Anne Ozorio wrote: >... Of course it's not new that Elgar wasn't what his image might >be. What Oramo is discussing is why people in general percieve >Elgar negatively. There must be thousands all over the world who >may not know as much as the clever few, but who are nonetheless >musically astute, but how to make them aware in the first place? >For example, Elgar's music was appreciated in Germany and Austria >when it was new. Richard Strauss called him "a progressive". So >why isn't he performed more often there more often now? .... A major reason why the Germans do not, on the whole, much appreciate Elgar (who was not very much appreciated anywhere in the 20s & 30s during the period of Neue Sachlichkeit etc), is because of the post-war turn towards assigning kudos to the 2nd Viennese school & its perceived musical consequences, this being very much pushed by Adorno, who dismissed Sibelius in a contemptuous article that rendered the latter's music non grata for quite some time, while he didn't even bother to waste his vituperation on Elgar, of whom he merely famously said "One gathers that the English even like Elgar", or words to that effect. Adorno also dissed Stravinsky, whose star was not very bright in Germany for a long time too, apart from the early ballets. The Oper Frankfurt has put on 3 productions of *The Rake's Progress* in the last 35 years, I believe; it played to half empty houses whenever I saw it, while *Lulu*, say, was sold out. Richard Strauss also had a bad name, but he wrote luscious operas & the public for opera ignores aesthetic correctness in such cases. This is a very crude version of what went on in postwar Germany, but I think it is not mistaken. Martin *********************************************** The CLASSICAL mailing list is powered by L-Soft's renowned LISTSERV(R) list management software together with L-Soft's HDMail High Deliverability Mailer for reliable, lightning fast mail delivery. For more information, go to: http://www.lsoft.com/LISTSERV-powered.html