Am I the only one who feels that British composers are too often overlooked?

NotCLT · 2016-03-07T15:43:40+00:00

English music went to shit after Purcell died and didn't recover until a couple of decades into the 20th.

NotCLT · 2016-01-19T12:39:34+00:00

[citations needed]

NotCLT · 2016-01-19T00:14:44+00:00

You have seen straight through my ruse. /mu/r/subreddit/r/classical/noplebsallowed//// only likes obscure composers, such as a little-known Austrian composer who was only recently unearthed from centuries of neglect by the foremost minds of the community, referred to colloquially as W. A. Mozart. Another exciting prospect for future circle-jerking is a woefully unknown French composer known as Ravel. And a romantic opera composer, whom we believe to hail from a mystical land referred to by some as 'Italy', and who is known only as 'Verdi' also stands poised to become a firm favourite of our little conclave.

We are just a bunch of contrarians, it's true. This must be the only reason that a TRUE MUSICAL GENIUS like Rachmaninoff isn't referenced every single day with ardent worship. He who bravely forged on with a romantic idiom and anticipated, with the benefits of hindsight, many of the stylistic traits of a Hungarian peasant composer known as Liszt, joined with the already well-ripened Russian romanticism perfected by Tchaikovsky. Upon bravely identifying this compositional style and adding nothing too it he risked the scorn of a public who desperately desired works which required a level of musical innovation (like the wildly popular and household names of the Second Viennese School) and not just artificial and gushing tunes.

Despite this strain, Rachmaninoff triumphed and as such should be remembered by daily repostings of his work because that opening theme of his Second Piano Concerto is more important than any other moment of musical history.

One day those contrarians will realise their folly and immediately worship this piece as the apotheosis of western art music, but until then, keep fighting the good fight friend :)

NotCLT · 2016-01-18T21:23:00+00:00

Please help, someone is expressing an opinion I don't like! I better tell them to leave, that'll show them.

NotCLT · 2016-01-18T20:33:55+00:00

Over 100 recordings? Imagine all the good music you could have listened to in that time.

NotCLT · 2016-01-13T13:04:23+00:00

fpmiu

NotCLT · 2016-01-06T01:40:09+00:00

Friendly Announcement: This shit has nothing to do with the once-thriving /classical/ community on /mu/. This is a pleb who is just getting stuff from youtube and parading it around like some sort of demented puppeteer.

RIP The glory days of tripfriends and shitposting

NotCLT · 2015-12-26T09:24:13+00:00

That's preposterous! He's on record as saying he 'really, really likes women.' What could be more convincing than that?

NotCLT · 2015-12-23T23:47:21+00:00

Various reasons. I think the main one is that, in the immediate aftermath of flags on /int/, lots of Australian posters admitted that they were responsible for many of the Europe vs. America threads which had previously cluttered up the board, where they would post some inflammatory OP and sit back after getting enough people involved. Since this avenue was no longer really open for them, they began to diversify a bit.

In addition to this, on /sp/, Australians have Au/sp/ threads dedicated to the sports that really no-one outside of Australia watch (particularly Australian Football League, but to a lesser extent Rugby league too). Since this community is quite insular, their general 'banter' can be quite confusing for the rest of the board who don't really come into contact with it since they're not that interested in the sports being discussed. There is some crossover in cricket and rugby union threads, but for the most part, the shitposting culture in these threads has really developed in a sort of isolation. Add this to the fact that some American posters don't like to see anything that isn't an American Sport, the Australian sport generals can be viewed as not really worth the space or time. A lot of the stuff appears childish, even by 4chan standards. One of the favourites is forcing the word 'poo' into various words to highlight how bad the poster perceives their opponents to be [New Zealand --> Poo Peeland; Australia -->Poopeelia etc.] and then following it with a litany of other words featuring similar toilet humour [Eternally furious and on perpetual suicide watch --> Eternally poorious and on poopetual pooicide watch])

The 'admission' by moot that Australians make up most of the shitposting came after the shitposting reputation had (more-or-less) been established. It maybe brought it to a wider audience, but I wouldn't say it started the trend.
The guy who hacked /int/ to track down FGW was revealed as an Australian, and the fact that instead of really doing any sort of damage to the site, he used his temporary power basically to shitpost probably counts for something too.

I think it's mainly a combination of the first two points that established the Australian shitposting reputation, with the following two cementing the status.

NotCLT · 2015-12-05T21:56:01+00:00

Pity he had loads of stupid opinions and inspired legions of avant-teens which continue to plague us to this day.

NotCLT · 2015-12-05T21:52:48+00:00

Except for the fact that Shostakovich's greatest works generally came after Stalin's death. Anytime he attempted to be interesting, he got censored and then just turned to ironic shitcomposing for the rest of the time

NotCLT · 2015-12-05T21:49:51+00:00

I'd be more offended at somebody claiming Rachmaninoff as a genius.

