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A rather stupid conceit IMHO

Posted by Chris from Lafayette (A) on February 15, 2017 at 10:22:38

In Reply to: David P. Goldman ("Spengler") on Yuja Wang and Milos Yiannopoulos--required reading! posted by John Marks on February 15, 2017 at 08:06:53:

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:

• 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.

Really, the whole article was a waste of time.

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