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'Emperor' concerto


Mark L

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Yes, LVB's music was kind of like the Led Zeppelin of his day (just for comparison's sake...I'm not saying LZ was as good as Beethoven...though it might be - that's totally subjective).

Nobody had used such a wide palatte of sounds and massive contrasts of light and shade, calm and fury. He broke most all convention and totally influenced every composer that came after him, or who was a contemporary of him.

During the premier of his 9th symphony, the beginning of the second movement caused such an enthusiastic uproar from the crowd, that it had to be stopped, and restarted, at the beginning. Not to mention the outpouring of adulation once the entire piece was completed.

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I was hooked on that concerto when a senior in HS. It rocks! I remember listening to it on my dad's turntable, and ultimately making a cassette so I could listen to it everywhere.

 

I'm a huge Beethoven fan - his chamber music is incredible. Best there is IMO - totally subjective, of course.

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I don't think the superiority of LVBs music in general is subjective at all.

 

There are innumerable factors in his music that are identifiable, definable, discussable, totally accessible to objective analysis. "Objective" meaning simply a thing that can be viewed as an external object by more than one viewer.

 

Of course, you can simply be a person who is bored by anything "classical", which is a certain type of subjective reaction.

 

But because someone out there is deaf to LVB in no way reflects on the objective quality of LVB's music in and of itself.

 

This to me is one of the basic distinctions any person with any education in music at all should understand - namely that my personal emotional response to a given piece of music is the incalculable thing, and that I shouldn't just rest with that primitive reaction, that "subjective" reaction. Or trust it all that much. The music itself has qualities and structures and effects that are free to all to investigate.

 

Music is objective - otherwise you couldn't hear it as coming from an outside source. My reaction is subjective, based on my ability to hear and understand and react, which is the really arbitrary quantity in the exchange.

 

The more I understand and expand my consciousness of the objective qualities of a good piece of music, the more my subjective reaction improves in the listening experience. But the subjective reaction should be the tail, not the dog.

 

Of course this is my standard rant many of you have heard before so I'll sit back down and resume grumbling in my beer.

 

nat whilk ii

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Well LVB or the Beatles aren't bad places to start....

 

But I agree the official canon of what's constantly recycled as "classical" music is very very narrow and tiresomely repetitive, all from a very short range of time and places.

 

Sr. Hagenwill, FYI I printed off and have saved the list you posted some time back of some of your favorite composers...the list where you said that de Severac was your top favorite,etc. I'm still checking out the ones I haven't heard of before. Lots of fun - good stuff.

 

nat whilk ii

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i like romantic music

 

the affecting or moving bombastic feelings music rather annoys me

 

for a young composer to start with looking at Beethoven is rather not such a good idea, but for a listeners it certainly can be

 

i think for a composer it is essential that he hears his own music

 

for music lover it can be anything, i for example like Samuel Barber, Frederick Delius, Frederico Mompou, Charles Koechlin at the momment...

 

D

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oh,


and the folks who believe that Beethoven


is the greatest composer of all composers




are the same knuckleheads who believe the


Beatles are the greatest pop band of all pop bands

 

 

So you're saying that he's just a generic "brand"?

Famous just because somebody said he was great, and that his "greatness" is spoon-fed to people as the pinnacle of classical music?

 

Actually, on second thought, I will give you that.

In the case of LVB and the other "great" classical composers (and the Beatles), that may be true...but not in my case.

 

I like composers as esoteric as Satie and as outside-the-box as Var

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So you're saying that he's just a generic "brand"?

Famous just because somebody said he was great, and that his "greatness" is spoon-fed to people as the pinnacle of classical music?

 

Actually, on second thought, I will give you that.

In the case of LVB and the other "great" classical composers (and the Beatles), that may be true...but not in my case.

 

I like composers as esoteric as Satie and as outside-the-box as Var

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i have one question:


did any of you every play anything by Beethoven?


that would make you at least a performer


or do you know the music only from recordings?

 

 

I never had any formal lessons, but yes, I can play some of his works.

I actually prefer to play Chopin, though.

 

As for my "semi-known instrumental virtuosi" comment, you ran off a list of all-time composers of world-reknown. I was referring to the performers and interpreters of that music. Nyaho, Jan?i?, Arrau, Brendel...Gould's semi-heretical interpretations, Menuhin, Heifitz...probably all more well-known in Europe, but now forgotten, or at the very least, completely underappricated, where I live.

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of course you can listen to what you like, and believe on the base of your knowledge about earnest music that you know what you like best... me not

 

 

This comment is nothing more than elitist, and condescending patronization. Europeans don't hold the monopoly on music appreciation, by birthright. My paternal grandparents came from Berchtesgaden and Vienna, for pete's sake...I listened to Hindemith before I ever understood what The Beatles were! :poke:

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