Who said that?

[rauschwerk]

However, Peter Warlock did write that RVW's style was "like a cow looking over a gate"...

He actually wrote, in the context of great praise for RVW's music, “You know, I’ve only one thing to say against this composer’s music: it is all just a little too much like a cow looking over a gate. None the less he is a very great composer and the more I hear the more I admire him.”

[rauschwerk]

"I would give anything to have written this."

Many composers must have said something similar. Paul Hindemith said it of one of Schubert's marches for piano duet.

[vinteuil]

"It was Mr Western's custom every week, as soon as he was drunk, to hear his daughter play on the harpsichord".
.

... 'every afternoon' rather than 'every week', I think.

Let's have it in full :

'It was Mr Western's Custom every Afternoon, as soon as he was drunk, to hear his Daughter play on the Harpsichord: for he was a great Lover of Music, and perhaps, had he lived in Town, might have passed for a Connoisseur: for he always excepted against the finest Compositions of Mr Handel. He never relished any Music but what was light and airy; and indeed his most favourite tunes were Old Sir Simon the King, St George he was for England, Bobbing Joan, and some others.

His Daughter, though she was a perfect Mistress of Music, and would never willingly have played any but Handel's, was so devoted to her Father's Pleasure, that she learnt all those Tunes to oblige him. However, she would now and then endeavour to lead him into her own Taste; and when he required the Repetition of his Ballads, would answer with a "Nay, dear Sir," and would often beg him to suffer her to play something else.'

Tom Jones, of course....

[Padraig]

One said 'Can we jive?'
When I produced the record......

Who is speaking, and what is the record?

[Ferretfancy]

Constant Lambert?

I think so, but surely it was the Pastoral he was referring to?

[EdgeleyRob]

I don't know anyone who said that about RVW 5.

However, Peter Warlock did write that RVW's style was "like a cow looking over a gate" (but Warlock was no more by the time of the 5th symphony). Constant Lambert is sometimes credited with the "cow+gate" quote, but it was Warlock. Here's something Lambert said about RVW's style (referring to A Pastoral Symphony): " a particular type of grey, reflective, English-landscape mood [that] outweighed the exigencies of symphonic form".

Ah,I know the Warlock quote but have always been under the impression was Aaron Copland who said the 5th symphony was like looking at a cow.

I have the Howard Pollack biography of AC and can only find that he thought.....
English music "stuffy and conventional"
RVW "noble in inspiration,but dull"
Bliss and Constant Lambert "lacking in personality"

[ahinton]

Ah,I know the Warlock quote but have always been under the impression was Aaron Copland who said the 5th symphony was like looking at a cow.

I have the Howard Pollack biography of AC and can only find that he thought.....
English music "stuffy and conventional"
RVW "noble in inspiration,but dull"
Bliss and Constant Lambert "lacking in personality"

Yes, all those accusations of RVW - and yet the best of his music, however "English", transcends anyone's notions of "Englishness" and goes beyond all that parochial stuff to embrace and express something bigger and rounder than just this; I used once to believe that RVW really was a mere "English" composer but discovered over time that he - with, among other things, his Whitman influences and Ravel tutelage (and, after all, Ravel was some three years younger than he was) - was something considerably more than that...

[Lat-Literal]

"Once I understood Bach's music, I wanted to be a concert pianist. Bach made me dedicate my life to music and it was that teacher who introduced me to his world".

Clue: Not white, not male, not classical although classically trained.

[EdgeleyRob]

"Once I understood Bach's music, I wanted to be a concert pianist. Bach made me dedicate my life to music and it was that teacher who introduced me to his world".

Clue: Not white, not male, not classical although classically trained.

I know this,Nina Simone

[Lat-Literal]

I know this,Nina Simone

[Beef Oven!]

Blimey!

[EdgeleyRob]

Yes, all those accusations of RVW - and yet the best of his music, however "English", transcends anyone's notions of "Englishness" and goes beyond all that parochial stuff to embrace and express something bigger and rounder than just this; I used once to believe that RVW really was a mere "English" composer but discovered over time that he - with, among other things, his Whitman influences and Ravel tutelage (and, after all, Ravel was some three years younger than he was) - was something considerably more than that...

Indeed AH.

[Beef Oven!]

"It's a pavane for a dead infant, not a dead pavane for an infant!" (in exasperation at a poor rehearsal).

[EdgeleyRob]

Which composer said this about which composer/pianist's playing of Beethoven Op 110 ?

"I couldn't begin to describe what happened to the great Beethovenian poem — above all, the Arioso and the Fugue, where the melody, penetrating the mystery of Death itself, climbs up to a blaze of light, affected me with an excess of enthusiasm such as I have never experienced since. It had greater intimacy and was more humanly moving than Liszt's performance...".

[ferneyhoughgeliebte]

Yes, all those accusations of RVW - and yet the best of his music, however "English", transcends anyone's notions of "Englishness" and goes beyond all that parochial stuff to embrace and express something bigger and rounder than just this; I used once to believe that RVW really was a mere "English" composer but discovered over time that he - with, among other things, his Whitman influences and Ravel tutelage (and, after all, Ravel was some three years younger than he was) - was something considerably more than that...

- not forgetting his Bruch tutelage, too (to complete the cosmopolitanisms).