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The Isaac Stern thread below amused and entertained me. When his name comes up, I always think how he is a prime example of an artist who worked tirelessly behind the scenes to enhance his own reputation. Somerset Maugham wonderfully captures this sort of character in his novel Cakes and Ale.When such an artist dies, generally no one is as willing and able to champion him as the artist was himself, and his reputation plummets. The problem is exacerbated when fellow artists and other victims of his machinations who outlive him aren't afraid to write about them. Of course, these writers often have their own agendas.
It can be difficult to give such an artist a neutral evaluation. But I try to think about the art, not the artist. Otherwise, I might miss any number of great Woody Allen movies.
Edits: 07/11/14Follow Ups:
in working "tirelessly behind the scenes to enhance his own reputation" and working tirelessly to destroy the careers of others in your field.
I think that's the real point here, isn't it?
I've been around tireless self-promoters throughout my professional career, some of which are still good friends decades later. But those who go out of their way to destroy the careers and/or reputations of their colleagues in the hope of possible advancing their own as a consequence deserve derision even after they are gone.
The point is, I'm evaluating a work of art. I'm not doing a thorough investigation into the morality, legality or all around goodness or badness of the artist, much less putting various artists on a comparative morality scale. Isaac Stern probably worked tirelessly to enhance his own reputation all the time, but only did bad things to other people occasionally.
And Stern was probably only "bad" in the sense of ungenerous -- using his contacts to make sure he got the best jobs and his rivals didn't in a competitive environment. John Marks suggests he may have been part of a monopolistic combination in restraint of trade -- the Arthur Judson / Ronald Wilford / CAMI axis of evil. Maybe so. My somewhat different point was, where someone like Rampal, for example, was generous to his colleagues, Stern was not. But again, the artistic product is far more important to me than whether he was a good man. Shakespeare was supposedly not such a nice guy. Does it really matter at this point?
marrying her is singularly repulsive and not be lowered to the level of being merely mean (though defeating competitors by legal means hardly qualifies as such) or a Don Juan.
Wanting to be pissed off all the time is ultimately self-aggrandizement.
Blake had a term for your ilk: "the reasoning negative." You're the Nun
with the ruler ready to smack some knuckles. Here's a fun tune, anyway:
J.R.
Small point: Soon-Yi was never Allen's stepdaughter. Please don't continue to slander the man, imperfect though he may be!
because Woody Allen never did that.
lover (Farrow) and subsequently married her after Farrow ended their relationship after discovering nude photographs taken by Allen of her daughter.
Allen also has been accused of sexual misconduct (taking care with legal stuff, here) by HIS adopted daughter, Dakota.
Your defense is noted, Scott.
Besides, the technicality you sit on may not be that clear cut, anyhow.
"Though Allen never married Mia Farrow[107][113] and was not Previn's legal stepfather, the relationship between Allen and Previn has often been referred to as a stepfather involved romantically with his stepdaughter[114] because she was adopted and legally Farrow's daughter and Allen's son's sister. In 1991, The New York Times opined on Allen's family life: "Few married couples seem more married." wikipedia
Edits: 07/13/14
Now if you would devote some of that effort towards a little homework on classical music you might actually have something of substance to say on the subject next time.
to whom you are not related by blood? If WA was guilty of child abuse,
that's different, but I don't think he's ever been accused of that.
Besides which, she has stayed with him. So why the faux outrage?
Tinear thinks that he thinks.
He also believes what he is told, or what he reads, or watches. Pretty much uncritically.
Do remember that he once posted here about 'where was the rhythm in baroque and classical music?' Given that these era's music is and was deeply based in dance music, including rural, folk and country dancing, that was a bit weird, no?
I'd note that many traditionalist 20C recordings performances over-emphasise line, legato and rubato, often almost burying the rhythm, pace, vigour and point. So maybe he can be given a pass, IF there weren't so many newer recordings which restore it.
I bet he can't read a score.
'kay?
Now IF he is beginning to piss you off, why not tell him?
Warmest
Tim Bailey
Skeptical Measurer & Audio Scrounger
.... that you have music in your collection by pedophiles like Benjamin Britten and Mikhail Pletnev and Camille Saint-Saens, or maybe by David Bowie, Jimmy Page or other rockers who preferred underage girls.
If you eschew the artistic creations of artists who do not meet moral standards, who are corrupt or disgusting or vile or villainous, you would miss out on huge amounts of human culture.
This is not a defense of their actions, which are reprehensible. It is rather a recognition that art often flows from the tortured soul. We can criticize the person, yet still recognize their artistic contributions.
"Life without music is a mistake" (Nietzsche)
Now you're telling me I have to get rid of all my Saint-Saëns recordings?
.... If we get rid of all the recordings by composers, musicians, artists who fail to live by our personal (or contemporary societal) norms, there wouldn't be much left. A large percentage of European composers of the 1800s would not be acceptable in today's world -- anti-Jewish, racist, fond of underage sex, etc. Are you prepared to trash all of your Wagner and Chopin?
