Glaring Omission

[Cato]

Robert Simpson wrote a book about Luke?! (Runs off and hides somewhere in the Grammar Grumble thread...)

(* chortle *)

@Luke can use the smile!

Heh-Heh!  Yes, I should have used parentheses!    I will let the curiosity stand, in case Luke shows up!

It certainly is an exercise in futility, but I'm an INTJ meaning introverted intuition is my dominant cognitive function. My brain generates alternative possibilities for what is. I can't turn off my brain imagining what could/should have been. I can only do things that take my mind off of these things as much as possible. That's what I am trying to do, but it isn't 100 % effective.

A few decades ago my mind came up with nightmare scenarios for the future as well as rosy scenarios. What the World is today is not that far from those nightmares. The details are different  of course because nobody can predict accurately the future decades ahead, but the "feel of anxiety" is similar.

Dude!  You will love this group: they imagine various movies and television shows as made in the 1940's or 1950's by Fritz Lang and others!

The animation is fascinating!

https://www.facebook.com/abandonedmovies/videos/1360456008663142/?vh=e&extid=MSG-UNK-UNK-UNK-IOS_GK0T-GK1C

[Florestan]

Is that really that surprising for someone who was born in 1971 witnessing the coming of CD in the early 80's and started buying CDs in 1990 when I was able to buy my first CD player? To me CD represents the good old days when I was happier. CDs help me to widthstand the coldness of today's World. Why do I even need to explain these things? If streaming gives you everything you want in life then good for you, but my past is part of me.

Well, I am of the same generation as you (b.1972). I too have a fair amount of LPs and CDs, but after going the download route when it became widely available I never looked back and my LPs and CDs gather dust in the attic. Instead of occupying a whole room worth of shelves raising from floor to ceiling, my whole musical library is stored on three external HDDs (I will soon need another one). As for streaming, I very rarely do it, I mentioned it just to make a point. Technological progress puts at our disposal a wide range of gadgets and possibilities which are tremendously space-saving and handy. I see no reason not to take full advantage of them.

That being said, I do have a soft spot similar to yours: books. I mean, I read lots of books online but I would never part with my physical ones. I guess we are both nostalgic each in our own way. 

[aukhawk]

Are you saving Beethoven's Ninth for a special occasion, since you have enjoyed the other 8? Or simply did not enjoy it nearly as much as the rest?

Having never listened to it, I couldn't possibly comment. I can say I have no plans to fix either of my glaring omissions.

[Madiel]

Technological progress puts at our disposal a wide range of gadgets and possibilities which are tremendously space-saving and handy.

I suspect when it comes to music, the main driver of taking up the technology was not saving of space but saving of money.

Including of course that period of time where an awful lot of people decided that technology meant they didn't have to pay anything at all for music. The industry sort of had to claw back from that with download stores and then streaming services.

For me the CD technology pretty much continued to meet my needs and so I didn't stop using it. I did move to a bigger house... though I think my collection a lot smaller than many people here anyway. And the driver of that aspect of the move was the piano, not the CD collection. Honest.

[Florestan]

I suspect when it comes to music, the main driver of taking up the technology was not saving of space but saving of money.

That too, doubtless. 

[ChamberNut]

The thing that pushed me over the hump (finally) to be begin streaming (and drastically reduce purchasing of CDs) is @Harry making the switch. By golly, if he can make that switch, anybody can. 

That, alongside the fact that CDs have become (prohibitively for me) much more expensive, combined with less availability. Especially, for local and Canadian sources. Thus, having to incur (on top of already high CD prices), duties and shipping charges.

Space is also a bit of concern. And having too large of a physical collection is another concern, in that I feel I cannot give each piece in the collection fair attention in a relatively reasonable time frame.

[LKB]

I agree that music is meant to be listened to. In that sense it doesn't matter much if the music is streamed online or stored on a CD/vinyl/etc. However, I don't need to limit myself to music alone. Collecting music on physical media serves as a hobby. My dad collects stamps. I collect physical media.

It is not guaranteed music I want to listen to stays on streaming services forever. Music disappears all the time. There are a lot of music I can only listen to by streaming so I stream. For example, yesterday I listened to Jonny L's X3 on spotify, because that's the only way it is available. I also stream a lot of vaporwave on Bandcamp, because that kind of music is only sometimes released on physical media in extremely limited way if at all (say 50 copies on CD and 300 copies on C-cassette).

I also use streaming to explore music, to find out how much I like it. I do stream a lot, but once I have found something I like a lot, I want to own it on CD if possible. Is that really that surprising for someone who was born in 1971 witnessing the coming of CD in the early 80's and started buying CDs in 1990 when I was able to buy my first CD player? To me CD represents the good old days when I was happier. CDs help me to widthstand the coldness of today's World. Why do I even need to explain these things? If streaming gives you everything you want in life then good for you, but my past is part of me.

