Howard Goodall on BBC Two

[Quarky]

Should this read "even if you do not "like" it".?


No..... however it would be interesting to know what form such efforts might take.

If I may butt in anotherbob, may I give one example of Bach's chaconne for solo violin - BWV 1004. That eluded me for many years, until one day I was travelling home in my motor car in a particularly relaxed frame of mind, when it was played on In Tune and I finally cottoned on to what it was all about. Next day on checking my CD collection, I found I had the piece on CD and had in fact played it many times over the years without realising or appreciating its greatness.

So I guess one just continues plugging away until one day something positive happens!
But in the meantime, why make a judgement one way or the other?

[ahinton]

Should this read "even if you do not "like" it".?

No, although I accept that it could perhaps better read "whether or not you might "like" it"

No..... however it would be interesting to know what form such efforts might take.

OK - so you don't appear to consider that a composer's efforts count for all that much at least to the extent of comparing with those of his/her listeners; your prerogative, or course.

[Serial_Apologist]

? second movement of no 6?

Yep, that's the one.

[ardcarp]

Ferret.

As an example, let's imagine a Horizon programme about cosmology.
Television of this type is essentially a linear visual narrative, point A leads to point B and on to point C.

...precisely the sort of infantile thinking that leads to such c**p programmes. Bin these tram-line documentaries (whose worst excesses need shots of a celeb driving in a car to prove his body has moved to a new location) and let's have some original, creative ideas.

[Ferretfancy]

Ferret.



...precisely the sort of infantile thinking that leads to such c**p programmes. Bin these tram-line documentaries (whose worst excesses need shots of a celeb driving in a car to prove his body has moved to a new location) and let's have some original, creative ideas.

I'm afraid you misunderstand me. I'm all in favour of intelligent documentaries, I worked on quite a number and there are still some to be found. My point is that a TV documentary, however detailed it may be, cannot by its nature present arguments with all the qualifications and alternatives that can work well on the printed page. It's true that with modern home recording it is possible to shuttle back and forth, but if this was a built in requirement of the form viewers would fade away.

This is quite distinct from the trivialising nonsense that you rightly claim of, but I might add, try making one, it's a difficult job

[Oldcrofter]

Morning, Ardcarp ! So to get away from a c**p "tram-line documentary" presented by a (c**p ?) celeb on the history of music, you would start where in the first programme of a series ? With instruments, or composition, or minimalism or lullabies or ... ? Well, I'm probably guilty of "infantile thinking" here but maybe from something early in the history of music ?

As you say, " let's have some original, creative ideas". And who would you suggest could/should present it (if indeed a presenter is needed) ? I'm genuinely interested - not a troll !

[aeolium]

i do not find the posts here that reflect on HG's competence at all convincing since he clearly disagrees with posters here as to the nature and importance of eg serialism etc as posters disagree with his pov ... indeed the negative reaction to the programme series rather makes the point that it was polemical and a jolly good thing too.... Fry was waxing Wagner to a high gloss no? ... anathema to some of us but it made me think and open my ears .... [then the fat lady warbled at volume and i fled] ...

both of these programmes [HG and Sound and Fury] are fine examples of what we should die to defend ... polemic with sincerity and integrity ... and imv we need loads more of them not less

I'm sorry, calum, but I do not think polemic in history programmes is something worth dying to defend. I think on the contrary that it's pernicious, a form of sloppiness or Schlamperei. Of course anyone presenting a history will have their own perspective, put their own interpretation on the facts but it simply doesn't do to present a series of judgments with comments like the one in the classical programme along the lines of "if you can remember a tune from this period, it's probably by Mozart and if you can't it's probably by Haydn" or the one on serialism that serial music is not music that any normal person would listen to. That is polemical in the way a history series by Niall Ferguson is polemical. Broadcasters of course love it because polemic = controversy = ratings but I think it's simply crass (and neither of those statements by HG is true imv).

