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In order to respect the author's rights, rather than cut and paste here, I provide a link to one of the most thought-provoking pieces of music criticism I have ever read.
I had a University education that included a fair amount of music study, but I had never before heard that Beethoven demanded the right to pork his friends' wives... . Sigh.
So, please read; and please post comments below.
ATB,
john
Follow Ups:
"Never have I been so humbled as a Westerner, trained in the great tradition by teachers whose own training goes back via Heinrich Schenker to the immortal Johannes Brahms."
I read this about five hours ago and still feel polluted. It is not musical criticism but something closer to polemic.
I hope you will think twice before assigning us such "required reading" again!
Is the Asia Times the National Enquirer for the right leaning intellectual crew?
Have you heard Yuja's Hammerklavier and if so what are your thoughts on her performance/interpretation?
Two shameless showboats paddling along in the same emotional shallows.
"[E]motional shallows" is a more apt term for the LISTENERS who contend that Liszt and Yuja are "shameless showboats"! ;-)
since I've only heard Yuja play Ludwig's Hammerklavier sonata on record (mp3 streaming on Spotify, acutally), I sure as heck am not going to comment on it given your righteous wrath over critics who haven't heard her play it in person yet dare offer an opinion.
I never heard Franz play at all, unfortunately. Unlike David, apparently. Sheesh, what a knucklehead. ;-)
About ten years ago, someone asked me if I thought Liszt was the greatest pianist, ever..... My answer was I never heard him..... I have no opinion of anyone I haven't heard.
I do like Liszt the composer..... I thought his Mephisto Waltz was a piece that really brought out the chops (or lack thereof) of pianists.
It is interesting on the asylum how many opinions we get on gear or music from people who have never heard the item. The current discussion on MQA is a good example. Lengthy discussion of pros and cons of MQA from people who have never heard MQA
Alan
Then this David Goldman guy should fit right in. ;-)
A sensible approach, I think!
Last May, she strode to the Steinway at Carnegie Hall in impossibly high heels and a gown that left nothing to the imagination, and played Beethoven's most difficult piano work better than any Westerner has played it. Not just better: I am convinced that Ms. Wang is the only pianist who has ever played it correctly, possibly excluding Franz Liszt, who gave its premiere in the 1830s.I stopped reading the article after reading that....
There are several pianists who I'd travel to Los Angeles to watch live..... But Yuja Wang is not one of them..... I think her attractiveness may have poisoned the opinions of some critics. (I could only wish Ayako Uehara were that attractive. The few pieces I've heard Wang and Uehara both play, there was no comparison.... Uehara was at another level.)
Edits: 02/15/17
Interesting views for sure, the piece in question has never been one of my fav Beethoven sonatas, not sure why but I rarely listen to it.Maybe I find it unattractive?
Edits: 02/15/17
A thoughtful listener wouldn't find Hammerklavier to be a failed composition.
Edits: 02/15/17
.
Jim
http://jimtranr.com
...to find any of Liszt playing Beethoven.
You might be surprised.
There's a LOT of stuff on YouTube.
"The first one to play it correctly since Franz Liszt...." how would we know how Liszt played it?
And I agree with others that the damning of Beethoven's sexual mores without a shred of evidence or citation is shameful.
This could be one of Lebrecht's greatest hits.....I wish I could unread this. And get my time back.
But other than that, thanks for posting!
I couldn't even finish that POS article.
We should remember that this guy used to be an atheist follower of that nut Lyndon LaRouche, then a Reaganite, then a quasi-orthodox Jew in the footsteps of Franz Rosenzweig.
"Life without music is a mistake" (Nietzsche)
As one of the few listeners here (aside from Analog Scott) who has actually HEARD Yuja play the Hammerklavier (and live, not just on crappy uTube SQ), I think the guy (Goldman) is full of it. Some random notes:Really, the whole article was a waste of time.
- uTube has subscribers and viewers - not followers
- I agree with Robert Reich that it's possible that Yiannopoulos fell victim NOT to left-wing students, but rather to Breitbart operatives or thugs for hire, much in the manner of the Nazis' burning of the Reichstag and then blaming it on the commies - it would be (and was!) perfect political theater for Breitbart and the little dipstick. I'm on the UC Berkeley campus fairly frequently these days (every week or so) and my impression of the students there today is that they are predominantly "nice" kids from Asian backgrounds (and that now includes Southern Asia too).
- Goldman is actually right that there is a significant portion of the classical music audience (some of whom are on this board!) who just can't get past Yuja's stiletto heels, ultra-high slit gowns, and/or miniskirts. As Trump would tweet, "Sad!"
- At the same time, there is NO WAY Yuja's performance of the Hammerklavier could be described as a crude romp. If anything, it was one of the most disciplined renditions of the work I've ever heard - a factor (discipline) which Goldman later attributes to present-day Asian culture in general.
- Goldman says, "Beethoven demanded the right to sleep with his friends' wives". Words fail me. I've read a fair number of Beethoven biographies, and the MOST you can say about his sexual proclivities is that his conversation books reveal that, yes, he appreciated that one of the waitresses at the inn where he was dining had a nice ass. That doesn't equate to demanding the right to sleep with his friends' wives. In fact, I've read at least one biography wherein the author speculated that Beethoven may have died a virgin. If Goldman is going to make a claim that Beethoven slept with his friends' wives, he'd better damn well have something to back it up (other than a reference to a professor I've never heard of before).
- I doubt VERY MUCH that the VAST majority of listeners hear the humor in Beethoven's music as "nasty". I also doubt that Beethoven intended for the humor in his music to come across as "nasty" (although I admit that that's speculation on my part).
- Neither the Grosse Fuge nor the Hammerklavier is a "compositional failure", and, despite Yuja's terrific performance of the latter, the greatness of both works can be discerned even in fairly deficient performances.
- No, Beethoven's greatest piano sonata (assuming one thinks it's the Hammerklavier) does not have a "nasty" side.
Yeah, if being a scumbag purveyor of Goebbels-like lies equals a bright mind.
Though I do agree that Yuja Wang is a great musician, the rest of that "required reading" was amazingly lame. Grosse Fugue a failure? What a deaf dolt!
I've read several times that the Brahms Second Sym is the
"Worst Example of the Sophomore Slump"
in Music History.
Whu?
Deport the Critics, I say.
It might help if they got Milo's name right. It is Milo, not Milos.
nt
But the piece is still silliness.
Nt.
Yuja Wang and Milos Yiannopoulos in the same headline is SURE to draw a click.
David P. Goldman should be ashamed.
The article is not a comparison of the individuals; it is a rumination upon the cultures that incubated them.
Spengler's point being that in his opinion, Yuja Wang gets the Hammerklavier as no Westerner has, with the possible exception of Liszt.
ATB,
John
and of course he heard Listz play it
Alan
Another in a long line of guilty liberal apologists for the success of the West busily sowing the seeds of it's eventual failure.
David practices Conservative Judaism and in general is as conservative as they come.
Well, there was that time he said in print that he wanted to punch Trump in the nose, and he meant it--David's wife is Mexican.
Ya never know!
John
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