I'm personally not supporting Pletnev by buying his music. Pedophilia in the current era is just too disgusting. But in a different era, such things were tolerated more. People did not live as long and the age of consent was younger.
So don't toss your Saint-Saens, your Wagner or your Britten.
"Life without music is a mistake" (Nietzsche)
O.K., guess I'll keep what few Levine recordings I have.
"If people don't want to come, nothing will stop them" - Sol Hurok
Most ordinary folks don't realize it, but, the Justice Department decades ago took an interest in the monopolistic potential when there was common ownership among: Broadcasters, media companies, and artist representation, duuh.
One result of this was that Columbia Records had to divest itself of its concert-artist management group Columbia Artists.
Based on what I heard back when Stern was THE power broker in the US for orchestral engagements for string players, I would say that his conduct fit the legal definitions of the antitrust offenses of price fixing, tying, and attempted monopolization, and that it would be hard to defend his inner circle of beneficiaries from charges of conspiracy.
Now perhaps Stern was too unlettered to realize that setting things up so an orchestra understood that if they wanted THIS well-known Stern protégé for a concerto performance they had also to hire THAT unknown Stern protégé for a concerto performance sooner rather than later, that he was committing at least a civil offense and perhaps a crime. But I am not sure it would have stopped him.
The "Kosher Nostra" was an ugly reality, and its victims included even co-religionists like Aaron Rosand (I believe his name was originally Rosen and he thought there were too many Rosens in string playing). Sad.
So, IMHO (I was a principal co-author of peer reviewed academic publications presented at three different American Law Institute Annual Antitrust Conferences at Harvard Law School), Stern's competitive conduct plainly was of questionable legality.
JM
interesting, clever and high level for this thread. I would only add, if you revisit the old capitalism v. communism debate in the context of the classical music system in the old Soviet Union, the commies don't come off looking any better. Interesting that the biggest problem in both systems is corruption and subversion of the supposed guiding principles -- anti-competitive, monopolistic subversion of free market principles here, and bribes, graft, favor-trading and toadying to an autocrat in subversion of communist principles there. Um, and mass genocide, torture, and exile to the gulag there. Oops. Tinear went nuts when I mentioned Woody Allen, he isn't going to like a reference to Stalin.
And toiletries and cash. He was very spooked by the suppression of his close friend Shostakovich, and worried that if they locked up Shosty he himself would be on the same list, for being Ukrainian and Jewish, and a musical progressive.
So, Oistrakh carried clean underwear and toiletries in fear of a trip to the Gulag, as well as cash if needed for petty bribes.
Whereas Heifetz had butlers and lawyers.
Thanks for the compliment. I really did seriously think back in the 1970s and early 1980s that many of the "competitive" practices in classical music were closer to textbook forbidden "anti-competitive" practices than to the free market.
One of the best live violin performances I EVER heard was by Mihaela Martin, Rumanian, I believe, and she sank like a stone in the US for not being a member of the Kosher Nostra.
Whereas there were young violinists who however briefly enjoyed major careers, and their playing in its rough-and-ready-ness reminded me of Stern's.
ATB,
jm
Surely you can see the larger point I was making. An artist may have been a pedophile, or maybe a shoplifter, con man, drunk or drug addict. I'm a lawyer, but I'm not the attorney, judge or jury for Woody Allen or Isaac Stern. There is not much point in my putting either of them on trial. To the extent their lives shed light on their art, I'm interested. Otherwise, I'm less so.
apart. You may have done so inadvertently, but that's no lesser fault.
There, I've done something genuinely rude, and you can rightly fault me for it. ;)
on anger management classes.
grew up listening to my mom's (and aunt's) classical piano playing and my dad's hi-fi classical and jazz collection (extensive; played on McI electronics and massive DIY speakers). I took violin lessons while at the U of M from an immigrant who studied w/Ysaye (he was very old in 1970 when he instructed me for a little over a year). I had zero talent, so I desisted.
Anyhow, opinions of music are individualistic. What makes critics worthwhile isn't their personal musicianship: George Bernard Shaw was highly respected for the quality of his writing and the accuracy of his evaluations--- not his instrument playing.
he 'listens' to serious music because he believes he should.
Not because he just has to, like you and me.
Tinear just does things because he believes he should, not because he understands any of it, but because it is a badge he must wear.
Look around you and you will find lots of them.
Warmest
Tim Bailey
Skeptical Measurer & Audio Scrounger
That Tin spends more time arguing about music than actually listening to it. In all of this thread and the other Tin doesn't even mention any other single musician that he likes better (after all he doesn't own a single recording of Stern and yet he defends his reputation with such conviction) nor does he name a single violinist he finds lacking although he writes off an entire generation as robotic.
How much real listening (not background or car listening) can one actually do and go on the say the things Tin says in these two threads about Stern?
No depth.
Just attack.
Warmest
Tim Bailey
Skeptical Measurer & Audio Scrounger
d
you could have just as easily talked about some musicians as whine about being called out. That is if you had anything to say...
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