Performance Today, but not that often.

Excerpts... ouch. I don't think I would listen to that much.

I like Performance Today... or I did, before my local classical station cancelled it. Other than that I can't complain about them. Most of what they play is complete and not in my collection.

Brian

Quote from: Pat B on August 06, 2013, 08:43:15 AM
Excerpts... ouch. I don't think I would listen to that much.

I like Performance Today... or I did, before my local classical station cancelled it. Other than that I can't complain about them. Most of what they play is complete and not in my collection.
Classic FM in the UK is the worst classical station in the universe. I listened to a request program once and someone wrote in to request "a prelude and fugue from Bach's Well-Tempered Clavier." So they played only the prelude.

Mirror Image

Quote from: Brian on August 06, 2013, 09:28:14 AM
Classic FM in the UK is the worst classical station in the universe. I listened to a request program once and someone wrote in to request "a prelude and fugue from Bach's Well-Tempered Clavier." So they played only the prelude.

I think most classical radio stations are 100% crap. Why subject yourself to the mind-numbing, moronic squabbling of commentators who can't even pronounce Wagner's name correctly? No joke. I was listening to Georgia Public Radio one night and some flunky pronounced Wagner's name incorrectly. He said "Wagner" not "Vagner." ::)

Brian

Quote from: Mirror Image on August 06, 2013, 09:42:13 AM
I think most classical radio stations are 100% crap. Why subject yourself to the mind-numbing, moronic squabbling of commentators who can't even pronounce Wagner's name correctly? No joke. I was listening to Georgia Public Radio one night and some flunky pronounced Wagner's name incorrectly. He said "Wagner" not "Vagner." ::)
I mean, I don't know how to pronounce Wojciech Kilar and struggle with Mieczyslaw Karlowicz, but...

Archaic Torso of Apollo

Quote from: Brian on August 06, 2013, 09:28:14 AM
Classic FM in the UK is the worst classical station in the universe. I listened to a request program once and someone wrote in to request "a prelude and fugue from Bach's Well-Tempered Clavier." So they played only the prelude.

No, the worst station in the universe is a station in the Princeton, NJ area, I forget the name or call letters. One morning, they played the first two mvts. of Sibelius' 4th Symphony, and the DJ then came on and said, "Uh, that was Cy Beelius, symphonies 4 and 6."
formerly VELIMIR (before that, Spitvalve)

"Who knows not strict counterpoint, lives and dies an ignoramus" - CPE Bach

Karl Henning

Broadcasting from Grover's Mill, with DJ John Big Booty . . . .
Karl Henning, Ph.D.
Composer & Clarinetist
Boston MA
http://www.karlhenning.com/
[Matisse] was interested neither in fending off opposition,
nor in competing for the favor of wayward friends.
His only competition was with himself. — Françoise Gilot

Gurn Blanston

Quote from: Velimir on August 06, 2013, 10:22:00 AM
No, the worst station in the universe is a station in the Princeton, NJ area, I forget the name or call letters. One morning, they played the first two mvts. of Sibelius' 4th Symphony, and the DJ then came on and said, "Uh, that was Cy Beelius, symphonies 4 and 6."

I thought that was spelled 'Sy', short for Seymour Beelius. Seymour, play less.... ;)

8)
Visit my Haydn blog: HaydnSeek

Haydn: that genius of vulgar music who induces an inordinate thirst for beer - Mily Balakirev (1860)

The new erato

Quote from: Velimir on August 06, 2013, 10:22:00 AM
No, the worst station in the universe is a station in the Princeton, NJ area, I forget the name or call letters. One morning, they played the first two mvts. of Sibelius' 4th Symphony, and the DJ then came on and said, "Uh, that was Cy Beelius, symphonies 4 and 6."
If you listen to them long enough, you will hear Cy Belius' 8th symphony. Be patient.

Dancing Divertimentian

Quote from: The new erato on August 06, 2013, 11:27:49 AM
If you listen to them long enough, you will hear Cy Belius' 8th symphony. Be patient.

:D


Veit Bach-a baker who found his greatest pleasure in a little cittern which he took with him even into the mill and played while the grinding was going on. In this way he had a chance to have the rhythm drilled into him. And this was the beginning of a musical inclination in his descendants. JS Bach

bigshot

For me, it's Haitink's Debussy. Rosettes, raves, it sounds bland to me. The sound is thick and muddled too.

Drasko

Muti's Philadelphia Scriabin. It seems like pretty much everyone's go-to set, and it doesn't sound bad at first listen, but something always felt wrong and when I did some detailed a-b comparisons (clips should still be available somewhere on the board) found that shocking amount of detail is nowhere to be heard, blended, smoothed over and completely buried - Karajan-at-his-worst style. Ditched the set promptly.

Zimerman's second Chopin Concerti set, the one with him conducting Polish orchestra. His first recording with Guilini is one of the finest middle of the road performances one I easily recommend to anybody. His second is just pigheadedly wrong, Chopin isn't Brahms and blowing every aspect of performance out of proportion won't make it so. Concertos as beached whales.

Jean-Marc Luisada's Chopin Mazurkas (DG, haven't heard his later attempts). There is a moment when taking liberties crosses into caricature.

Reinbert de Leeuw's Satie. Just too slow for me, never could finish a single piece. To paraphrase one of my favorite film directors: 'Waiting for de Leeuw's next note is like waiting for a child to scream after a fall'.

Sergeant Rock

Quote from: Drasko on August 07, 2013, 01:18:36 AM
Reinbert de Leeuw's Satie. Just too slow for me, never could finish a single piece. To paraphrase one of my favorite film directors: 'Waiting for de Leeuw's next note is like waiting for a child to scream after a fall'.

I love de Leeuw's Satie but it's obviously not for everyone. I discovered that a few years ago when I decided to introduce a friend to Satie's world by presenting her with the single disc of Gymnopédies, Gnossiennes and Sarabandes. I then watched horrified as she frowned her way through the first piece before giving up  :D

Welcome home, Dude. Long time no see.

Sarge
the phone rings and somebody says,
"hey, they made a movie about
Mahler, you ought to go see it.
he was as f*cked-up as you are."
                               --Charles Bukowski, "Mahler"