As a contrast (and as I happened to be in the Big Smoke last weekend) I went to the lecture on serialism - "A Beginner's Guide" given by Jonathan Cross at the South Bank Centre as part of SBC's Berlin in the 20s and 30s weekend. It was excellent, generally free of value judgements about the music, simply analysing its origins and development with numerous illustrations both audio and visual (screen representations of extracts from scores with key sections marked). I am not saying that this was suitable for a TV audience - though, suitably adapted, it would have been very good for R3 - but merely contrasting it with the style of the HG programmes: here, describing, illustrating, analysing, no polemic at all. Incidentally, this lecture was followed by a concert of mainly serial music given by Karim Said at which R3's Sara Mohr-Pietsch who introduced it discussed the nature of the music with Said. It was a shame that this concert was not recorded for R3.

[aka Calum Da Jazbo]

polemic in history programmes!!!!!!!! jeez all history is polemic even your plea for an academic quietude or exactitude aeolium, my point would be why not another dozen such programmes indeed featuring Cross and others...

btw have nothing against Prof Cross, went to an excellent talk by him at Oxford a while back ... and sprog rated him highly ...

[aeolium]

polemic in history programmes!!!!!!!! jeez all history is polemic even your plea for an academic quietude or exactitude aeolium, my point would be why not another dozen such programmes indeed featuring Cross and others...

I disagree. Polemic as defined in the OED refers to a "strong verbal or written attack on someone or something" or "the practice of engaging in controversial debate or dispute", while wiktionary defines it as a "contentious argument that is intended to establish the truth of a specific belief and the falsity of a contrary belief". It derives from Greek polemos meaning war. I don't think all history is of that kind, and much good history is not. As examples of good TV history series I would again cite the series on the Hundred Years' War and South American ancient civilisations. If you think these were polemical then I think we are disagreeing on terms.

[Demetrius]

"all history is polemic" touches on the academic concept that no historian can ever be completely objective and will always colour the history he presents due to his viewpoint. However, that doesn't mean the concept of objectivity should be given up. One should still strive for it even knowing it can not be achieved - thus minimising the subjectivity and prejudice that is bount to happen. All the while the Historian should stay conscious of his own limitations - "open minded" is the word.

Goodalls views on serialism are naturally and rightfully subjective; but for some here they appear to be too prejudiced, too subjective - thus "polemic". Which good historical analysis, whether popular or academic, is not supposed to be.

Personally, I can't judge them, since I haven't seen it.

[Ian]

I'm sorry, calum, but I do not think polemic in history programmes is something worth dying to defend. I think on the contrary that it's pernicious, a form of sloppiness or Schlamperei. Of course anyone presenting a history will have their own perspective, put their own interpretation on the facts but it simply doesn't do to present a series of judgments with comments like the one in the classical programme along the lines of "if you can remember a tune from this period, it's probably by Mozart and if you can't it's probably by Haydn"...

At the pub quiz last night a friend asked if I had seen the HG series. He had just watched the Classical period episode and had enjoyed it immensely. He particularly liked the comment about Mozart and Haydn, finding that it concurred with his experience and (and this is the important bit) found the explanation, that Mozart had to find and keep an audience as a freelancer, convincing.

So I wonder, if this view is merely polemical, what would an opposing view posit?

[aka Calum Da Jazbo]

the Cross lecture was on Stravinsky btw

ok you attack polemic and i will attack dogma and the 'received view' .... or we could understand that there is polemic and then there is war and all i am advocating is the acceptance that scholarship is always , however mildly, making a case that such and such is so .... or strongly as i think HG did .... the point is not to accept HG as the one and only, just a very good shot at furthering the debate ... i checked with swmbo and she was exhilarated by the programmes especially the last one ... i find the trouble starts when being polemical is denied ....

[Julien Sorel]

the explanation, that Mozart had to find and keep an audience as a freelancer, convincing.

