All other composers are inferior to Beethoven

[longears]

Melville! I consider him as one of the great tragedies of literature.

Just shows to go ya how much our worlds are shaped by attitude.  The guy was a hack writing cheesy adventure stories for mass consumption.  He grew with commercial success and aimed higher.  He hit the target smack in the black.

[karlhenning]

And if he had never risen higher than Omoo, he'd never have been a source for any Britten opera, for instance.

[MN Dave]

Don't cop out of it now Dave, have some spine man!!

Oh, I have spine, but little time.

[karlhenning]

And unlike Rod, Dave has thought faculties at the upper end of his spine.

[MN Dave]

Try Gene Wolfe.

Gene Wolfe is awesome. I got to interview him once. I was not worthy.  0:)

[MN Dave]

And unlike Rod, Dave has thought faculties at the upper end of his spine.

Yeah, they're somewhere around there, though sometimes I think the connection is faulty.

[(poco) Sforzando]

This gets my vote as the "Most Meandering Thread of 2007"

It's 2008. And in response to anyone who has an issue with digressions, may I quote the following from The Catcher in the Rye, when Holden is telling his old teacher Mr. Antolini about a boy who was ridiculed in class for his continual digressions:

There was this one boy, Richard Kinsella. He didn't stick to the point too much, and they were always yelling "digression" at him. ...He got a D plus because they kept yelling Digression at him all the time. For instance, he made this speech about this farm his father bought in Vermont. They kept yelling Digression at him the whole time he was making it, and this teacher, Mr. Vinson, gave him an F on it because he hadn't told what kind of animals and vegetables and stuff grew on the farm and all. What he did was, Richard Kinsella, he'd start telling you all about that stuff--then all of a sudden he'd start telling you about this letter his mother got from his uncle, and how his uncle got polio and all when he was forty-two years old, and how he wouldn't let anybody come to see him in the hospital because he didn't want anybody to see him with a brace on. It didn't have much to do with the farm--I admit it--but it was nice... I mean it's dirty to keep yelling Digression at him when he's all nice and excited.

So no dirt, please, when people get all nice and excited. 

[karlhenning]

It's 2008.

True, but we got some good meandering in in 2007.

And in response to anyone who has an issue with digressions . . . .

D Minor is quite an aficionado of fine digressions . . . .

[(poco) Sforzando]

D Minor is quite an aficionado of fine digressions . . . .

Do you mean he modulates considerably?

[longears]

Do you mean he modulates considerably?

He doesn't just go to related keys...sometimes he changes to frequencies only dogs can hear!

[(poco) Sforzando]

He doesn't just go to related keys...sometimes he changes to frequencies only dogs can hear!

Ah. So he's going to the dogs. A sad requiem for a fine tonality.

[M forever]

Just shows to go ya how much our worlds are shaped by attitude.  The guy was a hack writing cheesy adventure stories for mass consumption.  He grew with commercial success and aimed higher.  He hit the target smack in the black.

Or smack in the white! There is a whole chapter on "the whiteness of the whale". I thought MD was really deep though  Although it lacks pictures. Pictures would have been good 

[(poco) Sforzando]

Or smack in the white! There is a whole chapter on "the whiteness of the whale". I thought MD was really deep though  Although it lacks pictures. Pictures would have been good 

There was a wonderfully campy picture starring Richard Basehart, Orson Welles, and Gregory Peck as Ahab. And then a remake starring Patrick Stewart.

[karlhenning]

I cannot bring myself to watch either movie.

Read a wonderfully insightful (and not unsympthetic) review which pinned the look of Gregory Peck in that one as "a stock-company Abraham Lincholn."

[karlhenning]

Just a little nostalgia here . . . .

[Operahaven]

MN Dave,

I love Beethoven but the qualities that I value most in music are exquisiteness, sophistication, charm and 'seductiveness'..... not exactly Beethoven's strengths.

Cheers,

OH

[karlhenning]

I love Beethoven but the qualities that I value most in music are exquisiteness, sophistication, charm and 'seductiveness'..... not exactly Beethoven's strengths.

Oh, I don't know about that last bit.

[Operahaven]

Oh, I don't know about that last bit.

Yeah, I guess you're right... Let's stick to the first three.   

[karlhenning]

Yeah, I guess you're right... Let's stick to the first three.   

By the last bit, I meant "not exactly Beethoven's strengths."

Sophistication, charm and exquisiteness abound in the Beethoven oeuvre.

[J.Z. Herrenberg]

And Beethoven isn't so much 'seductive' (leave that to Wagner) as 'gripping' or 'attention-grabbing'.