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The Diner / Re: USA Politics (redux)

« Last post by SimonNZ on Today at 04:53:37 AM »

I wonder why no one is ever described in the media as "far left" or really any kind of "left".

Lol. I see McWhorter Atlantic articles are heavily peppered with unironic use of the words "woke left".

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General Classical Music Discussion / Re: What are you listening 2 now?

« Last post by Spotted Horses on Today at 04:52:27 AM »

Brahms, Piano Trio No 1, Op 8. Beauz Arts Trio, Philips



It's been a while since I listened to this music and I would not have been able to bring the themes to mind before listening. But putting it on, it was like reuniting with an old friend. So many wonderful things in this music, the witty scherzo stands out. Beaux Arts is dependable, but perhaps to staid in this music, for my taste. My default recording is the Florestan Trio, although my first recording (on Telefunken LP) was the Haydn Trio Wien, but I've never seen that one on CD.

Also, I read that this is the second published version of the Trio (revised late in Brahms' life), but I haven't come across a recording of the first version, which presumably has more romantic indiscretion. Anyone know of one?

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The Diner / Re: USA Politics (redux)

« Last post by DizzyD on Today at 04:50:40 AM »

You reject any claim that McWhorter is trying to use the rapper to symbolise something more general,

I didn't say that. I said he's not saying that, as you put it, a guy rapping on a subway car is "emblematic of black culture". Now I'm not going to play these little semantic games to aid you in saving face.

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The Diner / Re: USA Politics (redux)

« Last post by SimonNZ on Today at 04:48:43 AM »

You think McWhorter is saying that black people weren't outraged at racism before the 60s? I really think you are not understanding the words. Or, more likely, you're trying to find a meaning in them, perhaps unconsciously, that you can can stomp your foot on. I assure you, John McWhorter knows better than you, far better, that black people were outraged by racism. He's talking about something specific, a kind of militancy. He may be right or wrong but he's not saying what you say he's saying. This is the second time you've written in your own straw man. I just think you're being silly.   
 
  You shouldn't have

If I'm misreading him it's due to a lack of clarity and suggestions in his own writing,. And I don't see how that in any way qualifies as creating a "strawman".

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The Diner / Re: USA Politics (redux)

« Last post by fbjim on Today at 04:47:12 AM »

To be blunt it reminds me of the "rap is just b*tches and bling" statements which more or less just betray either a lack of knowledge of any music since about 2002, or bad taste. Hip-hop is, like rock music, ideologically diverse, and has changed significantly over time. There's no "hip-hop monoculture" which happens to be defined by 90s gangsta rap.

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The Diner / Re: USA Politics (redux)

« Last post by DizzyD on Today at 04:46:34 AM »

I'm not saying anything of the sort. I'm saying that any black musician in the pre Civil rights era who wanted to express their real outrage at racism in their music had no possibility of doing so. McWhorter seems to think that because it's not found in the music that that somehow shows that outrage wasn't felt by the musicians.

That is what you're saying. Showing "outrage" or "venom" is an indication of black artistic freedom, and the reason we didn't see it in Scott Joplin or Dizzy Gillespie is because they were constrained by whites. A really irritating thing to me is constantly considering black people almost exclusively in terms of their relations with whites.

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General Classical Music Discussion / Re: What are you listening 2 now?

« Last post by Todd on Today at 04:45:34 AM »

I had misgivings about juicing up Chopin's Nocturnes by adding strings, even if the pianist is of YES quality, and my misgivings were well-founded.  The augmented Nocturnes do not work.  To be sure, YES' contributions are of a very high caliber, which becomes more pronounced in the few Nocturnes recorded properly.  They are tip-top.  Hopefully, she returns to the Nocturnes later and makes a proper recording.

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The Diner / Re: USA Politics (redux)

« Last post by Madiel on Today at 04:44:07 AM »

I provided a link also to the rest of the article, and you couldn't even get the guy's racial group right. You didn't use your awesome skills of logic to dissect anything in the couple of paragraphs or the article as whole beyond your mistaken perception of a white guy being upset over a black guy rapping in a KFC and subway car.

Explain how his race has anything to do with it, or protects him from logical problems. Explain how a black guy being upset over a single rapper, who clearly isn't a particularly popular rapper, is any different. Explain how the race of the observer was relevant to anything that I said.

Actually, don't. This is utterly tiresome. The whole notion that a black guy must be right is a fallacy (not least because not all black guys agree with each other on this stuff, which is pretty much why McWhorter has an audience for this stuff). You literally refuse to tell me what the point of the story about the black rapper is, even though you're the one who chose to select that part. You reject any claim that McWhorter is trying to use the rapper to symbolise something more general, when that is the only thing that makes telling the story of the black rapper have any fucking point whatsoever.

That's literally as far as we got. You keep demanding that I read an article, for what? What is going to be achieved by reading lots more paragraphs and telling you what I think about them when you can't even cope with really basic points about the handful paragraphs that you personally selected for display? It's going to be such a colossal fucking waste of time. Seriously. Sure, I can spend a little bit of time reading the article, and might well do so, but engaging in discussion with you about it, here? Absolute fucking waste of time. Even with prompting, you cannot indicate what YOU think the point is of the material that YOU selected as a highlight of the article. You just know that you like the conclusion of the article and we're all just supposed to shut up as a result.

It's no wonder that here on a classical forum we can find people who like an argument that is based on certain kinds of music being bad music. But that doesn't make it a good argument, any more than any of the other "pop music is bad" arguments I've seen on this forum over the years. The fact that this time around it's specifically 'black' pop music that's bad doesn't make it a better argument, and your willing offer to throw various kinds of 'white' pop music under the bus if it would help was just downright embarrassing.

McWhorter acknowledges an alternative view of the value of hip-hop just so that he can reject it. And so what? Because he has a negative view of it, and you don't like it, he's right, and the black scholars who argue for the value of it are wrong? Oh, okay then.

An argument based on artistic taste is just pathetic.

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The Diner / Re: USA Politics (redux)

« Last post by milk on Today at 04:39:59 AM »

John Hamilton McWhorter V is entitled to say whatever idiotic things he wants about hip-hop and how angry he was at a rapper on the subway - his qualifications do not constitute an argument.


And frankly anyone who listens to someone with a roman numeral at the end of their name on the topic of hip-hop has something coming.

Now there's an argument! You go girl!

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The Diner / Re: USA Politics (redux)

« Last post by DizzyD on Today at 04:39:48 AM »

From the Gray Lady: The Rise of the Far-Right Latina

This is what happens when the right type of person with the wrong types of views wins an election.  A Mexican-born citizen who wins office apparently cannot be labeled conservative, she (and they) must be labeled "far-right".  I wonder if she or the other fearsome "far-right" Latinas cited in the most august of news sources will make common cause with white nationalists.  The continued, inadvertent dilution of a once potent political phrase will be helpful, though.

I wonder why no one is ever described in the media as "far left" or really any kind of "left".

That doesn't tell me what his qualifications in hip-hop are, apart from apparently hating it.

Seriously, I've just had another thread where someone repeatedly intimated that Hurwitz is not qualified to have a meaningful opinion on musicology despite being a qualified historian as well as a professional music reviewer. So I would prefer to know what his actual qualifications are related to American studies, music history, race relations and so on, rather than just being told that he talks about them a lot.

I didn't say anything about Hurwitz' qualifications. I said being an expert in modern European history doesn't in itself make you a musicologist. Actually I think Hurwitz' musical background qualifies him to speak on musicological subjects. Sometimes I agree with him, sometimes I don't. He has some interesting takes.