Ottevanger's Omphaloskeptic Outpost

[Guido]

good

[Guido]

idea.

[Maciek]

Good?

[Maciek]

 

[Maciek]

Great

[Maciek]

!

[Maciek]

 

[Maciek]

(oh dear - if this gets out of hand rob will probably have to implement some sort of blocking system )

[J.Z. Herrenberg]

Did it myself. Not as dramatic a difference as I thought - 16% of Johan's life

19% for Harry, if my calculations are correct. Must be something in the water over there.

Well, we have a LOT of it. But Britain is 'surrounded by the bl**dy substance', as an English friend of mine once remarked. That must have had an effect, too...

[karlhenning]

The lineup, more or less:

Sir Edward Elgar 1426
Oil & Economic Meltdown 1305
Vaughan Williams's Veranda 1049
Greatness in Music 953
What concerts are you looking foward to? (Part II) 855
Bruckner's Abbey 842
Handel vs Bach... 837
What do you look like? 821
Ottevanger's Omphaloskeptic Outpost 810

Bear in mind that for some obscure reason the Elgar thread is locked - so no need to worry about that one.
For reasons similarly obscure the Handel vs Bach thread is locked as well.
If people start massively reporting posts on the other 6 threads, those will get locked too.
And then Luke, taking his time, can calmly creep to the top.

Most helpful, indeed, Maciek; looks like we have here a Stealth Outpost . . . .

[karlhenning]

And please, remain calm, that really is "foward" in the thread title. 0:)

Yes, that's just plain wrong.

[karlhenning]

And also "Omphaloskeptic".

Well, what's your quarrel there, Maciek? 

[karlhenning]

Just another one-liner for the hell of it.

[lukeottevanger]

And on another tangent....

A day or two ago I rediscovered a score of mine written when I was but a lad of 15 (it wasn't lost, actually, but I simply haven't dared look at it for a long time!).

And it's a hideous thing, all told! It shows my teenage [musical] preoccupations all too clearly - a sniff of RVW's Sea Symphony here, a waft of the push-pull chords from Shaker Loops there, and, oooooh, don't these seventh and ninth chords and clustered seconds sound scrummy. Everything clustered around the middle, figurations basic or non-existent, no real rationale for the large orchestra beyond my teenage love of large orchestras...... [squirm]. Here are the first and last pages, for a laugh. The score paper - lovely stuff bought in Prague and wasted back in the UK - is too big to fit in the scanner, so I've had to make up these composite images.

First page

[lukeottevanger]

Last page

The opening and closing sections of the piece, and the link between the two choral settings, are probably the best music in here, which doesn't say much for the rest!

[lukeottevanger]

I bring up this whole farrago simply because I'm interested to be reminded that the 'mountain' theme that's now present in Ascent is present here, too - in the texts 'set' (I use the word loosely), one Tang Chinese, one Aztec. I don't, however, recall being particularly obsessed by mountains back then. My interest in high pointy places has grown continually since I've been living in a very low, flat one (i.e. for the last 14 years). To show the almost Edwin Abbot-esque flatland in which I live, here's my village, annotated for Greg's sake in the light of his recent score-deficiency-based anguish

I'm so jealous, I might have to devise a plan to break into Luke's house and steal all of his scores.......

[lukeottevanger]

BTW, I ought to thank you guys for the excellent 'debate' you seem to have had last night - what a delightful surprise awaited me when I woke this morning! 

All of which puts me in mind to host another flame war. Such a long time since the last one, from which some lines still give me reason to reflect - Guido, for instance, was responsible for the following classics:

Wagner is an even worse composer than Beethoven - Its all just aural wanking to my ears.

Tonality: the resort of pathetic lowest common denominator idiots who just hate thinking, and composers that use tonality are complete sell outs and hate art. There were no great composers before Schoenberg.

[re Wagner]Conquest of the corset shop. A bloodthirsty transvestite is still a transvestite. Talking of which, there have never been, nor will there ever be a great female composer because women lack the obsessional mindset required to reach artistic perfection. Also they lack any real sense of creativity.

Tristan and Isolde is about love! Love for Christ's sake!! If he were manly it would be about cars and war and strippers.

Genius. 

[lukeottevanger]

And also "Omphaloskeptic".

Well, what's your quarrel there, Maciek? 

Don't forget, you can blame Slonimsky for that one. He's the one I stole it from....

[J.Z. Herrenberg]

All of which puts me in mind to host another flame war. Such a long time since the last one, from which some lines still give me reason to reflect - Guido, for instance, was responsible for the following classics:

Genius. 

Many thanks to the person(s) causing this fine invective... 

[greg]

I bring up this whole farrago simply because I'm interested to be reminded that the 'mountain' theme that's now present in Ascent is present here, too - in the texts 'set' (I use the word loosely), one Tang Chinese, one Aztec. I don't, however, recall being particularly obsessed by mountains back then. My interest in high pointy places has grown continually since I've been living in a very low, flat one (i.e. for the last 14 years). To show the almost Edwin Abbot-esque flatland in which I live, here's my village, annotated for Greg's sake in the light of his recent score-deficiency-based anguish

Thank you. I'll use that as a map.