The problem with billionaires is that by using their vast wealth to influence society they cause a lot of suffering for those who can't fight back. They hoard wealth by exploiting other people and avoiding paying their fair share of taxes. They "hide" their money to places were the money passively gains profit instead of flowing back into the circulation (weak multiplying effect). So, a Russian oligarch buying a £10 million property in London is totally different from my hobby of buying some CDs every now and then (in 2024 I bought 23 CDs, about 2 CDs per month and the total cost was 156 euros). Billionaires simply should not exist. $999 million should be enough money for anyone. Even that is excessive. We should look at the flip side. All the wealth of billionaires is away from the rest. Do poor people matter at all?

Generalizations are nearly always perilous, and this post is no exception. The fact is, not every wealthy individual is part of the " evil one percent ":

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bill_%26_Melinda_Gates_Foundation

Two of my friends are multi- millionaires, and are among the best people I've ever known ( l admit to some bias here, as they saved my life in 2018 ).

[Madiel]

The thing that pushed me over the hump (finally) to be begin streaming (and drastically reduce purchasing of CDs) is @Harry making the switch. By golly, if he can make that switch, anybody can. 

That, alongside the fact that CDs have become (prohibitively for me) much more expansive, combined with less availability. Especially, for local and Canadian sources. Thus, having to incur (on top of already high CD prices), duties and shipping charges.

Space is also a bit of concern. And having too large of a physical collection is another concern, in that I feel I cannot give each piece in the collection fair attention in a relatively reasonable time frame.

That last part interests me, because one of the supposed selling points of streaming is that you have access to vastly more music.

Which you can't possibly pay attention to. But it seems to me the psychology of renting millions of tracks is different to the psychology of buying thousands of tracks.

I'm like @71 dB in that I use streaming to do my browsing, but I still like the act of commitment. To the stuff that I'm going to try to pay decent attention to.

[ChamberNut]

That last part interests me, because one of the supposed selling points of streaming is that you have access to vastly more music.

Which you can't possibly pay attention to. But it seems to me the psychology of renting millions of tracks is different to the psychology of buying thousands of tracks.

I'm like @71 dB in that I use streaming to do my browsing, but I still like the act of commitment. To the stuff that I'm going to try to pay decent attention to.

Yes I realize it is a contradictory statement. 

[71 dB]

Generalizations are nearly always perilous, and this post is no exception. The fact is, not every wealthy individual is part of the " evil one percent ":

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bill_%26_Melinda_Gates_Foundation

Two of my friends are multi- millionaires, and are among the best people I've ever known ( l admit to some bias here, as they saved my life in 2018 ).

Someone with a wealth of a few million dollars isn't in the same position as someone with wealth of multiple billions of dollars. The wealth of the richest people in the World is absolutely ridiculous, thousands of times bigger than "normal" rich people with a few million dollars. Also, these mega-rich people often pay taxes at lower rate than normal people.

Of course there are rich people who are good, but that doesn't stop the evil ones doing the harm on others.

[lordlance]

I've noticed before how many forum members seem to actively dislike vocal/choral music.  Given that most instrumental music strives to emulate the voice I find that interesting.......

Erm, are you sure about that? I find that hard to believe. That's coming from someone who has almost no interest in vocal music admittedly.

My omissions aren't glaring but rather deliberate... Vocal, solo piano, baroque and earlier...

In solo though there are some exceptions like Liszt who wrote gloriously for it and of course the Beethoven sonatas... 

I've spent a few months with chamber music cumulatively and there are a few pieces which I do like but it's hard for me to put it in the same level as orchestral music... 

[Florestan]

Erm, are you sure about that? I find that hard to believe. That's coming from someone who has almost no interest in vocal music admittedly.

Don't know about "most instrumental music" but until well into 19th century, opera was the big thing, its prestige and popularity far exceeding that of instrumental music. And yes, many great composers were famed and lauded for the vocal-like quality of their instrumental music : Mozart, Schubert, Chopin immediately come to mind.

[lordlance]

Don't know about "most instrumental music" but until well into 19th century, opera was the big thing, its prestige and popularity far exceeding that of instrumental music. And yes, many great composers were famed and lauded for the vocal-like quality of their instrumental music : Mozart, Schubert, Chopin immediately come to mind.

Opera was big specifically in France and Italy, no? Their composers reflect as much with their dearth of proper orchestral music writers... (And even those that are... Well, not exactly the best in my view but I'm sure there'll be defenders...)

I would imagine in the 16 to 18th century religion would have an outsized influence and hence the focus on cantatas, oratorios, sacred operas/ vocal music, etc.

[Florestan]

Opera was big specifically in France and Italy, no?

No. In German lands, England and Russia as well.

Their composers reflect as much with their dearth of proper orchestral music writers...

Actually, it's the Italians who invented orchestral music and produced some of the finest and most influential composers in this respect. And the French, while coming rather late to the party, are second to none in orchestral color and subtlety.

I would imagine in the 16 to 18th century religion would have an outsized influence and hence the focus on cantatas, oratorios, sacred operas/ vocal music, etc.

