David Hurwitz

Started by Scion7, January 11, 2016, 06:42:39 PM

Previous topic - Next topic

0 Members and 1 Guest are viewing this topic.

Karl Henning

Quote from: Daverz on July 14, 2020, 01:45:04 PM
I think you have HDS, Hurwitzer Derangement Syndrome.

I got the joke the first time, though I did roll my eyes.

I'll also admit that I have a Lieder problem.  I have books on Lieder, many lieder recordings, but I just can't get into it.

As a rule, I prefer Lieder in a recital, rather than via recording. The immediacy and a connection with the singer helps a great deal.
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

Pohjolas Daughter

Quote from: Jo498 on July 14, 2020, 10:21:22 AM
It is a fairly new video but in essence he said the same many years ago: Classical Lieder are essentially like popsongs, just more pretentious and their interpreters and listeners even more so. The texts are as silly as it gets which makes the affection and pretention worse. Symphonies have no analogue in modern popular music, so there is a good reason to listen to them. But there is not really a good reason to listen to Schubert or Wolf instead of contemporary pop music. If lieder are sung at all, they should be sung "artlessly" as historically in small circles of friends in a Salon etc.
He has a few vaild points that are either trivially true (that songs by Dowland, Purcells, Schubert, Wolf etc. have a bit more in common with 20th century popular songs than Bruckner symphonies do, but this does not negate the differences). And of course, there is often pretentiousness. But he, as a nerdy fan of classical music mocks the supposedly prententious lieder toffs in exactly the same way many fans of rock/pop would mock the opera/classical toffs.
Sorry to hear that he dismissed(?) lieder as I do enjoy them.  Yes, times change, but I think that in the best of them (lieder), the feelings are immortal.  And to sing them well is a true art, gift, and work of ones life.

Best,

PD
Pohjolas Daughter

Karl Henning

Quote from: Pohjolas Daughter on July 14, 2020, 02:18:52 PM
Sorry to hear that he dismissed(?) lieder as I do enjoy them.  Yes, times change, but I think that in the best of them (lieder), the feelings are immortal.  And to sing them well is a true art, gift, and work of ones life.

Best,

PD

Testify!
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

Pohjolas Daughter

Quote from: Herman on July 14, 2020, 11:06:43 AM
The vocal range in classical vocal music is obviously way larger than in pop music.

In most pop songs the vocal line never exceeds an octave, and usually doesn't even come close to doing that.

Singers who do, like Mariah Carey, are exceptions and are lauded like they are divas.

However, Carey could not sing a line without microphone and amplification, and this goes for the entire pop / musical business. These performers have technical limitations that would make them utterly lost in classical vocal music.
Some pop/rock singers have had operatic training/background.  I haven't dug further into it, but heard that Annie Lenox and Pat Benatar both had operatic/classical training or backgrounds?

Dolly Parton had an amazing range (probably rather more limited now) but not that kind of background/training (grew up poor in Appalachia in a large family).

Best wishes,

PD
Pohjolas Daughter

BWV 1080

Quote from: Herman on July 14, 2020, 11:06:43 AM
The vocal range in classical vocal music is obviously way larger than in pop music.

In most pop songs the vocal line never exceeds an octave, and usually doesn't even come close to doing that.

Singers who do, like Mariah Carey, are exceptions and are lauded like they are divas.

However, Carey could not sing a line without microphone and amplification, and this goes for the entire pop / musical business. These performers have technical limitations that would make them utterly lost in classical vocal music.

Needing a mike is a feature, not a bug - can thank Bing for pioneering how one can sing less obnoxiously by not bleating like stuck pig, which is what the generation of pop singers before him did.

MusicTurner

#185
Quote from: Pohjolas Daughter on July 14, 2020, 02:29:59 PM
Some pop/rock singers have had operatic training/background.  I haven't dug further into it, but heard that Annie Lenox and Pat Benatar both had operatic/classical training or backgrounds?

Dolly Parton had an amazing range (probably rather more limited now) but not that kind of background/training (grew up poor in Appalachia in a large family).

Best wishes,

PD

Genre demands are different ... you normally don't sing lieder in a concert stadium, for example. We've had an official conservatory for the genres of jazz, rock & pop, "The Rythmic Conservatory", in Copenhagen, for decades. I don't know how unusual that is; it was established in 1986, and typically has 30 professors & 200 students. Though it's certainly no ticket to commercial success (and there are still many examples of rather lousy singers in the genres of rock and pop), there's no doubt it has contributed to a generally improved quality level here.

