Prom 22: A London Symphony – 31.07.18

[edashtav]

Loved it. But since the monothematic last movement is based on Croatian folk song (as is much of no. 103). I am tempted to ask whether that qualifies this London Symphony for the Cowpat school. After all (to quote something someone said earlier) "I remain incredulous that, at the age of almost [70], he was writing the [London] Symphony using themes as long as folk tunes, without realising the structural deficit they were causing".

Ha ha, you’ve got me by the short and curly tunes , Pabmusic!!

[Pabmusic]

Ha ha, you’ve got me by the short and curly tunes , Pabmusic!!

Always glad to be of service.

[Serial_Apologist]

It seems I overran my time in listing English composers from my collection I would include in the "pastoral" category.

I'll just mention Frank Bridge, the richness of whose later music, it seems to me, "bridges" more worlds than most of his contemporaries, including English Pastoral and Schoenbergian expressionism.

[edashtav]

It seems I overran my time in listing English composers from my collection I would include in the "pastoral" category.

I'll just mention Frank Bridge, the richness of whose later music, it seems to me, "bridges" more worlds than most of his contemporaries, including English Pastoral and Schoenbergian expressionism.

Nice one, S-A, but his Pastoral was rather philosophical... ENTER SPRING or literary.

[edashtav]

I’ve been working on ferney’s list placing RVW as more important, internationally, than all but two of his contemporaries: Stravinsky and Schönberg. I found the list to be SHOCKING, as had awarded a lowly place to RVW. I’ve not finished the task but have refined ferney’s list of his contemporaries: accepting those born between 1862 and 1882. From that list, I have extracted two more luminaries that I hope all Boarders may accept as head and shoulders above the rest:

My promotions to the top rank: Debussy and Ravel.

TOP CLASS ( beyond compare)
Debussy (1862-1917)
Schönberg (1874-1951)
Ravel (1875-1937)
Stravinsky (1882-1971)

Here are the rest, sorted in ascending order by d.o.b..

Tomorrow, I shall sort them again into order according to MY perception of their qualities using ferney’s list of important attributes.
I’m well on my way, but, so far, my results have disturbed my prejudices.

Delius (1862-1934)
Strauss,R.(1864-1949)
Glazunov (1864-1936)
Sibelius (1865-1957)
Nielsen (1865-1931)
Busoni (1866-1924)
Koechlin (1867-1950)
Roussel (1869-1937)
Schmitt (1870-1958)
Zemlinsky (1871-1942)
Scriabin (1872-1915)
RVW (1872-1958)
Rachmaninov (1873-1943)
Reger (1873-1916)
Holst ( 1874-1934)
Schmidt (1874-1939)
De Falla (1876-1946)
Dohnanyi (1877-1960)
Boughton (1878-1960)
Schreker (1878-1934)
Bridge (1879-1941)
Respighi (1879-1936)
Bartok (1881-1945)
Medtner (1881-1951)
Miaskovsky (1881-1950)
Enescu (1881-1955)
Kodaly (1882-1967)

[Lat-Literal]

Hasn't it just gone this way and that? For Dartington, read Summerhill. I have parents who would claim to this day that the lifelong problem with me, such as it exists, was that the state sector was two years behind the prep schools and that various teachers at primary school corrected decently spelt words to wrong spellings. Wrong. Apart from where it all went awry, we had music and culture and social interaction and handicraft and even French. I am happy with the 1970s state education sector. David Bedford says to me a Surrey/Greater London junior school in 1973 and that's totally fab. It was the animalistic competitiveness beyond 11 I couldn't deal with. I still can't. Did I like the Haydn? It was well performed.

People won't like this but what I sense/know in every 1-1 relationship, gay or straight, is that there is a bit of the barnyard there which obviously dilutes solo artistic temperament.

[Pabmusic]

I note that we seem to be moving from bovine scatology to breezy micturation - listing in the wind. Unless the criteria are very tight indeed, this could degenerate into pure subjectivity. You simply can't 'prove' that one artist is greater than another.

Also - I see there are already artificial parameters (a restricted birth date) so that any late-developer is disadvantaged.

I read the Wikipedia entry on 'wind', and the first sentence is, "Wind is the flow of gases on a large scale".

Someone had obviously read this thread before writing that...

[edashtav]

I note that we seem to be moving from bovine scatology to breezy micturation - listing in the wind. Unless the criteria are very tight indeed, this could degenerate into pure subjectivity. You simply can't 'prove' that one artist is greater than another.

