At 12:52 PM 11/30/2003, you wrote:
>Ah, the ups and the downs. There's been, thank God, a dramatic
>reduction in the number of performances of Beethoven's 5th also.
>
>Hal
Oh dear, we're really not going to do a thread of music criticism, are
we? I am no musicologist, not even close, and I'm not going to say "but I
know what I like" either, even though I might think it and buy
accordingly. FWIS (a new acronym--From Where I Sit) the worst thing about
Beethoven's 5th is its overexposure. The same way opera houses survive
economically on the big tub-thumpers like Aida, Carmen, and Boheme,
regardless of whether there are voices equal to the principal roles. If
you stage them, they will come or something like that. At the Metropolitan
in New York revivals of Berg's Wozzeck or Lulu or Schoenberg's Moses und
Aaron are the easiest ticket in town--they're not "pretty" and you don't go
out humming the melodies. But the tired old warhorses pay for them. So
people will attend a concert featuring a Beethoven tub-thumper. Not nice
to say, but the whole business at times seems to come down to money. In
the context of performance, Ives may not happen without Beethoven,
Tchaikovsky, or Mendelssohn. One pays for the other.
As for Ives...I've tried, I really have. And probably done it wrong. He
is not background music to my reading or writing--I can write even to
Stravinsky--but appears to demand absolute attentiveness in the same way
that some poetry doesn't yield its meanings and resonances easily,
requiring instead complete concentration. I'd love to know how many times
Leonard Bernstein, when he was Music Director of the NY Philharmonic, was
able to program Ives' works without raising a riot among the patrons.
Ken
Kenneth Wolman http://www.kenwolman.com
"i had not really expected to find any of the art world populated with
ex-murderers fascists green berets and now i know that you can find
anything in the art world and they can even become prophets' -- David
Antin, "Tuning"
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