The joy of having one's preferences validated by a higher authority

[jayne lee wilson]

I am the higher authority.

No! I am the higher authority!

And I'm Spartacus as well...

[mercia]

is Boulez a higher authority? and does he, or not, like Tchaikovsky? [I do]

http://www.overgrownpath.com/2009/02/i-hate-tchaikovsky.html

[ahinton]

This isn't even about "higher authorities" (sorry, Jayne and Flossie)! It's about personal phobias. Schiff is no fool - nor is Boulez and nor is Brendel (you have only to hear the best performances of the first two and read the writings of the last to be able to appreciate that [and therein lies a personal phobia of my own, albeit couched with appropriate discretion, methinks!]); that said, if he feels about Liszt as he does and if Boulez feels about Tchaikovsky as he does and Brendel about Rachmaninov as he does, that's up to each of them; none is a true value judgement and shouldn't be taken as such, although for a pianist to have so fundamental an aversion to Liszt (especially as one of his compatriots) is admittedly somewhat odd. The great pianist and composer Medtner detested the work of the great pianist and composer Busoni (surprisingly, to me), but he hardly set himself up as a "higher authority" in order to express this view (which was probably just as well, since setting yourself up as a higher authority than Busoni would surely be a very risky thing to try to do!).

[ahinton]

No! I am the higher authority!

And I'm Spartacus as well...

Does anyone here have a pathological aversion to Khatchaturian?(!)...

[Pianorak]

. . . It makes me feel better about my big blind spot !

But please don't forget he has been just as - er, how shall I put it - uncomplimentary about some of his fellow pianists. Ghastly chap - brilliant pianist (Schiff that is, not Liszt).

[mercia]

I wonder if Schiff had to play a lot of Liszt at the Franz Liszt Academy of Music. Like studying Shakespeare at school it could be enough to put you off for life.

[ahinton]

I wonder if Schiff had to play a lot of Liszt at the Franz Liszt Academy of Music. Like studying Shakespeare at school it could be enough to put you off for life.

I don't know. Possibly. Does it really matter (other than to him and to those who take exception to his remarks about Liszt)? If he did, I daresay plenty of other pianists had to do the same, yet they don't all view Liszt as Schiff appears to do.

[Flosshilde]

This isn't even about "higher authorities" (sorry, Jayne and Flossie)! It's about personal phobias.

I'm not sure that it's even about personal 'phobias' (or dislikes - if that's a real word), more about having a prop for one's views, &, perhaps, especially with me, insecurity about those views (I'm not suggesting the OP feels any insecurity about his views). In my case the experience tends to be the opposite of the OP's - if someone who I consider to be a higher authority (or at least has more knowledge than me) contradicts my views then I immediately realise how wrong I am & change my mind.

[scottycelt]

if someone who I consider to be a higher authority (or at least has more knowledge than me) contradicts my views then I immediately realise how wrong I am & change my mind.

Would you have so meekly deferred to such a high an authority as the former Sir Fred Goodwin on advice as to where you might successfully have invested your money, Floss ... ?

A relative 'nobody' can sometimes appreciate and grasp something seemingly beyond that of an acclaimed expert/intellectual/artistic genius.

Certainly, in very personal matters of taste and opinion such as the intrinsic worth of a work of art, there really can be no such thing as 'a higher authority'.?

[Serial_Apologist]

Does anyone here have a pathological aversion to Khatchaturian?(!)...

Not pathological in my case. From an historical perspective Khatch is interesting for the way in which his colourful populism chimed in with Soviet "provincial" (ahem) policy under Stalin, but he was a moderately talented composer who absorbed as much as he wanted to from Ravel and Petruschka-era Stravinsky, and in that sense akin to, say, Ibert in France.

I've always felt Liszt to have been gifted in the areas of harmony and timbre, others (Balakirev, Rimsky, Tchaik, Strauss, Busoni, Franck, Ravel, Medtner, Scriab, Rach, the liszt is endlesz) to have profited from thence and built more substantial things out of his (chiefly formal) insubstantialities.

[Flosshilde]

Would you have so meekly deferred to such a high an authority as the former Sir Fred Goodwin on advice as to where you might successfully have invested your money, Floss ... ?

Hindsight is a wonderful thing, but before we knew what a balls-up he made of banking I might very well have taken his advice.

A relative 'nobody' can sometimes appreciate and grasp something seemingly beyond that of an acclaimed expert/intellectual/artistic genius.

Certainly, in very personal matters of taste and opinion such as the intrinsic worth of a work of art, there really can be no such thing as 'a higher authority'.?

Agreed, & I wasn't totally serious in what I said (although there is a grain of truth in it). I didn't think the OP was entirely serious, either. I don't like Mozart's music (except for the operas & one or two other works), but I won't suddenly like it because virtually everyone else does nor because so many esteemed musicians do.

[aka Calum Da Jazbo]

i recall admitting to a pathological aversion to Britten on the old boreds and at least two others confessed to a similar distaste .... most gratifying to be so endorsed .... entirely agree with you Caliban!

[Flosshilde]

In addition to my comments above, I do agree that sometimes it's comforting to know that one's not being a Margaret Thatcher.

[Pianorak]

i recall admitting to a pathological aversion to Britten on the old boreds and at least two others confessed to a similar distaste ....

You can make that three. That said I'm always wary of dismissing a composer's output wholesale. Who would have thought I quite liked Birtwistle's The Minotaur.

[scottycelt]

Hindsight is a wonderful thing, but before we knew what a balls-up he made of banking I might very well have taken his advice.

Agreed, & I wasn't totally serious in what I said (although there is a grain of truth in it). I didn't think the OP was entirely serious, either. I don't like Mozart's music (except for the operas & one or two other works), but I won't suddenly like it because virtually everyone else does nor because so many esteemed musicians do.

Sorry, Floss, maybe I just have this terrible 'phobia' about so-called 'experts' and 'higher authorities'....