Evasions May Be Maddening, But Definitions May Be Limiting

Recent books and articles by writers such as Richard Taruskin, Alex Ross and Lawrence Kramer, and a simple survey of contemporary trends in “serious” music composition, provoke some thoughts relating to fundamental assessments of what “classical” or “serious” or “art” music really is. An acquaintance asked me recently, “How do you define classical music, and when did it begin?” Sounds like an easy question? Try answering it without a load of prevarications and caveats. Heck, try answering it without descending into gibberish.

I evaded the question.

Oh, initially I took a stab at it, mentioning a sort of potential historical distinction between “functional” musics and “aesthetic” musics, and talked about the codification of the repertory in a discrete body of works that one might imagine European and American music consumers to commonly accept as “classical” music, and I talked about the relationship of patrons, commercial issues, and the concept of artistic integrity, but then had to stop in a confused daze. So my interlocuter interjected, “Do you think Philip Glass is a ‘classical’ composer? I do.” I instinctively think my friend is right, but if I try to explain why, I lapse into incoherence.  I know this, however: the difference between so-called popular and so-called classical categories is not determined by the sort of formal education a composer has received (consider Weill’s study with Busoni or Cage’s with Schoenberg) nor by the sort of instumental guise the music adopts, nor, increasingly, by the sort of venue the music is played at. It is tempting for someone like myself, lacking a clean record in the snobbery sweepstakes as I am, to point to commercial ambitions as a sort of demarcating barrier. But I’d be wrong if I posited such a distinction. Charles Ives could afford to be quixotic, and Elliott Carter can afford to be irredeemably complex, for reasons that are obvious…the lack of necessity on relying on income from their musical compositions to make a living. Do you think Mozart wanted to write every last Contre-dance, Serenade, or Divertimento that he did write? Of course not. And Ross points out the pathetic spectacle of Arnold Schoenberg imagining that his opera Von Heute auf Morgen would be a runaway hit. It wasn’t. But let me mention here, apropos Schoenberg, that for my money he out-Weilled Weill in the cabaret genre with his magnificent “Brettl” Lieder. I have the sneaking suspicion that Schoenberg could outplay anyone at their own game any time he chose, but the inexplicable thing about him for so many people is why he chose to do what he did. It would be amusing to compile a Schoenberg program of nothing but widely attractive pieces, not all of which would need to be culled from his early years.

Almost every composer wants to be loved by a a large audience, and wants or needs to generate income from his work. Of course there are exceptions. There are exceptions to every single generalization you can make in this world. But the exceptions are not, by definition, characteristic, so you can throw out the pecuniary aspect as a reliable dividing line. Handel and Rossini did pretty well, eh? And here in Chicago, to my certain knowledge, there are excellent musicians working in unambiguously “popular” genres who struggle to make a decent living, despite highly honed musical skills and plently of intelligence and energy. Music is a hard profession. No, please don’t say, “every profession is hard”, there are some professions that require less dedication. This shouldn’t come as a surprise to anyone. 

Complexity? Please; this is a canard: Compare Ellington with Clementi. But, it is true, and not merely coincidentally true, that much of the music called “classical” is more conventionally complex then so-called popular music, but nowhere near to point of ubiquity where we can comfortably designate complexity as the dividing line. And complex in what way? Harmonically? Alright, the Classics have Chopin. Rythmically? Traditionally the Classics have lagged here. It amuses me that permutations of odd units of beats, and the juxtaposition of these units in larger segments, as practiced by Stravinsky, is accepted as rhythmic complexity. Complex indeed, compared to Haydn’s “London” symphonies, but there are myriad musics from ethnic and often non-Western sources that do the same thing, only naturally, not contrived. I’ve heard these musics. But here I have to acknowledge unambiguously that I’d rather hear Le Sacre, which is absolutely not on my personal top ten list, or top hundred list, even, than any of these other musics. That’s just because I’m attuned to European cultural values, and it is a perfectly legitimate preference, one for which there is no need to apologise. I admit to considerable skepticism regarding the deliberate appropriation of non-Western elements in musics as diverse as the Beatles, John Cage, and Philip Glass. George Harrison wrote charming songs, which I value. Then, he apparently went to India to sit at the feet of the Groovy Guru, came back, and continued to write charming songs, only this time with sitar. If my facts arn’t exactly right, if Harrison had an Indian grandmother or used sitar before going to India, that doesn’t invalidate my point about the dubiousness of attempted absorption of alien musical cultures. Nothing wrong with it, as long as you don’t pass it off as the real McCoy, which I’m pretty sure the Beatles didn’t, anyway.  I think it was in Ross’s fine book that he quotes someone to the effect that the best way to express a culture is to be from that culture. But in these confessionally violent and fragmented times, the sort of attempted cross-cultural synthesis represented by the examples above are most likely a good thing, in any case, but the sort of person who values more or less exclusively Western style and content needn’t apologise. No one person can be all people, although I suspect that this is a sort of ambition for a number of post-modern Western composers, Schnittke, for instance.

