All other composers are inferior to Beethoven

[karlhenning]

"Hello, hello...*thump thump*...is this mike on?"

Hey, I noticed this the first time! 

[karlhenning]

And you are still sentient!

Hey! I like Moby-Dick!

[karlhenning]

Ack!  Mike (Knight)!  Moby Dick is one of the greats!  An American Don Quixote!  And almost as funny.  Plus it has cooking tips!

Any novel where the author maintains that the whale is a fish, has something for nearly everyone . . . .

[karlhenning]

What, talking to myself again?

But then, to repeat, I like Moby-Dick!

[Dancing Divertimentian]

Hey, I noticed this the first time! 

Thank you...

[BachQ]

Consensus is the devil.

As a collective whole, we GMGer's unanimously agree with this thesis.

[karlhenning]

And, BTW, an excellent point.

When I went to Virginia to gain my Master's, I had spent a year in a kind of desert in Oklahoma.  Two of the authors who had helped me keep a grip on what seems to serve me for sanity, were Washington Irving and P.G. Wodehouse.

UVa was much more congenial to me, but I still made a point of keeping my toes damp in literature (so to speak).  Three books I read then, which I have frequently re-read in the years since, just got right in amongst me, for whatever passel of reasons:

Melville's Moby-Dick
Whitman's Leaves of Grass
Henry Fielding's Tom Jones

[Dancing Divertimentian]

As a collective whole, we GMGer's unanimously agree with this thesis.

Cute...

[max]

To my mind Melville is the american Shakespeare. Aside from his poetic power another aspect where Melville could be compared to no other is in his use of metaphor. There was hardly anyone in the English language who could be compared to these two in those respects.

They're both music to my ears!

[Dancing Divertimentian]

And, BTW, an excellent point.

When I went to Virginia to gain my Master's, I had spent a year in a kind of desert in Oklahoma.  Two of the authors who had helped me keep a grip on what seems to serve me for sanity, were Washington Irving and P.G. Wodehouse.

UVa was much more congenial to me, but I still made a point of keeping my toes damp in literature (so to speak).  Three books I read then, which I have frequently re-read in the years since, just got right in amongst me, for whatever passel of reasons:

Melville's Moby-Dick
Whitman's Leaves of Grass
Henry Fielding's Tom Jones

Likewise, a little Steven Spielberg from time to time is good for my disposition...

[longears]

Likewise, a little Steven Spielberg from time to time is good for my disposition...

As when it's a drizzly November in your soul?

Jaws comes promptly to mind: the search for the great white shark, with Robert Shaw as the most memorable Ahab in film.

And, gosh darn it! --I enjoy the company of youse guys!

[(poco) Sforzando]

To my mind Melville is the american Shakespeare. Aside from his poetic power another aspect where Melville could be compared to no other is in his use of metaphor. There was hardly anyone in the English language who could be compared to these two in those respects.

They're both music to my ears!

Melville, however, is almost a 1-book author. In respect to Moby-Dick, which I must have read some 4-5 times, I couldn't agree more with you, and quite obviously Melville is basing both his sense of language and characterization on Shakespearean tragedy. But not much else by Melville attains the same level. There are some superb stories like Bartleby, Benito Cereno, I and my Chimney, and Billy Budd, but a lot of Melville has been in my experience nearly unreadable. Books like Pierre, Israel Potter, The Confidence Man - I read them all once in grad school, but I have no interest in ever picking them up again, and I gave up on the long poem Clarel after a dozen pages. Of the pre-MD books, I think the greatest success is Redburn (I never read Mardi), whose theme of innocence betrayed by unspeakable evil has much in common with Billy Budd. Yet like the short stories, even Redburn does not have the overwhelming imaginative power of Moby-Dick.

Shakespeare, on the other hand, has enormous range both in tragedy and comedy, which is a major reason I would rate him as a more significant figure to literature overall than Melville.

[Haffner]

This topic has provided me with good entertainment too!   

But over the years I have yet to observe a consensus impression whereby the Jupiter was rated a superior work to the Eroica. The poll I stated at my site has not so far not contradicted this notion. Of course it is possible for the common masses to get things wrong but it means I'm not some kind of cultist in this respect. Also I was not joking that I feel the fugue is the weakest movement of the work. I am not the only person to have realised this, especially when you hear the whole movement with repeats. I know a few naiive people who were surprised the movement lasts circa 12 mins rather than circa 6 or 7. Do these extra minutes add anything? Hell no they only detract. If I want to hear a good orchestral fugue I'd rather hear the Overture to Judas Maccabeus, including the repeat! I am not the first person to have realised this issue with Mozart and repeats, whereas with Beethoven the observation of repeats is essential.

