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

>This implies that there are basic pieces and later you state outright
>that if you don't know these pieces, you don't know classical music at
>all.  I'm sorry, but no piece of music is absolutely indispensible to an
>understanding of the art, not even Bach's Goldbergs.  The only thing that
>truly guides anyone is one's own taste.  The rest is mainly advertising
>with snob appeal.  My suggestion to the writer is to find out what her
>taste is, as opposed to my taste or your taste.

I think what's worrying me, though, is the possibility of what I think
of as "reverse" snobbery...  The possible notion that "Oh!...  Rich people
who don't really like Classical music just show up at *same-old-same-old*
concerts of Mozart or Beethoven just to look cultured...  but you really
*must* know and like classical music if you listen to Webern or
Schoenberg." I'm worried that some might be going into that area of
classical music just to play the part of the *super-DUPER intellectual*
even among the mere *super intellectuals* that listen to the more standard
repertoire.

Surely, if you like the new stuff, go for it...  it's just that I think
it's harder to actually *truly* like the new stuff than it is the older
stuff...  a lot more hit-or-miss...  because, at least with the older
stuff, we are more familiar with it...  more comfortable...  and from that
safety one can reach out and explore.  Like teaching a kid swimming...
start 'em off in the kiddie pool...  or throw 'em into the deep end from
the start.

Luckily (I guess) for me, I had a lot of background in classical music
performance before I *liked* listening to it (played violin since the 2nd
grade, but listened to, and bought, pop and rap up until the last couple
years of high school), so I was already comfortable with the *classical
sound*.  For classical, I started out buying Pavarotti recitals cuz his
voice was kick-ass beautiful on 'em...  then Puccini operas with Pavarotti,
particularly the ones with Karajan conducting (their La Boheme and
Butterfly were, and still are, GORGEOUS!!!)...  then Karajan's Beethoven
symphonies...  then other Karajan standard rep...  then just other standard
repertoire stuff...  THEN some moderns.

Of that last part of my colleciton, a lot I like (earlier moderns like
Ravel and Debussy, and later ones like Poulenc and Britten).  But a lot
of others I also regret plunking down for just for the sake of something
new (No more Hindemith for me, thanks!).  (I'm so glad I got to preview
Chailly's award-winning Varese collection before I opened my wallet...  cuz
after I previewed it...  I *didn't*!;-) If I'd started out collecting like
that, getting some nice ones, but also building up a pile of duds with
sounds unappealingly alien to me, I might have quit a loooong time ago.

Albie