Can Personal Taste Be A Potential Arbiter Of The Classical And the Popular? 

What I cannot understand: Years ago, a colleague and I were discussing our shared love for the music of Tchaikovsky. The conversation veered into a consideration of Tchaikovsky’s legitimate successors, (Rachmaninov and yes indeedy, Prokofiev, for example) and then we discussed Shostakovich. Specifically, Shostakovich’s marked antipathy for the music of Scriabine. Well, I love to play Scriabine on the piano because somehow his figurations fit my hand exceedingly well, so I can execute virtuoso passages in Scriabine which execution is denied me in certain other repertories. Scriabine is a sort of utopian mystic (a catergorization he paradoxially could be said to share with Webern, queerly enough) and Shostakovich is so-called “down to earth.” Somehow I mentioned that for my view, Shostakovich and Schoenberg were likely my personal favorite composers of the Twentieth century, while Scriabine was a sort of Wagnerian personality, with a weirdly myopic ego, and Stravinsky was already showing signs of wear. This stopped the conversation dead, and actually offended my colleague. She rebuked me with inconsistency; how could any intelligent person who loves Tchaikovsky’s “imperial” music and Shostakovich’s searingly human, if not always humane, works also prize a worthless stinker like Schoenberg, whose appalling music had done so much harm?  If you like Shosty’s magnificent (first) violin concerto, you cannot possibly like Schoenberg’s essay in the same genre. You must be lying, or confused; it’s a certaintly that you are inconsistent in a way that disqualifies your viewpoint. But it’s not important what I like, or what you like, relative to some generalized conceit of properly adjudicated taste, and consistency isn’t necessarily a virtue; in fact, one of the cleverest things about being human is a sort of innate sense of a need for balance; my idiotic cats will eat their favorite treats to a surfeit, foregoing all else, whereas the human table includes Yorkshire pudding and a salad with the roast beef. If you’re going to a desert island, and are given two records, don’t take one by Mahler and one by Berg, choose one of those, and complement it with something else. I’m influenced by Taruskin here, but I can say: Shostakovich exemplifies the value of engagement, and Schoenberg exemplifies the value of super-cultural inner exploration, which also has its value, but for fewer people.

So which is “classical”? We can redefine our terms and say Shostakovich is a “popular” composer, but I make the (possibly) unwarranted assumption that educated consumers intuitively accept both as “classical”. So, I’m back to square one, agreeing with my friend from the first paragraph that Glass belongs in the classical bin without being able to say exactly why.  

Aside from the fact that attempting to artificially segregate musical styles is like running across the ice rink in your socks, there is no burning need to resolve the issue, but I must say that people do ask the question…as a music teacher, I know they do.  Frequently. If it’s a naive question, it at least appears to be the sort of question that has relevance for the supposed crisis in classical music addressed by Kramer and analyzed by Taruskin. Words change their meanings over time and some words lose their meaning. Popular and classical are examples of such words in the field of (What can I call it now? Ecoledenotredamepalestrinabachhaydnmozartbeethovenrossiniwagnerchopindebussystravinskyschoenbergbeatlesglassadams music)…I do know what popular is, however. It is that which a lot of people like. Wait a minute, a lot of people relative to the number of people who like music as a whole? A lot of people relative to those who like Schoenberg? A lot of people who are willing to pay money for it?   

