Kim Patrick Clow writes:

>Having an opinion isn't a bad thing.  Hearing others say their opinions
>isn't either.  But that's different to me than just going down a list of
>say the top 100 pieces of classical music, and then say a specific piece
>of music is overrated "because I just don't like it".  It's just boring
>and a negative exercise in hearing folks pontificate.

Of course, you are 100% right.

These sort of Totalitarian Threads crop up at very regular intervals, and
give pleasure to many.  That makes it difficult for do the only sensible
thing when the blood pressure rises at such drivel - i.e.  ignore it, as
Steve Schwartz suggests.

>When I hear someone say that they think the Mozart 39th Symphony is
>overrated, I have to apologize, but I need more than "it's too simplistic"
>to convince me that 200 years of musicologists, scholars, conductors, and
>concert goers are wrong.  Big claims require bigger facts.

Better justifications, more thought, more humility.  I guess the pleasure
people get in taking a pop gun to Mozart's 39th Symphony must be something
to do with bringing Mozart "down to size" or making him "no better than the
rest of us".  Understandable, perhaps, but it's the lack of openness to new
insight which is the depressing thing.  Negative provocation also enters
into it at some level.

Instead of thinking "I don't connect with this work, how can I look at it
in a different way and see what others see?" many prefer to disparage it.
They aren't interested in analysing their own response, or sharing it,
because they probably haven't tried too hard to engage with the piece (or
performance) in the first place.  They are disappointed with themselves,
and looking for someone else to blame.

>I guess its just a matter of different focus than yours.  I would rather
>stress what's positive and try to build than tear down.

Stick with that at all costs, Patrick - and never contradict a Wagnerian
(he said, provocatively!)

Christopher Webber,  Blackheath, London,  UK.
http://www.nashwan.demon.co.uk/zarzuela.htm
"ZARZUELA!"