Herman

#186
Most bands don't play football stadiums. The reason why the singer(s) need a mike is because the other instruments are amplified too. However, many singers have developed a habit of keeping the mike at kissing range, and they are basically whispering with thousands of watts backing them up. They have no natural volume whatsoever, which is part of your training as a classical singer.

It has spread to the talking circuit. Whenever I do a reading, the organizer wants to hook me up to one of those horrifying (see, I'm using Hurwitz language!) wraparound mikes which make you look like you're on oxygen. However, normally you're talking to thirty or fifty people max, who've taken the trouble to show up. The room is usually a book store, a small church or a class room. Now, I don't think preachers needed a microphone in the days of yore, nor did teachers, and I always talk without a microphone, also because it necessitates using your voice, standing or sitting upright and making eye contact with the people who are listening. My younger, thirty-something colleagues all talk thru mikes, and they're usually gazing at the floor as they do, and the funny thing is, because they are whispering (amplified) it's often really hard to hear what they're saying. They are basically talking to themselves.

Rant über.

MusicTurner

#187
Well, the rock/folk/jazz performers I tend to like have plenty of vocal range and phrasing abilities as well as power, and they've often had success, but I agree that it's not the case with many of the currently really big commercial names in pop and rock.

Btw, larger venues and outdoor/festival concerts are of course the main thing here in Copenhagen, usually not intimate concerts, for the established names.

Madiel

Meanwhile, I think you'll find that every classical recording involves microphones anyway, so what the heck is this particular debate about?
I am now working on a discography of the works of Vagn Holmboe. Please visit and also contribute!

MusicTurner

It's about non-artificially created, natural or acquired singing abilities ...

Jo498

Quote from: Todd on July 14, 2020, 11:11:34 AM
I think it may be difficult for many people on this forum to accept the fact that classical music is basically irrelevant, very few people care about it, and that occasionally erudite exchanges about irrelevant distinctions among artists, recordings, performances, performance traditions, and perceived technical superiority - eg, extended vocal range - are intrinsically pretentious.
This is a non sequitur. Classical music is by no means "irrelevant". Apart from still being a multimillion or billion dollar market and its rising popularity and cultural relevance in East Asia, it is not important how many people care about or understand something, as long as the number of interested people is sufficient to keep a field going. General Relativity Theory was important in 1922 when maybe about 100 people or so understood it, even fewer worked in the field and there were no technical applications (like GPS) for which it could be used. (And when there was also very sparse observational evidence for the theory.)
And as a lot of the supposedly pretentious features are clearly rooted in reality, i.e. in general classical music is in fact "technically superior", this is also different from tribal teenagers dissing Depeche mode fans in favor of Slayer or whatever the oppositions of my high school time were. If some brilliant artist or scientist is an arrogant ass this might be a deplorable feature of character but it does not at all follow that s/he is not really brilliant in a demanding and competitive field, only because there are also arrogant asses who became famous for some nonsense.
Tout le malheur des hommes vient d'une seule chose, qui est de ne savoir pas demeurer en repos, dans une chambre.
- Blaise Pascal

Madiel

Quote from: MusicTurner on July 14, 2020, 11:56:39 PM
It's about non-artificially created, natural or acquired singing abilities ...

Hmm. I thought that it was about Herman's determination to counter Hurwitz' view that pop singing is better than lieder singing by asserting the reasons why lieder singing is better than pop singing.

Which to me is the same error of trying to compare 2 different art forms. They're just different. They're not even trying to do the same thing. I like them both. And I'd like to be allowed to like them both without either of these guys telling me why I'm wrong to like one of them.

Personally I wouldn't pay any attention to Hurwitz' view that lieder aren't worth listening to. But I'm not going to pay any more attention to the view, which I've encountered here before, that pop music isn't worth listening to. You like it? Listen to it. You don't like it? Don't listen to it.

Anyone think Hurwitz is an ass? Then don't read or watch his reviews!
I am now working on a discography of the works of Vagn Holmboe. Please visit and also contribute!

Jo498

I actually think that there is some socialization problem today but this concerns all classical vocal music, opera and oratorio as well as lieder. We are now in the 3rd or 4th generation that has grown up with pop style microphone singing and therefore tends to find classical non-ampflified singing "artificial". There is nothing bad about artificial in art, and that some things outside classical are as artificial as inside (why should Ella Fitzgerald's scat be less artificial than Bartoli doing Rossini coloratura?) and what's more artifiical than electronic amplification?
Anyway, someone open-minded should be able to get beyond such socialization. And it wouldn't explain why opera seems to be still quite popular whereas Lieder never really were. (In my limited experience the singing style in the  "West End musicals" like Lloyd Webber" is somewhere between opera and popular music and they are rather popular.)
Of course, one mostly correct answer is, that most Lieder were never meant to be really public music but thrived in private or semi-public settings. Again, this probably changed at the end of the 19th century (I have no idea but I'd have thought that Wolf, Strauss etc. tend to be more difficult to sing and accompany than Schubert?) and it was also true for a lot of other music, i.e. most solo piano and chamber music although these latter genres appeared in public settings already in the early 19th century.

