tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8514964.post110615464438461261..comments2024-03-13T05:54:04.900-04:00Comments on [listen]: Who's Going to Tell the Germans?Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12939881701345686354noreply@blogger.comBlogger2125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8514964.post-1106881191303883512005-01-27T21:59:00.000-05:002005-01-27T21:59:00.000-05:00-- " Mr. Douglas posts like this often enough that...-- "<I> Mr. Douglas posts like this often enough that I wonder if he has a macro for it.</I>" -- <br /><br />hahahahehehehahaha... That line really cracked me up. :-) <br /><br />LynnAnonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8514964.post-1106189627678469522005-01-19T21:53:00.000-05:002005-01-19T21:53:00.000-05:00AC Douglas is quite right, and deserves to be quot...AC Douglas is quite right, and deserves to be quoted in full:<br />(And as to "style wars," my above quoted remarks have nothing to do with commenting on differences in style. They have exclusively to do with commenting on the difference between our great 600-year legacy of genuine music and the willfully concocted, quasi-mathematical modern systems of composition specifically devised to turn out a simulacrum of genuine music that owes little or nothing to that great 600-year musical legacy, and for the mere appreciation of which simulacrum one needs either written or spoken technical explanation and justification at tedious length, or a master's degree in contemporary music theory.)<br /><br />I have argued these points myself many times on rec.music.classical.contemporary, and have run into the argument time and time again, that the means and traditions of past masters are obsolete, that they have no relevance to us today. One poster even claimed that we should listen to Haydn and Mozart, "with a grain of salt." To people like this, the art of Shakespeare, and his neverending insight into cause and effect of human action, must seem rather quaint. After all, we've graduated past that, haven't we?<br /><br />The Alex Ross article confirms AC Douglas' observation; the article is about the rejection in philosophy and practice of music past, and in its place, a "simalcrum" in AC Douglas' words of genuine music; as I see it, composers are always inventing new systems, rejecting the tried and true of the past. This is akin to a fish laying a thousand eggs, and going off to die, rather than a mammal rearing her children into adulthood.<br /><br />Ironically it was that archetype of a revolutionary, Arnold Schoenberg, who made the most potent observation - that whenever major developments occur, those that espouse those developments do all they can, in fact too much, to prevent what they see as a regression into what came before them.<br />Unfortunately, Schoenberg's logically extreme developments contributed to the rejection of a "600-year old legacy."<br /><br />Of course there are many composers writing in many ways; but in general the atmosphere today is that, thou shalt not follow in the paths of the masters.<br /><br />Walter Ramsey<br />ramseytheii@hotmail.comAnonymousnoreply@blogger.com