Please please remove me from your e-mail list I have no interest in
Classical Music......
----- Original Message -----
From: "Richard Tsuyuki" <[log in to unmask]>
Sent: Thursday, October 25, 2001 2:37 PM
Subject: Re: Trying to Start a Classical Music Collection
>Steve Schwartz:
>
>>In the case of Mozart, Tchaikovsky, and friends, what gets played is the
>>result of a process remarkably like the pop radio station, because the
>>goal -- a non-aesthetic one, by the way -- is to a large extent the same.
>>Programmers look at play figures. Some of them, I admit, may even like
>>the pieces they program and may have heard them before. However, if
you're
>>trying to suggest that Intrinsic Merit Wins Out or that this shows
>>something true about the nature of popular classic music itself, we must
>>agree to differ....
>
>I must be communicating even worse than usual. No, indeed I was not
>suggesting that the basis of the RC or radio airplay is Intrinsic Merit.
>I proposed that popular (classical or otherwise) music seems to be
oriented
>towards catchy melodies, but I am interested in other opinions. To me,
>"play figures", "averaged tastes" and other explanations along that line
>are unsatisfying in that they beg the question of *why* a *particular*
work
>has high play figures or is located at the average point of many
listeners'
>tastes.
>
>Mozart's PC 21 is in the RC and gets a lot of airplay. So this is due to
>play figures. Fine - why does PC 21 get great play figures while, I don't
>know, say, L'histoire du Soldat does not? Why are there many people who
>could enthusiastically hum you the "Ode to Joy" theme but could hear the
>entire first three movements of Beethoven's 9th without recognizing it?
Why
>is "Moldau" so much more popular than the rest of Ma Vlast? Anyone else
out
>there interested in these sorts of questions?
>
>Richard Tsuyuki
>Virginia, USA
>
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