This is only the opinion of a ridiculous, naive, middle aged guitar teacher in Burlington, Vermont: for me the Eroica is supremely top-heavy; I do agree that Mozart goes way overboard on repeats, but I'll stand up Mozart's 35 to 41st Symphonies (on an overall/4 movement basis) to Beethoven's 3rd (again, on an overall basis) any day. And I'll also include Mahler's 2nd, 3rd, 6th, and 9th in this angle as well. Perhaps also Shostakovich's 10th (ready to be assaulted by raw eggs, bomb away!).

Now, LvB's 9th....

But that's just my opinion, so there.

[Haffner]

Idiot?? That's not a nice thing to say. Laughing at me?? Laughing about what? That I rate the Eroica above the Jupiter? Most people I know think the same so I'm not sure what the trouble is here. I think the issue for you is that you simply cannot handle this opinion. You think I worry about things like that?

There are polls on the internet which rank the Jupiter below the 9th and 5th and above the 3rd. No surprise, really. I still hear predominant Mozart all over LvB's 1st Symphony...forgive me, but I'd be a bit skeptical in regard to your future posts if you didn't hear that massive influence. It's borderline imitation.

Please understand that I love LvB's 1st...and the Eroica.

[max]

Melville, however, is almost a 1-book author. In respect to Moby-Dick, which I must have read some 4-5 times, I couldn't agree more with you, and quite obviously Melville is basing both his sense of language and characterization on Shakespearean tragedy. But not much else by Melville attains the same level. There are some superb stories like Bartleby, Benito Cereno, I and my Chimney, and Billy Budd, but a lot of Melville has been in my experience nearly unreadable. Books like Pierre, Israel Potter, The Confidence Man - I read them all once in grad school, but I have no interest in ever picking them up again, and I gave up on the long poem Clarel after a dozen pages. Of the pre-MD books, I think the greatest success is Redburn (I never read Mardi), whose theme of innocence betrayed by unspeakable evil has much in common with Billy Budd. Yet like the short stories, even Redburn does not have the overwhelming imaginative power of Moby-Dick.

Shakespeare, on the other hand, has enormous range both in tragedy and comedy, which is a major reason I would rate him as a more significant figure to literature overall than Melville.

I don't disagree with you on anything you said. It's obvious you know your Melville! I consider him as one of the great tragedies of literature. Had there been a little more appreciation of his work, especially by Hawthorne, his great friend - most of whose works I've also read many moons ago - there may have been more on the table. Consider how long it took to just acknowledge MD as the greatest American novel which was also the European view!

Of course Shakespeare's range was greater. He also wrote for an appreciative audience and became successful. There is no greater encouragement to the creative impulse, literature, music, whatever! Indifference was never a catalyst to creativity.

Shakespeare's influence on the work was certainly considerable but one at least as great was Milton's Paradise Lost especially in the affinities between Ahab and Satan.

...anyways, I can't imagine any works after Shakespeare or Milton that would have an equal measure of their verbal brilliance and insight except Moby Dick!

...now back to Beethoven!

[max]

Regarding Mozart's 41st symphonie and Beethoven's Eroica, I remember having read somewhere - probably in a liner note - something to the effect that the Jupiter was the end of an era, the final word on the 2nd half of the 18th century almost impossible to be surpassed. Since it couldn't be even by the likes of Beethoven - though he'd never admit it - a different direction had to be announced.

That break-through work was obviously the Eroica a thoroughly Byronic, heroic work of the 19th century ME generation - Napoleon being its poster child - and all of its subsequent psychological complexities reflected even in Beethoven's own later works. Affinities with the 'previous age' persisted of course especially with Beethoven and Schubert who were still the children of that age.

The real mystery is how would Mozart have developed had he lived longer and would Beethoven even have composed an Eroica if Mozart had been a contemporary. Many of Mozart's works, especially his operas, are already more reminiscent of the 19th century!

[Ten thumbs]

...anyways, I can't imagine any works after Shakespeare or Milton that would have an equal measure of their verbal brilliance and insight except Moby Dick!

...now back to Beethoven!

Why not? but have you read Elias Canetti's 'Auto da Fe'?

[jochanaan]

...anyways, I can't imagine any works after Shakespeare or Milton that would have an equal measure of their verbal brilliance and insight except Moby Dick!

Try Gene Wolfe.

[BachQ]

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

[karlhenning]

Cool!