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Date: | Wed, 26 Jan 2000 06:52:06 -0600 |
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Roberto Strappafelci replies to me:
>If I can add my humble 2 cents I'll tell you this: we need a fair amount
>of tomatoes and a good deal of courage. Music passes through our ears
>before it could reach the brain, at least for the vast majority of people
>it works this way. Every attempt to bypass this physiological path should
>be prosecuted by the tomato's law.
Let me quote the following:
"It is mathematical music evolved with difficulty from an
unimaginative brain. ... How it ever came to be honored with the
title of The Tenth Symphony is a mystery to us. ... This noisy,
ungraceful, confusing and unattractive example of dry pedantry before
the masterpieces of Schubert, Schumann, Mendelssohn, Gade, or even
of the reckless and over-fluent Raff! Absurd! ... All that we
heard and seen from {his} pen abounds in headwork without a glimmer
of soul. ... It is possible that as we grow more familiar with this
symphony it may become clearer to us, but we might pore over a
difficult problem in mathematics until the same result was reached
without arriving at the conclusion that it is a poetic inspiration."
- 1878
Said of Brahms's First Symphony. I also recall a contemporary reviewer
complaining of the lack of tunes in Gounod's Faust. People are very quick
to blame the composer. I can understand different tastes. I even expect
it. However, elevating taste to the level of artistic principle drives me
up the wall.
Steve Schwartz
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