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General audio topics that don't fit into specific categories.

Good for you, but it's a bit older as a divison, if it is.

I find there are few audiophiles, even the ones who love classical music, who really understand music. Even long before home audio, music lovers were divided by the Germans at least into leibharber and kenner.

I wonder if the Italians or French bothered to make the distinction? The English (Londoners?) in the 18C rapidly developed an addiction to music from all over. One of the venues was owned by a 'small-coal man' who carried sacks of coal to people's home's and shops. Also back then a lot higher proportion could read music. So there were more of both la nd k back then.

Without the leibharber classical European music would never have had the support which handed it to us. Nor would that market exist today without them.

It would be easy to assume that this view means I am sneering at the leibharber, which I'm not doing. It's simply a reality that I'm aware of.

All kenner are also leibharber in a sense. Kenner can read music, generally understand keys and structure and development, can perform on at least one instrument. Some can even see the score in their minds. Mostly, I need a physical one. And I can no longer sing from sight, so rehearsals are vital (voice/confidence/memory/ADHD?)

A good example is those leibharber who having been introduced to Bach's keyboard music on the piano, and who also dislike the sound of a harpsichord, and then those of and the modern performers who'd rather not discuss an important issue.

That the original scores will show that many pieces and collections have no dynamics per note marked, and that there are two contiguous parts written separately. Thus showing that some of JSB's output definitely WAS written for the 2-manual harpsichord or the organ, both of which can only produce notes of a fixed level, unlike a piano or a clavichord.

It also means that piano performances of such pieces (and the adapted scores) just do have to leave out notes, they are arrangements. Some of JSB still gets through IMO. So, I don't leap up and turn the sound off or ignore if the radio has such on. Depending on the pianist I might even pay close attention. Don't own any such recordings. I grew up in music hearing and performing with a harpsichord or a Steinway grand piano on JSB, and much preferred the former instrument before I was 14. ;-)!

A lot of JSB's output is not scored for any particular instrument or instruments. The Art of Fugue being one of the best known. JSB was an experimentalist, and owned early Silberman* pianos. A family of organ/keyboard builders.

Leibharber are able to be deeply affected by music, it is a universal language, and are a vital part of its highly committed support.

But, and I'm only guessing and can only be, not I feel as deeply as I can, because I can experience the music as a whole in all the ways they can, but also at a level of structure and tonality. They can be moved by it but not fully see why or how IMO.

Kind of like visiting a medieval Cathedral but not understanding the level of deep technical skill. And the twins of empiricism / experimentalism involved among the free-masons /engineers/ architects who built them. Many such cathedrals are seriously flawed and have had to be strapped together with iron strips. Brunaleschi's Duomo on that church/cathedral in Firenze is a fix it as you go effort, flawed. Domes got better.

Domes work mostly on the wow/wonder factor and so does music.

SGreen posted below that he experiences the 'genius of Beethoven'. Well my point/question there is does he understand what is different about Beethoven's approach to creating a structure or its flow, and the risk he took with tonality, and how it developed, compared to say Haydn or Mozart, let alone Dussek say? Haydn was an experimenter/breaker of the rules too. If not he is to my mind glimpsing the genius of Beethoven some of the time.

Most of us here clearly can read, a slightly lesser number can comprehend well. But how many truly appreciate the skill of writing and how different say Twain is from Charlotte Bronte. In this comparison prefer Twain for many reasons, even when he is being obviously serious he is engaging. "The Mysterious Stranger" for example.

If any think this is too much information, I can assure you that this goes a lot deeper, there is a spectrum among kenner and musicians about lots of issues.

Just as there are in most disciplines and art forms.








Warmest

Tim Bailey

Skeptical Measurer & Audio Scrounger


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