Not Every Composer Has Everything: Some Half Hearted Provocations

Amidst the plethora of plaudits for Dmitri Shostakovich over the last couple of decades, you sometimes encounter a dissenting voice, as these pages encountered a dissenting voice in connection to Shostakovich 11. This piece is indeed open to criticism in its melodic aspect. And if you persist in evaluating harmony on a purely vertical basis, as opposed to a long range linear conception, it can be criticized there, as well. And it is full of violence.

But not every viable or even great piece succeeds in all musical dimensions. I’ve noted the grasp of long range structure in Shosty 11, which allows the piece to succeed as a cumultive experience. Here are some very arguable points, not every one of which I personally subscribe to:

Potential weaknesses in the masters:

1. For Schubert’s purely instrumental works, a relative lack of counterpoint. (There are exceptions! I know all about the inner strings in the intro to the Ninth, for instance.)

2. For Schumann and Bruckner, changing persistent rythmic patterns elegantly, or sometimes even competently.

3. For Mahler: There is too much about the composer, himself, personally. Also, occasional formal arbitrariness. His greatest score, Das Lied von der Erde, is not coincidentally the one piece that entirely avoids these potential pitfalls.

4. For Haydn, if we really have to find something: Not all his minuets are equally charming.

5. For Vivaldi: an inability to develop themes rather than to simply sequence them.

6. For Berlioz, Ravel, Rimsky-Korsakov, and Schnittke: Too great a reliance on picquaint instrumental sonority. (I would include Respighi, Milhaud, and Villa-Lobos, but I’m trying to restrict myself to the obvious heavy hitters. Yes, R-Korsakov, Ravel and Schnittke are heavy hitters.

7. For Schoenberg: A tendency to hysteria.

8. For Liszt, Prokofiev, and Tchaikovsky: An unusually pronounced gap in inspiration between the successful pieces and the also-rans. Maybe this is unfair, however…even the greatest composers can’t command inspiration.

9. For Stravinsky: Spiritual coldness. This is a heavy charge, and one I’m not particularly desirous of maintaining, Stravinsky is so resourceful and intelligent, and yet… 

10. For Handel: A marked tendency for the too simply grandiose or schematic.

I can’t find anything I’d be willing to even suggest laying at the doorsteps of Bach, Mozart, Beethoven, Chopin, Mendelssohn, Wagner, or Berg…Brahms? He wrote Ein Deutsches Requiem, so he gets a one-time only pass. Strauss? Which one? The one with the waltzes or the one with the Super-man Waltzes?

This is Better-A Postscript to "I Just Have To Comment"

Reading the Tribune’s review of Lyric Opera’s “Die Frau Ohne Schatten” is worthwhile. Not because I agree (in fact, I disagree with much of the assessment of the production) but because it is a relevant commentary on the piece itself. And it gives some sound advice: “Run, don’t walk (to this production)”. This production is a big deal.

I Just Have to Comment

You will find some comments by me in these pages on the Verbier Festival Orchestra performance with Martha Argerich as soloist. You may also read the reviews on the two Chicago newspapers, on their respective websites. (See the ChiTrib review and the Sun-Times review.) Both newspaper reviews make a big deal out of Argerich’s history of cancellations, and the fact that she had been married to the conductor, Chas. Dutoit. Neither says anything whatsoever about the music. Do Chicago newspaper readers know Prokofiev and Berlioz so well? And one of the reviews, incredibly, described the accompaniment of the Prokofiev as “less than impressive.” Not true, not true, not true. Look at the score. The orchestration is full of problems, and the Verbiers did as good a job as could possibly be expected. And both of the reviews essentially misunderstand the nature of the Berlioz performance, which was brilliant sounding but immature, without a great deal of nuance. This is frustrating. Deification of performers is gross (Argerich was great, however)- Worse, it is boring. I put stupid jokes and irrelevant personal commentary in my “review”, but that’s gotta be better than talk of “impeccable passagework”; or junk about Dutoit being in a position as the pianist’s former husband to ensure her compliance with her contract…readers deserve something more.

