Donald Satz <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
>Albie Cabrera on the Received Canon:
>
>>And it's a challenge in itself to break away from it when the general CM
>>world/CM powers-that-be constantly pushes it on you.
>
>Come on now - nobody is pushing anything on anyone. Each of us is free to
>seek out what we want and easily avoid getting sucked up into some kind of
>'follow the leader' game, particularly since there is no leader to follow.
I'm not trying to push the (debated) RC as the standard for classical
music, nor that it is the "heart" of CM. (I believe the "heart" of CM is
more a mix of some of the RC/standard rep and some of the works not in the
RC/standard rep... a lot of the other music, both from the non-RC *as well
as* the historically/popularly-perceived RC, I believe are still peripheral
to the true "heart".)
But when I said "the RC *is*," I mean it is still the surface/shell of
CM that newcomers have to crack before getting to the heart... I think I
would agree with the Michelin/AAA restaurant listing analogy made earlier
in the thread, in that good stuff is included on wide-circulation lists,
but a lot of stuff that is just as good (or maybe even better to some
tastes) is missed...
I think people growing up in musically eclectic homes, even without formal
musical education, if they are immersed in it from an early age they are
starting from within the heart, or at least very close to it.
I believe, on the other hand, that the "RC" *is* and applies to/affects
the total CM newcomer... the kid doing a one-time school "report on CM"
from the general encyclopedia, where pages would be devoted to the Baroque,
Classical, and Romantic periods, with a few paragraphs devoted to
pre-baroque before, and a segment on the "Modern/Avante-garde Era"... The
young adult brought up on a steady diet of pop, finally tired of the
umpteenth Britney Spears replay, turns the dial and lands on the local CM
radio station. What does he hear?... The totally non-musically inclined
who strays from the video section in Tower Records into the Classical
department, looks up and sees the "CM History Timeline" poster, where he'll
find a few inches devoted early music (Hildegard von Bingen, I suppose),
and maybe a foot or so for Schoenberg-and-later, and in between, a yard or
more devoted to Bach through Puccini.
No, the RC is *not* good to hold up as the standard or "heart" of CM, but
it still *is* the surface/shell that the total newcomer must crack to find
his or her own "heart of CM."
Albie
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