23.7.10

Picky

Tim Mangan of the Orange County Register lists ten recordings of works that serve as a newby's introduction to musical Modernism. It's a fine list, and I won't spoil it for you by reprinting it here.

In a his comment on a piece that interpolates sketches from a 19th century composer's music with the 20th century composer's original music, Mr. Mangan describes the original music as "atonal but exquisitely so". This is really picky, I know, but I wish he had not phrased it that way, unless of course he generally finds atonality less than exquisite. (The rest of the article doesn't read that way.)

I would rather have seen "exquisitely atonal" or "atonal, and exquisitely so". Again, I'm being picky, but I think it's better if we don't use negatively charged language in our attempts to promote our music.

[Edited on 8 Mar 14 to fix a typo.]

1 comment:

  1. Thanks for passing on the list. A few I'm familiar with, many I'm not. (I haven't even heard of Lutoslawski!) Sigh. So much to listen to, so little time...
    PS. Picky, yes, but I get your point.

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