Do You Want Three Hours of Meditation on Meaninglessness? Mix Schnittke with the Coen Brothers

Maybe you have a favorite uncle who on taking leave of you, jauntily winks as he advises, “Don’t do anything I wouldn’t do.” Well, after the way I spent Saturday, evening, I advise you to think twice about doing anything I would do. The day started reasonably well, teaching a fistful of piano lessons to some of my favorite students, several of whom I’ve had for years. A leisurely walk home, while listening to some Panufnik on the ipod, only to find several packages of books I had ordered waiting in the front vestibule. So far so good; I thumbed through a biography of Hindemith I’ve been wanting for some time, as a reasonably entertaining football game played out on the TV. And my wife was baking a ham. A real ham, not Ham and Water Product or whatever.

And then I ruined everything.

First mistake:  I listened to Schnittke’s First Symphony. Now, the antecedents for this wild chaos (composed in 1972, I think) include Mahler and Ives, and maybe even Berio’s “Sinfonia”, when was that written? And did Schnittke know it? Was it unavailable to a composer working in the Soviet system? I’ll look this stuff up, if nobody enlightens me before I get around to some fact-checking. In any case, the piece is closest to Ives’ collage pieces, but on steroids. I’m planning on discussing Schnittke next semester, so he’s become a project of mine. He is generally associated (rightly) with a Shostakovich type ethos, but the First Symphony owes little to Shosty, although I do think I found some quotes from Shostakovich amongst the bedlam. This is a formidable piece. The scoring requires more players than the entire population of Cameroon in the 15th century. It is confrontational, violent, despairing, cruelly humorous, and ultimately demoralizing. So, naturally, I followed it up with a second mistake, by going with my wife to see the Coen brothers’ new movie, “No Country for Old Men”- which is confrontational, violent, despairing, cruelly humorous, and ultimately demoralizing.

Both pieces are exemplars of what is sometimes called post-modernism. Both are informed by a savage intelligence and irony, and both create worlds of sheer meaninglessness. For an hour with Alfred, and 2 hrs. with the Coens, you’re plunged into a weird, intractable void. You’re much better off with what Ives called “sissy” music- maybe some Boccherini or something. And if you’re gonna see a movie, go into screen seven and see “The Bee Movie” instead of screen eight, where “No Country” is… 

More on Schnittke anon. I don’t anticipate discussing the Coens any further. (Yes, I recommend both symphony and movie, if you’re confused.) 

Shostakovich 4,7, and 11...Chicago, We Don't Have a Problem

This season in Chicago features Shostakovich symphonies as indicated above. The 11th will be handled by the Civic.

A plea to my readers, and especially my students who are preparing for these concerts: Please forget Volkov, however entertaining a read his book might be. It’s clearly, indisputably a fraud, as conclusively proven by Laurel Fay in The Shostakovich Casebook with absolutely impeccable integrity and academic bona fides. I don’t see how you can get around it. (and I don’t see why you would want to.) If you can’t trust Volkov’s integrity, and you cannot, how can you trust anything he says?

Years ago, when I included Russian masters in my curriculuum, I used Volkov because of ignorance; I’m embarassed, and for once, sincerely. Mea culpa, mea maxima culpa. I’m weeping uncontrollably as I write this. If you put your finger up to your monitor screen, you will notice that it is damp. Get the Shostakovich Casebook, the Glikman letters, the Wilson bio, or Taruskin’s Defining Russia Musically; you’ll be doing yourself a favor. I was gonna throw out the Volkov, but I decided to keep it as a reminder of my folly. But I don’t put it with my Shosty books, it doesn’t belong there. I put it with my pulp crime novels because my wife won’t let me defile her Harlequin romances with its presence.

I’m given to jaw-dropping hyperbole, but I’m serious on this one. 

The Fourth, Seventh, and Eleventh are each the greatest symphonic achievement ever in at least one aspect.

