Steve Schwartz <[log in to unmask]> wrote:

>The public retreats when Carl Nielsen is on the program.  Nielsen is
>hardly as "far out" as Schoenberg or Cage.  The public retreats from the
>unfamiliar.

Nielsen is so and so.  I have never noticed that there has been any
major troubles with Sinfonia Espansiva.  The 6th symphony though is
more difficult, yet capricious, yet seroius, yet gallant, yet sorrowful.
I think it is very beautiful, but I understand why people who are not
interested to take so much listening time are kicked off with it.

Besides Nielsens Violinconcerto is stunningly beautiful.  Why isn't this
one on the standard repertoire? I can't see any reason.

>If you read Slonimsky's Lexicon of Musical Invective, you will come across
>Philip Hale's famous remark: "Exit in case of Brahms."

Objection! That's part of another debate you cardschackrer!

>I don't really see, say, Luciano Berio as a pops composer, no matter how
>many centuries we have left

But you do see Hafiz as a Western Writer?

>...  Most composers, as far as I can tell, don't write the way they do
>because they want to be relevant.  I would assert instead that most of
>them actually enjoy the music they write.

But most great composers write what they do because they enjoy the music
they write AND want to be relevant.

>I was listening to an interview with the British composer Elizabeth
>Lutyens (c.  1906-1984).  Without ever hearing or even knowing of scores
>by Schoenberg, Berg, or Webern, she independently created dodecaphonic
>serialism.

It is just that that it is blahee-blahaa to take honour from "I also did
it, therefore I am a prophet".  There has all the time been other possible
ways for the development to take.  If Schoenberg hadn't been scared off
by the problems of instrumentbuiling and tuning it would consequence in,
perhaps he has walked on the path he enetered in Op.16 (listen to
"Vergangenes"!!), and perhaps another with lesser influence of nobody
had dabbled with serialism?

>...  Schoenberg, for example, was convinced he would become a popular
>composer, eventually.  ...

It is said that the grapes are sour....

Mats Norrman
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