Anyway, there are plenty of piano pieces that are neither longer nor more sophisticatedly composed than lieder. I never heard the claim that they had become irrelevant because now we have Einaudi, Clayderman and similar elevator music pianists (and presumably also a few that are better than that).

And finally, to get back to Hurwitz, it seems really poor criticism to rant on stuff one simply does not get and rationalize one's dislike with poor arguments or analogies. He also seems to make strange exceptions: Lied von der Erde is great because its orchestral and some of the songs are a bit longer than many with piano accompaniment, or what is the reason?
Tout le malheur des hommes vient d'une seule chose, qui est de ne savoir pas demeurer en repos, dans une chambre.
- Blaise Pascal

MusicTurner

#193
Quote from: Madiel on July 15, 2020, 12:01:41 AM
Hmm. I thought that it was about Herman's determination to counter Hurwitz' view that pop singing is better than lieder singing by asserting the reasons why lieder singing is better than pop singing.

Which to me is the same error of trying to compare 2 different art forms. They're just different. They're not even trying to do the same thing. I like them both. And I'd like to be allowed to like them both without either of these guys telling me why I'm wrong to like one of them.
(...)

   I don't disagree, but there's a point in how abilities of classical singers can show partly hidden or overlooked limitations of otherwise popular pop and rock singers. That's a technical or formal aspect, but it can be relevant for shaping and developing expressive content too. I do think however that inspiration can actually go both ways, some lied singers can lack the passion or contemporary urge of good rock singers, for example.

   Whether you find lieder/melodies/songs obsolete, can also partly be ascribed to whether you find classical literature at all relevant, or sampling a more complete picture of a period's cultural expression. Such songs are obviously related to the composers' other works, the ideas behind them, and their times.

   Hurwitz doesn't strike me as a real polyhistor or a very literary person (I think Jo498 actually shows more of the quality, an excellent example of the solid virtues of the German educational system ;) ), he's more of an entertainer, but at least he has a good deal of knowledge about earlier recordings & he is not afraid to present strong musical opinions and preferences. The absence of both those characteristics can be frustrating in the case of many other, much more uninteresting or bland reviewers.

Herman

Quote from: Madiel on July 14, 2020, 11:52:51 PM
Meanwhile, I think you'll find that every classical recording involves microphones anyway, so what the heck is this particular debate about?

Sure, and looking at it from that perspective, classical performers don't need any skills anymore, because they can just patch the Hammerklavier Sonata together in 30 second bits.

Madiel

Quote from: MusicTurner on July 15, 2020, 02:05:54 AM
      Hurwitz doesn't strike me as a real polyhistor or a very literary person (I think Jo498 actually shows more of the quality, an excellent example of the solid virtues of the German educational system ;) ), he's more of an entertainer, but at least he has a good deal of knowledge about earlier recordings & he is not afraid to present strong musical opinions and preferences. The absence of both those characteristics can be frustrating in the case of many other, much more uninteresting or bland reviewers.

Indeed. There aren't actually many sources of classical reviews these days, and Classics Today (not Hurwitz specifically) to my mind has better writing than most of them.

Out of the ones that actually let me read anything, anyway. Free access to Gramophone works on some bizarre and erratic principle I can't figure out, and I think they're hideously expensive.  MusicWeb International writing is not that good, and seems to consist largely of people who want to say something kind of nice about almost everything which frankly isn't helpful. It's actually better to have a reviewer whose quirks are apparent, and you can be familiar with them and adjust for your own tastes.

I don't know who else does reviews that go beyond 2 paragraphs.

So I've recently been considering subscribing to Classics Today. Having said that, I'm not sure I'm that thrilled with this new video review thing. Partly that might just be because it's new and the style needs work.
I am now working on a discography of the works of Vagn Holmboe. Please visit and also contribute!