1. The Fourth has the greatest coda in symphonic history. A catastrophe; A shrieking cry of agony in the shape of a fractured chorale followed by numbness. And the uncanny happens in the finale…as you’re listening to the farrago of carnival or pop tunes following the impressive marcia funebre that launches the finale, you sense inevitably, and with palpable unease, the catastrophe that’s headed your way. The first time, every time you hear it. In the finale of the Sixth Symphony, you correctly sence that you’ll have fun carnival stuff all the way to the end.

2. The first movement of the Seventh is the greatest battle depiction ever. Nazis invading? Probably. Stalin’s threat to freedom and humanity? I sure ain’t convinced. But who cares. You could think of it as the Iraq war or the Peloponnesian war for all I care. It’s great symphonic writing: dynamic, taut, intense, masterfully constructed. You, know, its scheme isn’t all that far off the 1812 overture. Russian Hymn, Battle, and Apotheosis, although here you have to wait for the finale for the apotheosis.

3. Was it Stravinsky who said “music is the best means we have for digesting time.” or was it Auden? I’m pretty sure it couldn’t have been Stravinsky’s alter-Igor Robert Craft. Welcome to the Eleventh. It is the greatest long-range symphonic construction in time that we have. The seventh symphonies of Beethoven and Sibelius may come close, but here you have an uninterrupted hour of absolutely perfect pacing. The year 1905? The crushing of the Hungarian uprising in 1956? Whatever. How about a great symphony that will outlast associations with either.

Update on 2007-11-19 04:06 by John Gibbons

Here are the YouTube videos for the Shostakovich 4th. Unlike my usual practice, I can’t embed them directly here because they haven’t been made available that way. Click here to watch.

Watch Gergiev conducting the second movement of the 7th symphony here. 

Watch Gergiev conducting the 11th symphony here.

David wondered why these are broken up. If I remember correctly, YouTube videos have a 10-minute limit.

—Bonnie Gibbons 

Prokofiev and Berlioz with the Verbier Festival Orchestra

There are an awful lot of good to excellent youth orchestras out there. Abbado has a great one in Europe. Here in Chicago the Civic generally pleases. The Verbiers, from Switzerland, played in Chicago tonight. I was lucky in this concert; as a music teacher and lecturer, I usually have to make my dinner with stale gruel and tepid tap water, but not tonight. A generous patron associated with Verbier’s sponsor, UBS, gave me tickets to the pre-concert reception. Crab legs, salad with walnuts and blue cheese, ravioli suffed with carmelized mushrooms, beef tenderloin with creamy horseradish sauce, and anything you could want to drink…I wanted to miss the Prokofiev and stay with the food. But alas, with polite regrets and best wishes the catering staff shooed me off to the concert. Still, I’m sure my loyal students will continue to come through for me with tickets, books, Cds, etc. You hear that? This means you.

The first half was Martha Argerich and Prokofiev’s Third Concerto. She is a phenomenal pianist, could hardly have done better, but I enjoyed the little Chopin mazurka she played as an encore more than the piece de resistance, although I assure you I liked the tenderloin better than the salad. You know the old maxim about children? They should be seen and not heard. Well, the visual aspect of the pianist attacking and dismembering the piano is better than the aural aspect in this piece. And the orchestration was full of all sorts of miscalculations, the string writing consistently delivering little bang for the buck. All three movements begin promisingly, with Slavic melodies that leave a hint of Rachmaninov in the air. But then you have this deplorable combination of primitivism and neoclassicism. Before anybody gets on my case, I hereby solemnly state that I love many things of Prokofiev; “War and Peace”, the Sixth Symphony, more than half the piano sonatas, and even his other concerti; particularly the magnificent Symphonie-Concertante for cello. Speaking of primitivism, Bartok’s First Concerto fits the bill, and speaking of neoclassism, you could do worse than Bartok’s Second Concerto. I honestly think Prokofiev copies Stravinsky, like he did with his “Scythian Suite”. But whether yea or nay to that, the Third Concerto is all too limited in the type of piano sonority it evokes. Evertything is either a motoric toccata or actual banging, which is exciting but limited. The second mvt., however, has an interesting conceit; alternating violence with Slavic pathos. The Verbiers were outstanding in a reasonably difficult accompanying capacity, and in fact I was especially impressed because accompanying sensitively is a skill that often eludes brash, hot-shot virtuosi. 