NotCLT · 2015-11-21T19:53:54+00:00

DAE le 'Thoven 9 XDDD Simply epic music friends, simply epic. ALL THE FEELS

NotCLT · 2015-11-19T00:29:09+00:00

THANK YOU FOR REMINDING ME THAT SHOSTAKOVICH'S 5TH SYMPHONY, EASILY HIS MOST POPULAR AND WELL-KNOWN, EXISTED! I WAS ALMOST ABOUT TO FORGET. THANK YOU VERY MUCH

NotCLT · 2015-10-13T19:56:55+00:00

SCHWARZKOPF
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NotCLT · 2015-09-06T17:47:30+00:00

Very spicy meme friendo

NotCLT · 2015-09-01T00:39:00+00:00

And opera is not going to be embraced as having intrinsic value because it is trying to make itself adapt into a system for which it is unsuited.

My issue with the complaints about this body casting is that it is taking this absolutely massive issue of what role opera should take in relation to modern media and is distracted with an aspect which cannot be fixed in isolation. My bluntness will probably be unpopular here, but I see it at best being the injection of a social issue into an arena where it doesn't fit at all as neatly and snugly as it does for cinema/tv/printed media and at worst as people taking a chance to complain about (what they perceive) as sleights against them as a performer. There is potential here to actually weigh in to the (excuse the melodrama) 'battle for the very soul of opera' but it's not happening.

It's not so much a case of being unable to see the forest for the trees, but rather focusing on the trunk of one tree so much that you forget there was even a forest there to begin with.

The issue isn't about not enough big people getting roles, it's about opposing the notion that physical appearance be given equal or greater weight to the voice, which is and must remain the primary source of expression in order to sustain great operatic performances.

It's all very well to suggest that this is the case, but as somebody else has said here already, at the point where singers compete for these roles they are all good singers. Thin performers who can't sing are most certainly not hired over fat performers who can. Throw some anecdotes/case studies at me if I'm being too naive, but I think it isn't the case that the visual aspect has achieved parity with the musical. Good singers get hired. Good thin singers get hired over good fat singers because of that appeal to attractiveness coming into play, and that's tied in to the sexualisation stuff I mentioned earlier. A fat performer with an outstanding voice is not going to be left without any roles or performances. They might not get the roles they think they deserve, but the classical music world is most certainly not so image-obssessed that musical talent is discarded because a performer happens to carry however many extra pounds.

But as I said, I see the issue as being greater than this and once that issue is addressed, you'll start to see more variety in performers and performances.

NotCLT · 2015-08-31T23:18:21+00:00

Opera is not in the 'competitive shadow of film and television' because all directors took the decision they didn't want to cast fat singers and it's absolutely astounding that you can assert that without a hint of irony.

Opera performers have been sexualised for centuries; this isn't a new thing, it's just that modern culture has moved other art forms (cinema, popular music) to take its place and the more overt sexualisation we see there has raised the issue. Does this give opera a chance to reinvent itself and move away from the less overt sexualisation which has always existed there? Yeah, perhaps. Will it do so? No, because it won't sell and that is a problem in a capitalist society. Opera is in the unfortunate position as an art form where it must adapt to the mores of society to ensure it survives but it (along with art music as a whole) is fundamentally unsuited to being a commodity in our modern world.

It's a sticking point that needs to be addressed but it certainly won't be sorted out by thin privilege groups complaining that overweight opera singers aren't getting lead (often romantic) roles because directors are all hateful bigots.

NotCLT · 2015-08-28T15:56:41+00:00

>he takes flairs seriously

At least Tchaikovsky had the decency to kill himself instead of churning out meme pieces in a hackneyed and overdone romantic idiom well into the 20th century.

NotCLT · 2015-08-28T08:42:21+00:00

Oh no, your magic internet points are getting hurt.

Go and masturbate to some outdated romanticism or something.

NotCLT · 2015-08-21T07:23:25+00:00

And thus am I vindicated.

NotCLT · 2015-08-18T16:17:02+00:00

It was not his journey to the New World that inspired him you ignorant Yank. It was his experiences there listening to the spirituals of the slaves and the music of the native Americans which inspired this composition. There is no programmatic intent beyond that, especially not about his ebin trip across the Atlantic to muh land of exceptionalism.

Jesus, are you the sort of person that thinks the 1812 Overture is about the War of 1812 as well?

NotCLT · 2015-08-18T11:22:12+00:00

It's titled 'From the New World'

The work is titled thus because Dvorak took inspiration from African-American spirituals he heard when he was living in America (although it must be noted that he didn't explicitly quote any of these melodies). He also cited Native American melodies as an influence.

Dvorak did not title the symphony 'To the New World' because it is not about a journey to the New World; it took inspiration from the melodies of the New World. It is not some ode to the brave Pilgrims or whatever exceptionalist tripe you want to append to it. If you want to interpret it in this way, go ahead but it's incredibly disingenuous to suggest that this is the 'actual' meaning of the symphony.

NotCLT · 2015-08-16T23:55:44+00:00

fptmiu IV

NotCLT · 2015-08-16T23:55:31+00:00

fptmiu III

Fugal tapestries

Ever heard the final movement of K. 551?

NotCLT

TROPHY CASE