Also - I see there are already artificial parameters (a restricted birth date) so that any late-developer is disadvantaged.

I read the Wikipedia entry on 'wind', and the first sentence is, "Wind is the flow of gases on a large scale".

Someone had obviously read this thread before writing that...

...there are already artificial parameters (a restricted birth date) so that any late-developer is disadvantaged .
I fail to see the logic behind that statement, Pabmusic... had the list had a age cut-off, e.g. only achievements completed by the age of 50 will be acknowkedged, I should agree with you... and, it would have seriously handicapped RVW whose symphonic flowering occurred in his 50s.

I accept that you cannot prove one composer is better than another, absolutely, but you might agree that Graham Peel’s songs are demonstrably inferior to George Butterworth’s because the former found modulation acutely difficult / to be avoided at the cost of listener boredom, whereas GB could modulate until the cows came back to be milked. It is possible to list a composer’s achievements and speculate whether one woman’s mountain makes her more important than another man’s tiny heap. Yes, it’s a game... but there’s no harm in a bit of fun ... is there?

I, a RVW sinner, am preparing a list of RVW’s contributions to music... so far , I’m so impressed that I may have to ask Lord Ferney for his forgiveness.

[Pabmusic]

...there are already artificial parameters (a restricted birth date) so that any late-developer is disadvantaged .
I fail to see the logic behind that statement, Pabmusic... had the list had a age cut-off, e.g. only achievements completed by the age of 50 will be acknowkedged, I should agree with you... and, it would have seriously handicapped RVW whose symphonic flowering occurred in his 50s.

I accept that you cannot prove one composer is better than another, absolutely, but you might agree that Graham Peel’s songs are demonstrably inferior to George Butterworth’s because the former found modulation acutely difficult / to be avoided at the cost of listener boredom, whereas GB could modulate until the cows came back to be milked. It is possible to list a composer’s achievements and speculate whether one woman’s mountain makes her more important than another man’s tiny heap. Yes, it’s a game... but there’s no harm in a bit of fun ... is there?

I, a RVW sinner, am preparing a list of RVW’s contributions to music... so far , I’m so impressed that I may have to ask Lord Ferney for his forgiveness.

I am clearly more of a pessimist than you are. Good luck..

[ferneyhoughgeliebte]

I'm finding it difficult to think of how I can respond to someone who can read

I think that RVW at the very least holds his own (in terms of harmony, tonal-modality, timbre, texture, rhythm, structure) with Sibelius, Nielsen, Roussel, Martinu, Scriabin, Prokofiev, Shostakovich, Gershwin, Copland, Bartok, Puccini, Respighi, Schmidt, Schmitt, Schoek, Martin, Janacek, Hindemith, Poulenc, Milhaud, Honegger, De Falla, or Szymanowski.

... and turn it into something as grotesque as

ferney's list placing RVW as more important, internationally, than all but two of his contemporaries

... so I don't think I'll bother.

[LMcD]

I thought - well, hoped - that this thread had been put out to pasture (yes, I know.....)

[edashtav]

I think I’ll defend my paraphrase, ferney, as I don’t accept it was a grotesque distortion.

You emphasise internationally :your list was international.

You used the idiom “holds his own” that means does as well as...

You strengthened that idiom by prefacing it with “at least”

The combined phrase means in the main exceeds...

Yes, I did stress exceeds at the expense of the possibility of equals, and moved the meaning from musical attributes (deeds) to judgemental (importance).

For that I do apologise!

[edashtav]

I thought - well, hoped - that this thread had been put out to pasture (yes, I know.....)

Trouble at the farm, LMcD: this Prom season the pasture is “browned off” and sheep can’t “safely graze”.

[LMcD]

I think I’ll defend my paraphrase, ferney, as I don’t accept it was a grotesque distortion.

You emphasise internationally :your list was international.

You used the idiom “holds his own” that means does as well as...

You strengthened that idiom by prefacing it with “at least”

The combined phrase means in the main exceeds...

Yes, I did stress exceeds at the expense of the possibility of equals, and moved the meaning from musical attributes (deeds) to judgemental (importance).

For that I do apologise!

?

[cloughie]

I thought - well, hoped - that this thread had been put out to pasture (yes, I know.....)

21 replies ago, LMcD but you can't win 'em all!