Berlioz “Fantastique”…here is a work that wholly deserves its canonical status, and is a perfect vehicle for brash, hotshot young virtuosi.  They overdid it, I guess, but then,that’s part of the message of the piece. Nothing succeeds like excess.  Every single time I hear this incredible piece, I’m struck by its essential modernity and its sense of humor. I’ve made an entry about it which you can access here: (Revenge article). Who else would depict his composition, theory, and I’m almost certain, at least one especially noted Russian music expert (from the Paris Consevatory, of course) as capering demons at a satanic orgy?  

I’d like to say something serious about the Berlioz: the slow movement, “Scene in the Country” is the fantastic heart of the work, also the fantastic heartbreak of the work. I don’t have words eloquent enough to describe the shattering sadness of the English Horn’s attempt to start up again the duet with the oboe that begins the movement, and the lack of reply. Duet becomes solo, and only nature answers, malevolently, with the menace of a thunderstorm. This is Berlioz’s great hymn to loneliness. The Shepherd’s pipe is a voice in the void.  Goosebumps, goosebumps, goosebumps. What could be more beautiful? 

The orchestra, led by Charles Dutoit, generously played encores of the rousing “Farandole” from “L’Arlesienne” of Bizet, and Chabrier’s Espana. The latter piece has a clever ryhthm, but I don’t know…I’m  tempted to resume my habitual snobbiness just now, so here I will stop. 

A brief Postscript to "A Bridge Across the Abyss"

If you want to understand the world of Richard Strauss, circa 1919,  the book to read is Stefan Zweig’s  “The World of Yesterday”, which is a combination of autobiography, social commentary, and cultural anaylsis. If you can find it, you might also try Lotte Lehman’s “Five Operas and Richard Strauss”.

A clarification: the leitmotiv I’m referring to comes initially when the Emperor is describing how he wounded his favorite falcon, out of some weird fear or jealousy, at the time he captures the gazelle, which turns into the Empress. It is a small phrase from the long, opulent melody associated with the Emperor as hunter. 

"A Bridge Across the Abyss" -Strauss's Die Frau ohne Schatten (at Chicago Lyric Opera, the dress rehearsal was this afternoon)

The most poetic line of Hofmannsthal’s libretto for Strauss’s opera (premiered 1919) is sung by a small  chorus of night watchmen at the end of act one; they adjure the town’s husbands and wifes to “love one another more than your life, and know this; not for your life’s sake alone is the seed of life given to you, but is solely for the sake of your love…you husbands and wives, who lie in one another’s loving arms, you are the bridge across the abyss over which the dead come back to life. Blessed is your work of love!”

Can art be “a bridge across the abyss”? And are we in fact poised above an abyss, en general? Or does an artist manufacture the concept of “an abyss” to make his work appear to be redemptive? I don’t know, but the piece worked for me, from beginning to end. The theme of the wounding of the falcon, which became a love motif throughout the course of the piece, uniting the Mozartian couples Pamina and Tamino and Papageno and ..I mean, Emperor and Empress, Dyer and wife, was especially memorable; it better have been, because Strauss repeated it a zillion times in a zillion ways, but he had the courage of his convictions, and it paid off; the leitmotivic organization was splendidly cogent. 

Strauss may have been a bourgeois, and this passage may appear to be the grossest of bourgeois sentiments, couched in Teutonic sonic gargantua, but I was there today, in the theatre, (albeit the dress rehearsal) and moving it was, and how. The opera started at one and ended at five; that’s four hours! Four great hours. The acts get progressively better, as well. And I’m an opera lover born, but I can lose the thread, time to time, opera is demanding.  Not today. And the plot is the most recondite imaginable. This is an encomium, if you like.

