Bob Stumpf wrote:
>I have been wondering what makes some composers, such as Bruch, on a
>lower tier as compared to many of his contemporaries such as Mahler,
I generally find the attempt to rank musical creations pointless, but I
have to admit the distinction between Great and merely "good or average"
seems unavoidable, if hard to define. I was reminded of this at a chamber
music concert a couple of weeks ago. It began with a quintet by Reynaldo
Hahn (1875-1947, mostly remembered nowadays because he was a friend of
Proust). Hahn's backward-looking piece, written in the 1930s, sounded
like Franck with a tinge of Debussy. Nonetheless, it was was perfectly
agreeable, well-made music.
The next piece on the program was Brahms' marvelous horn trio. Wow,
what a difference. I'm not sure how to pin it down. One way is this.
I'd never heard the Hahn piece before, but nothing in it surprised me.
I've heard the Brahms a million times before, and it ALWAYS surprises
me.
Then, after the Brahms, the program concluded with the Beethoven
quartet #15. Poor Reynaldo. Sometimes, it occurs to me that these
"good or average" composers display a lot of guts by just keeping at
work. But sometimes their own limitations become painfully clear to
them. I once read that Wilhelm Stenhammar, after hearing a new symphony
by a contemporary named Sibelius, decided to just hang it up and not
write any more symphonies himself.
Cheers///
Jon Gallant and Dr. Phage
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