Jo498

In another thread I wrote that I was positively surprised by some other Hurwitz videos. And I hope not only because I accidentally agreed with him on some thing. I also used to like Classics Today, especially 15 years or so ago when most/all was free. It wasn't great but better than most other free online sources and overall not bad.
I think he is competent in some fields, basically 19th and early 20th century orchestral but he often seems not only amateurish but to lack listening experience and affection for chamber and piano (for piano he does have Distler and another one? at Classics Today), baroque music and even more for vocal music. And of course he has a lot of fun heaping trash on artists or music he dislikes. But this is quite disappointing. A good critic would at least to a certain extent be able to show why so many artists and a considerable audience value e.g. Lieder (and a few also Reger's piano concerto...) so highly without calling it all mere pretentious elitism. And he should realize the obvious retort that DH could be called pretentious himself when pontificating about the "best Bruckner 4th".

And I'd rather forget the German education system. It was barely o.k. when I went through it in the 1980s and most of my historical, musical and literary knowledge I acquired through private reading. (To be fair my school education was fairly solid in maths and languages and for me German literature class did not spoil the fun of reading).
Admittedly, as a German (or maybe "old European") I dislike the cultivation of ignorance of foreign languages and anti-intellectual arrogance vs. "high culture" favored by some Americans. I can see that the pretentiousness often correlated with old European high culture does deserve some scorn but for a reviewer and popularizer of old European classical music this seems somewhat inconsistent. And I'd also defend great German poetry or even mediocre poetry like Wilhelm Müller against being set equal to "let's spend the night together, baby, it's now or never etc.
Fun fact: Müller's son Max was one of the founders of Indology (and was active mostly at Oxford university). He is still so well known in India that the "Goethe-Institute", the institutions for the promulgation of German culture abroad, are called instead "Max Mueller Bhavan" in India.
Tout le malheur des hommes vient d'une seule chose, qui est de ne savoir pas demeurer en repos, dans une chambre.
- Blaise Pascal

Madiel

I don't think a reviewer should bother with reviews when they dislike an entire genre. Get someone else to do it.

Because the people reading the reviews are most likely to be people who do like the genre, or at least are interested in it. What those readers want to know are which works and which performances are the ones to seek out.

A review that says a chamber work isn't exciting doesn't mean a lot if the reviewer thinks chamber music in general isn't exciting.

Equally, it's not that helpful if someone basically says everything is great.  Which plenty of people do.

I actually did some music reviews of 'pop music' for a short period some years ago, it was quite fun and very interesting because of the way the website worked. You had to get 5 different short reviews before they were published and the weighted score shown. Partly it was interesting because I was very frequently the score in the middle nearest the overall rating. But I stayed away from styles I wasn't familiar with or didn't understand, because there was far too much risk I would be responding to the style and not the specific performance. Sometimes I would try listening to something but not go on to write a review, at least until I'd listened to a few things in that category to see if they actually sounded different in quality to me.
I am now working on a discography of the works of Vagn Holmboe. Please visit and also contribute!

Herman

#198
Quote from: Jo498 on July 15, 2020, 03:09:24 AM
But this is quite disappointing. A good critic would at least to a certain extent be able to show why so many artists and a considerable audience value e.g. Lieder (and a few also Reger's piano concerto...) so highly without calling it all mere pretentious elitism. And he should realize the obvious retort that DH could be called pretentious himself when pontificating about the "best Bruckner 4th".

This feeding of the philistine instinct (including acting as if no normal human being could pronounce a German word  -  or any word outside English) and calling everything outside Beethoven and Mozart 'pretentious' is obviously counterproductive.

All cultural pursuits are to a degree liable to be called pretentious by outsiders. It's about exerting oneself in hopes of getting better and having some fun along the way. It's what parents do with their kids and it's what adults do with themselves if they want to be more than a digestive system on two legs.

I read Sophocles in the original at nights. Super pretentious, except nobody knows or cares. I do it because I like to make things hard for myself and experience beauty occasionally.

Having been a critic myself, I'm very suspicious of reading critics because of their fun writing. I know how easy 'fun writing' is. It leads (in the critics) to cynical posturing and opinion farts, and I believe  what Hurwitz is aiming for in this new channel.

Herman

#199
Quote from: Madiel on July 15, 2020, 03:28:27 AM
I don't think a reviewer should bother with reviews when they dislike an entire genre. Get someone else to do it.

What Hurwitz is doing is quite calculated. He knows some people think it's a great spectacle if a critic slams something.

And of course in the living arts it does make sense sometimes to review someting in a negative way, if the critic thinks this is not the way the art form should go. In that case it helps if the critic is a great critic, rather than just some guy in his home office laughing at his own jokes.

However it doesn't make the slightest sense if you're reviewing work that is over a century old, and, to boot, has not been part of a continuing school.

It's just about getting clicks.