Not outsized at all, entirely commensurate with the political, cultural and social role religion played back then.

You made three ill-informed statements above, I humbly suggest you pick up a music history handbook.

[Jo498]

It's still true that in the 19th century opera dominated in France and Italy so much that even some of the French composers suffered from it and tried to improve the status of instrumental music. It was almost impossible to have a career there without writing operas whereas this was possible for 19th century German, Austrian, Scandinavian etc. composers.
(It was a bit different in the first heyday of French and especially Italian music in the baroque with Frescobaldi, Corelli or Couperin being predominantly instrumental composers but it seems a significant difference in the 19th century)

And it's also true that compared to the 19th century sacred music was far more important in earlier times and it even had a special rôle in the aftermath of the reformation because it was used in the counterreformation (i.e. (early) 17th century) to "lure" people back to the catholic church. In any case, lots of composers had their jobs at churches and there is also a clear influence that music thrived in Lutheran and catholic eras but much less in Calvinist and puritan regions with their reduced church music. (At least Lutherans also promoted music at home as preferable Christian pastime to drinking and gambling...)

Apart from the general backwardness of Russia and other orthodox parts it was also very probably a factor that they came so late to Western style music (but then with a distinct voice because of their separate development) because there was only vocal music in orthodox services, no organs or other instruments.

[Madiel]

One of the things I really, really like about Richard Goode's set of the Beethoven piano sonatas is that, for the early and middle works at least, he very much conveys a link to vocal music. Time and again it has the feel of an operatic duet or trio.

Now of course, instrumental melodies are never exactly the same as vocal ones. The technical capabilities are different.

[Florestan]

One of the things I really, really like about Richard Goode's set of the Beethoven piano sonatas is that, for the early and middle works at least, he very much conveys a link to vocal music. Time and again it has the feel of an operatic duet or trio.

Looks like something I might greatly enjoy. Will investigate.

[Florestan]

It's still true that in the 19th century opera dominated in France and Italy so much that even some of the French composers suffered from it and tried to improve the status of instrumental music. It was almost impossible to have a career there without writing operas whereas this was possible for 19th century German, Austrian, Scandinavian etc. composers.

That's true. Yet it can be argued that at least in the first half of the 19th century the most popular composers everywhere, from New York to Cairo and from Buenos Aires to Sankt-Petersburg, including all major European capitals and cities, were Rossini and Meyerbeer. Back then symphonic works and symphonic concerts were far from being as universally acclaimed and popular as they are today.

[Madiel]

The thing that really strikes me, which I've remarked on a few times, is that culturally we seem to have completely fallen out of love with choral music.

Many of the great composers of the 19th century and early 20th century wrote a lot of choral music. It crops up when I do my explorations of a composer's body of work. But recordings of this stuff are really thin on the ground in comparison to their orchestral music, which equally requires a whole group of people to come together to perform it. We just don't have a sort of collection of well-regarded choirs doing the repertoire in the same way that we have orchestras. The music does still exist and get performed, but the status of it seems to be much reduced.

It wouldn't apply to people here, but in general culture there is quite definitely a sense that classical music is instrumental. I still remember having a heated argument about this with multiple people in a particular context, they listened to a lot of music but they didn't normally listen to classical music and were fully on board with the notion that an upcoming classical "song cycle" by Tori Amos was not in fact going to involve any singing. I found this proposition mystifying but I couldn't argue them out of it. To them a classical "song" could be purely instrumental. They were totally wrong about the song cycle in question... but then Tori Amos also issued a purely instrumental version of the album because so many fans clamoured for it. Because it was a classical album they wanted an instrumental version of it, largely shorn of the actual melody line, and it wasn't because they wanted to do karaoke with it.

So in general culture, it's classical instrumental music that now has the status. I'm not sure how much of that is just that most people switched to more recent popular music for singing (where solo vocal is king), or how much is because sung music imposes language barriers that instrumental music doesn't.

Yes, anyway. In short, whether or not anyone here on the forum doesn't go for classical vocal music, the cultural zeitgeist and the market certainly don't seem to go for it.

[DaveF]

The thing that really strikes me, which I've remarked on a few times, is that culturally we seem to have completely fallen out of love with choral music.

In the UK, based on my local experience, I would estimate that every town of medium-size and above has a choral society, who generally mount three or four concerts per year with orchestra, usually of fairly standard repertoire (Mozart masses, Fauré Requiems etc.) but in some cases (including one local to me) of often fairly neglected and challenging works.  Standards are amateur, but quite acceptable.  Concerts are generally sold out.  What is worrying is that the average age of members of these societies is quite high - if I'm ever called in myself to make up numbers, I'm the baby of the bass section at 65.  So the situation is fairly healthy at the moment, but "forward, tho' I cannot see, I guess an' fear!"

Worth mentioning too that the English cathedral choral tradition is alive and well - less so in Wales, sadly.