I think a convincing case could be made that he was failing. The G minor piano quartet was commissioned as one of a set of three by Franz Anton Hoffmeister, a music publisher. Once he'd seen the G minor he told Mozart not to bother with the rest: the one he'd written was too difficult for Hoffmeister's public and wouldn't sell. Why Mozart then wrote the E flat piano quartet nine months later is a bit of a mystery. Maybe he thought Hoffmeister was wrong, maybe he felt an inner compulsion to write it?

I suspect the reasons Mozart got into such severe financial difficulties were (a) he tended to be spendthrift but (b) he was always much more dependent on aristocratic / higher bourgeois patronage than the narrative of Mozart the first true musical freelancer allows. In the 1780s Austria was at war with the Ottoman Empire and revolutionary events in France squeezed the spending power and ability to draw on banks of the aristocracy and the wealthy mercantile class in Vienna. By Mozart's death austerity was official Imperial policy (so the romantic story of Mozart's pauper's grave is misleading. Extravagant funerals were IIRC actually prohibited; and van Swieten, a patron of both Haydn and Mozart who was supposed to arrange Mozart's burial was arrested the night before on political charges. I think that's correct but maybe not to be relied on at the pub quiz).

Mozart makes a point in letters to Dad of his music pleasing both the expert and the general public, but Leopold fretted that Wolfgang was writing stuff that wasn't likely to be popular, that was too complex, learned, outré. Haydn's letter to Leopold telling him that Wolfgang is the greatest genius of all is doubtless designed to reassure. Whether it did, of course ....

The above may not be entirely accurate, but I'm certain Mozart the audience centred freelancer is a gross simplification (on many levels. Including the realities of continuing individual patronage). Does someone who knows more know how successful Mozart's subscription concerts were? I think the plan was he follow Haydn to London, where the audience for public concerts was very probably much greater.

[Julien Sorel]

Hoffmeister was also a composer, so I guess as a publisher he wrote music with an eye to a public ear. I can't find the date of composition, but comparing this to Mozart I'd say it's not just memorability or invention that separates this from much of Mozart's music, but something that goes to explain why Mozart might well have found himself at odds with an audience who would have found his music complex, confusing and difficult. It's not unpleasant https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xT42Bz9KlpE

[french frank]

The above may not be entirely accurate, but I'm certain Mozart the audience centred freelancer is a gross simplification (on many levels. Including the realities of continuing individual patronage). Does someone who knows more know how successful Mozart's subscription concerts were? I think the plan was he follow Haydn to London, where the audience for public concerts was very probably much greater.

You may have got some info from Gerard Schwarz's website, but he says (without references):

"Between 1784 and 1786, Mozart’s career was at its zenith. A series of subscription concerts he launched initially proved a tremendous success, both financially and critically, and he was, as he wrote to his father, “up to my eyes in work”.

Then Mozart suffered some setbacks. His opera “The Marriage of Figaro” met an indifferent reception at its Vienna premiere in May 1786, though it subsequently scored a sensational triumph in Prague. And the court appointment he longed for somehow failed to materialize.

Following the summer of 1786, Mozart apparently hoped to launch another season of subscription concerts, but his period of public favor in the Austrian capital had come to an end. Exactly why this occurred remains uncertain. It was formerly held that the notoriously fickle Viennese music lovers simply abandoned Mozart out of a desire for novelty.

Recently, historians seeking more tangible reasons have focused on the idea that financial strains brought on by war with the Ottoman empire left Austria’s aristocracy unable to indulge its passion for music as extravagantly as it once had. Some have also speculated that a flaw in Mozart’s personality may have alienated his audience. Or it’s been proposed that the radical egalitarian story of “The Marriage of Figaro” lost him the support of his mainly upper class audience.

Whatever the truth of these hypotheses, Mozart’s public performances now dropped off sharply in number, and his professional life went into a tailspin."