If you live in Chicago you ought to go.  In the past I’ve been rebuked (getting rebuked is a super fun habit of mine) for not being sufficiently positive about the Lyric Opera; it’s a pleasure to be able to wholeheartedly and absolutely without reservation recommend this splendid effort. Everyone knows how great Deborah Voigt (the Empress) is. And lots of guys know the fine talents of Jill Grove (nurse), Franz Hawlata (Barak the Dyer — WFMT listeners also heard his wonderful Hans Sachs last week) and Christine Brewer (Dyer’s wife); but the tenor who sang the Emperor, an unknown quantity to me, Robert Dean Smith, was equally splendid. And tenors have a tough time making their way in Strauss. Not Mr. Smith, whose scene with the falcon in act two was memorably beautiful. Memorably beautiful. I use words lightly all too often, but not here. Memorably beautiful. 

The production is a (reasonably conservative) winner, by Paul Curran, and Sir Andrew Davis and the orchestra were really, really wonderful… and I know I’ve had my criticisms of both orchestra and conductor in the past… this was first rate.  The Lyric made my day. Bravi.    

Some Clarifications and Amplifications: Barber, Taruskin, and Snobbery

[Barber’s Violin Concerto attempts, and magnificently succeeds in, creating obviously beautiful and appealing melodies. Make no mistake, Violin Concerto though it may be called, the first two movements are luscious songs.]

Didn’t I just say that in my last post? 

Am I permitted to say that my comment on listeners “being free to luxuriate in the beautiful melodies” of the Barber concerto is an observation, not a condemnation? At least I didn’t consciously try to put down Barber’s audience; and if I put down Barber’s audience subconsciously, it is probably due to my own insecurities, and not to a rational evaluation of the nature of his audience. Snobs are insecure people, let’s face it. For convenience, and because I’m heartily sick of semi-colons and other connective gammatical devices, I’ve arranged these in the form of a list:

1. The Barber Violin Concerto is a great work.  I know that.  And ironically, from my point of view, it would continue to be a great work even if only the size of Webern’s public liked it. What’s good for the goose is good for the gander. And you know, I’m not persuaded that it is always out of bounds to criticize public taste. Standards of discrimination has its value…I would hate to have classical music concerts become pops concerts. My problem is that I’m frustrated that what I value isn’t valued more generally, which I guess is a kind of immaturity. Don’t I get credit for defending the popular rep in my student days, at least? And I’m not always a snob. Didn’t I just run a class on Sibelius, for instance? And haven’t I praised Leonard Bernstein’s music at every opportunity?

2. Taruskin is a great writer and thinker. I know that. And ironically, he would still be a great writer even  if he preferred Webern to Barber and if only a public the size of Webern’s liked his work.

3. I imagine it was some jackanapes and not The Great Man who claims I’m a snob who needs to be rebuked. But let me respond, as to being a snob: It’s a fair cop, Guv’nor, you got me bang to rights.  As for a rebuke? Well, I deserve all sorts of rebukes for all sorts of transgressions.  …ah, if you only knew!

4. For better or worse, a blog is the sort of forum where in order to generate interest, it appears that controversial or provocative claims get more readership and generate more interest than careful, sober posts. And I try to do my posts with humor, which is some defense. That’s why posts on Taruskin and even one on Alex Ross’s fine new book took issue with some of their views. The “off the cuff” nature of a blog reveals things about the writer that he would not perhaps want to reveal intentionally. Regular contributors to the comments, such as Ry and David,  who happen to be friends of mine, are most often moved to comment when they disagree with something. I imagine it is easier to take shots from the sidelines than to create an interesting post a priori, which is fair, but I ask for some indulgence. I like to stir things up, it’s in my nature.

I’ve decided to turn over a new leaf. Who needs a snob? Here’s a new list of points that will indicate my new, reformed direction.

1. Aren’t puppies cute? I saw one crawl in a sock drawer once, just a-snoozin’ away! And kittens are cute, as well.

2. And so are composers. Especially ones who write nice music. Only meanies think that it’s appropriate to criticize each other’s taste. And I think you’re cute, too. Can’t we all get along? 

3. Boy, those concert grand pianos sure are big!

4. Goshers, isn’t it amazing how the Chicago Symphony got through the whole 80 minutes of Mahler 6 without stopping or breaking down even once. They’re like super-men!

Oh no! I’m doing it again! These “reformed” comments smack of sarcasm! Oh, well, a chameleon may change his colors, but never his nature.