Activity rich, time poor?

[french frank]

While it isn't possible (unfortunately!) to follow up on all the interesting-looking leads provided by contributors to this forum, the fact that one might elevate Beethoven above all other composers shouldn't mean that one needs to listen to every note he wrote before looking at something else

Yes, so it does boil down to choice - and if you have the time and opportunity to choose, you can't complain about being 'time poor'. We're all time poor in that sense, in that the hours in the day, and life, are too short to follow up all the interesting avenues that we'd like to.

At the moment I'm spending a lot of my listening time with mediaeval music (and a bit of CPE Bach). I follow my nose when it comes to listening. Life is too short not to!

Follow your nose, ears, eyes - choose what seems the most interesting and rewarding at the time. Carpe diem.

[french frank]

If you’d said Mozart I would have concurred .

What!? Mein geliebter Mozart!!?? Nonsense!

The secret of finding time is the blinding realisation that most modern novels aren’t worth reading despite the hype.

I very seldom read a modern novel unless the reviews (which I don't often read in any case) contain something special which captures my interest. Experience suggests that other people's recommendations are seldom good indications of what I will find rewarding. Hit or miss isn't particularly efficient but … Life is so sad

[gurnemanz]

As we eager Fourth Years embarked on our O Level English course our teacher, J A (Jack) Cuddon, published novelist and star of a famous Whitbread ad dictated a list of 50 books every educated person should read. We wrote it down longhand. Still got it somewhere.

[Jonathan]

I do understand this - my main hobby is shell collecting and about a year before Coronovirus started, I decided to do a complete reorganisation of the collection, correcting the taxonomy that had changed on the database, correcting IDs, rewriting labels, generating collecting labels when I didn't have any and moving shells from one sized box to another (if required). With my 15,000 specimens, I estimated it would take 10 years. Having had more time due, in part to changing my job (no more 2 1/2 hours a day wasted sitting in the car, driving to Hull) I still think it's going to take 5 years which I suppose I'm about half way through. As for music listening and CD reviewing (for MusicWeb and the Liszt Society) I seem to have little time for that as my efforts are concentrated on the shells at the moment. I do also have another ongoing project at the moment which is also taking up lots of time too and there is our allotment as well. It's always been like this, I always alternate between shells and music. Trouble is, unlike usual, my piano playing has really suffered in the last year as I've not had the enthusiasm to play much and I've barely read any books for months. I don't think lockdown has helped, even though on the face of it, it should have done!

[french frank]

As we eager Fourth Years embarked on our O Level English course our teacher, J A (Jack) Cuddon, published novelist and star of a famous Whitbread ad dictated a list of 50 books every educated person should read. We wrote it down longhand. Still got it somewhere.

I remember our prof said that no one could consider themselves literate until they'd read … I couldn't remember what it was but I knew I hadn't read it . Suddenly, I spotted it in a bookshop, bought it and read it with a great sigh of relief. (It was Boileau's Art Poétique.)

[ahinton]

Damn, that's where I've been going wrong all these years.

!!!

[LMcD]

1430: Sunday afternoon Scrabble, to the accompaniment of a compilation of music from the Dance Band Days.
1600: Jazz Record Requests.
1700: My turn in the cookhouse this evening - Peppered Chicken.
I realize I'm very lucky to have so many choices open to me, and my recovery from serious illness a few years ago has encouraged me to embrace as many as possible before I seize up completely!
We shall relax in the early part of the evening by watching 'Tea With Mussolini' and then spend a couple of hours listening to the lady wife's choice of music - I've long given up guessing what she'll suggest!

[vinteuil]

I remember our prof said that no one could consider themselves literate until they'd read … I couldn't remember what it was but I knew I hadn't read it . Suddenly, I spotted it in a bookshop, bought it and read it with a great sigh of relief. (It was Boileau's Art Poétique.)

... lawks! And there woz I, thinkin' meself pretty well read.

And now I learns I'm not even literate!

Swelp me, is there no end to my higgorance??

https://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/L%27Art_po%C3%A9tique

... and yet, I suddenly remember (but does it still apply?) from another great -

.... "Maintenant toutes disciplines sont restituées, les langues instaurées : grecque, sans laquelle c’est honte qu’une personne se die sçavant, hébraïcque, caldaïcque, latine ; les impressions tant élégantes et correctes en usance, qui ont esté inventées de mon eage par inspiration divine... "


,

[french frank]

... lawks! And there woz I, thinkin' meself pretty well read.

And now I learns I'm not even literate!

Well, that's you told! It has to be said that that particular prof was a 17th c. specialist who, very ironically, seems to have had a rather narrow view of French literature

[vinteuil]

As we eager Fourth Years embarked on our O Level English course our teacher, J A (Jack) Cuddon, published novelist and star of a famous Whitbread ad dictated a list of 50 books every educated person should read. We wrote it down longhand. Still got it somewhere.

... it would be really interesting to learn what was deemed important. Do you think you could unearth it??

.

[cloughie]

1430: Sunday afternoon Scrabble, to the accompaniment of a compilation of music from the Dance Band Days.
1600: Jazz Record Requests.
1700: My turn in the cookhouse this evening - Peppered Chicken.
I realize I'm very lucky to have so many choices open to me, and my recovery from serious illness a few years ago has encouraged me to embrace as many as possible before I seize up completely!
We shall relax in the early part of the evening by watching 'Tea With Mussolini' and then spend a couple of hours listening to the lady wife's choice of music - I've long given up guessing what she'll suggest!

But now we’ll all want to know her playlist!

[Ein Heldenleben]

That was the kind of thing I was talking about - not just uninspired but actually quite objectionable! I don't much care what Messrs Simpson and Keller may have thought but surely Beethoven himself knew when he was producing hack work for cash and when redefining what music was capable of doing.

I like Wellington’s Victory both the historical event and the music. Less keen on the Scottish Folk songs though.

[Ein Heldenleben]

I remember our prof said that no one could consider themselves literate until they'd read … I couldn't remember what it was but I knew I hadn't read it . Suddenly, I spotted it in a bookshop, bought it and read it with a great sigh of relief. (It was Boileau's Art Poétique.)

At university one lecturer said if you have only time to read one classical text make it Ovid’s Metamorphoses. “The key to understanding Medieval English Lit. “ I went straight out and bought the Penguin Classic. Forty plus years on it still sits on my shelves accusingly unread.

[Ein Heldenleben]

... it would be really interesting to learn what was deemed important. Do you think you could unearth it??

.

I’ve got 3 vols produced by an American professor on the 150 Great US , British , and European Novels and over the years I’ve picked by way through some of them . Some of them were once very fashionable and have now almost faded from sight. E.g. Pelle The Conqueror, Kristin Lavrandsdatter and a once very popular classic (which forumites may have read ) a thinly veiled portrait of that notoriously uneven genius Beethoven - Jean-Christophe by Romain Rolland.

[Serial_Apologist]

Now in my mid-70s, I'm giving all my classical recordings a re-listen, in composer-led alphabetical order. Not being what some people call "a completist", but being in possession of what I consider a sufficiently "representative" selection of music to satisfy my tastes and those of any chance visitor, I feel rather ashamed that I tend to listen to the same favourites over and over again, to the neglect of others who surely deserve a second chance, at least? I would hate to think I've recorded stuff I either only listened to once, or not even that. Having reached C - Elliot Carter, of whom I have a good day's worth of recordings - it's going to take quite some time to get to John Zorn!