Joe Hagedorn wrote:

>So what are we doing here? Someone suggests a composer is bad and then a
>whole bunch of people write back in the composers defense?

Pretty silly, isn't it?

>I'd like to try a few.

Oh, blast and darn it all.  And I thought you were the guy in the white
hat and cowboy boots who would take out his sixshooters and clean up this
miserable town.  Turns out you are just like the rest of the outlaws
hanging out at the Last Chance Saloon.

>Schumann I often thought he just wrote his piano music for little old
>ladies. I was very surprised when I read him making this same complaint
>about other composers. He seemed to criticise many composers who were
>better than him.  Maybe he was jealous?

Sounds like you don't know much Schumann.  Shame on you.  I am the Schumann
Sherif this week.  Keep it up and I'll have to assign you to hard labor in
the collected works department.  Make you listen till you eat your words.

>Charles Dalmas wrote:
>
>>This genius actually compared Beethoven to Cow Manure.
>
>I wouldn't go that far, but most of Beethoven's music isn't very good.
>The stuff he wrote later in his life is good, but the stuff from his heroic
>phase isn't good.

Sez you.  My Ludwig can beat up your Ludwig any old day.  Let's set up
a duel in the sun.  Meet you at high noon on Main Street.  I'll bring my
string quartets.  What will you bring? Some of that miserable symphonic
stuff? Piece of cake.  We will whup you but good.  Four against a hundred.

>Most of his symphonies are pretty random and repetitive and don't make
>any sense.  His music is usually extremely extroverted and impersonal.
>There are a few gems here and there, but he's a very overrated composer.

And pray, sir, what brought you to our little classical town in the first
place? What exactly were you hoping to find? That silver mine has been dead
for years.  No oil here.  Just boring, random, repetitive, extroverted and
impersonal (sic, sick) composers like Wolfie, Ludwig, Joe and the other
dead guys.  Hey, fella, they are DEAD already!  Been dead for years.  They
can't hurt you.  How come you are still beating up on them?

>While I'm thinking about it.

Yes? Do tell.

>It's been said Spohr's clarinet music isn't any good and the clarinet is
>a hard instrument to listen to.  I've always liked the way clarinets sound,
>but who wrote good clarinet music?

Well, I would have suggested Mozart, but all he wrote was more junk.  You
would probably hate it too.  Brahms wrote a couple of sonatas for clarinet.
They sound better on viola, though.  Not much else around.  We have already
trashed all the strongest contenders.  They were ALL overrated.  Every last
mother's son of them.

Mimi Ezust, starting to tote a gun.