Music from the British Isles

[ahinton]

The more you get to know the music of Stanford, the more you realise that
he certainly wasn't just an average composer. I've just been playing through
his 3 Dante Rhapsodies, and there's nothing average about them, or indeed
the dozens of other very high quality instrumental, chamber, orchestral,
and choral works which I had the pleasure of discovering by him over the
past few years. Give his Stabat Mater a listen for example. Was that
written by just an average composer? I think not. Reading Dibble's book
about the man also makes one realise that he was far from average.

OK, it's a matter of personal opinion, inevitably, but, to me, Stanford simply didn't have what some of his contemporaries had. I read a while ago some fluff from someone about an English music festival in which claims were made about people of thet calibre and age being on a par with Brahms and the like; it just doesn't stand up to scrutiny. Sorry.

Please note that I'm not comparing Stanford with the best of his European contemporaries,
just his British ones. This being the case, I stand by my opinion, one based on considerable
study of the man and his music, not just on some ill-informed opinions read a while ago at
an English music festival. Sorry.

Fair enough as far as it goes, but I did not in any case specify which of Stanford's contemporaries with whom you compare him. Most of his British contemporaries were, after all, of no great consequence in any case, so he might well rise to somewhere close to the top of the heap when compared to them. I did not suggest that your opinions were formed by reading anyone else's ill-informed ones and I have no doubt that you have indeed studied sufficient of Stanford's work to be able to form an opinion; it's just an opinion that I do not happen to share, on the basis of having listened to quite a few of his works.

[ahinton]

Sorabji on Prout:

"Prout, as one might expect, displayed in his "compositions" - if those unbelievably feeble and jejune recollections of watered Mendelssohn and second hand Haydn can be so called - A combination of naivete, ineptitude and sheer incompetence that have to be seen to be believed. Not one single flash, one sparklet of character, invention or even pleasantly ingenious joinery enlivens or adds interest, even the most transient, to these aborted jellyfish"

In light of this, I think using the term "plinky plonky" to describe Sorabji is tame (as well as accurate) and I will continue to use it until thrown off the forum.

Thal

but if Sorabji was trying to convey that Prout, qua composer, was crap, he did so, and so what's the problem? He was not, after all, an academic who would follow established protocol in his discussions.

Indeed - yet it is also of passing interest that no one appears to have defended the music of Prout either on the academic grounds that Sorabji avoided or indeed on any other! That said, I'm not so sure that there's undue evidence that Prout huimself claimed to be on of the British compositional luminaries of his day. What Sorabji was doing in his reference to him was, as of course you know, to point out that even the most diligent study of the kind of text-book fodder upon which Prout and others made their names (and presumably a few pounds as well) does not a composer make (either of the writer or the reader).

And I do remember the fact that I sung quite a lot of Stanford. But I have pretty much completely forgotten the music. Something like Beatus quorum vir (in A flat), a mag and nunc in B flat (and possibly some others in other keys including one for kids alone?). All tedious. But melodious and harmless enough (unless you consider all the unpaid child labour - often at 6 or 7 in the freezing morning - required to perform this stuff).

Goodness me! - you may have "pretty much forgotten the music" itself, but your memory of details is remarkably sharp in the circumstances! I would hope, nonetheless, that the unpaid child labour during ungodly freezing hours uis not actually "required" to perform this stuff! If it were, there'd probably have been laws against it by now! But your point is well taken and I have every reason to doubt that the experience did anything much to enhance your own composition, piano playing, organ playing, violin playing or (for that matter) general physical health!

For what it (isn't) worth, when I asked a pianist that I know why he called his son Stanford he replied "becuase I wanted to be sure that he wouldn't be a professional musician"...

[thalbergmad]

but if Sorabji was trying to convey that Prout, qua composer, was crap, he did so, and so what's the problem? He was not, after all, an academic who would follow established protocol in his discussions.

And I am not an academic either, so I use other ways of expressing myself to describe music I hear.

Due to my lack of musical education, I think some Sorabji sounds like puerile note spinning or someone learing how to type. Some sounds like a gang of enraged gibbons attacking an infants glockenspiel class or a terrorist attack on a Steinway factory.

It is no use anyone asking me to "expand" on this as I have not the knowledge to do so.

Thal

[ahinton]

but if Sorabji was trying to convey that Prout, qua composer, was crap, he did so, and so what's the problem? He was not, after all, an academic who would follow established protocol in his discussions.

And I am not an academic either, so I use other ways of expressing myself to describe music I hear.

Due to my lack of musical education, I think some Sorabji sounds like puerile note spinning or someone learing how to type. Some sounds like a gang of enraged gibbons attacking an infants glockenspiel class or a terrorist attack on a Steinway factory.

It is no use anyone asking me to "expand" on this as I have not the knowledge to do so.

OK, so I for one will therefore refrain from asking you to "expand" on it, but at the same time your admission of lack of knowledge broadly invalidates your assertion that certain music may reasonably be classified as "plinky-plonk". The difference between your non-academic assertions and Sorabji's, however, is that his knowledge and practical experience of certain musical subjects was inevitably greater than yours (and I mean no insult to you in so saying, your knowledge of certain matters musical being very substandial indeed).

I would, however, take issue (if I may) with your claim that your reaction to "some Sorabji" (you don't give examples, nor do you cite any Sorabji works that do not invoke such a reaction) is "due to (your) lack of musical education"; Sorabji himself would indeed have been horrified by such a notion, since he didn't write his works for the sole benefit of some smallish côterie of musically literate professionals. But let's examine your claims one by one.

Much music might arguably sound like "puerile note-spinning" to some, depending upon their various tastes and not dependent upon or necessarily influenced by the nature and extent of their musical education - and wny only "puerile"? - is that not perhaps a sexist remark as well as an unfounded one?

I've never taken particular notice of the sound of "someone learning(sp.!) how to type" but I cannot imagine it to be so different to the sound of someone typing who has already learnt to type.

Never having either attended an "infants' glockenspiel class" or encountered "a gang of gibbons" (is that the collective noun for such creatures?), enraged or otherwise, I cannot comment on your view here (although I have heard some of Orlando Gibbons' music and also Jack Gibbons' playing), except to note that, since so little music by Sorabji involves even a single glockenspiel, let alone a group of them, it seems somewhat unconvincing.

I have also never attended, let alone been involved in, a terrorist attack on a Steinway factory, nor have I ever heard or read of such an attack even having taken place, but I suspect that, in such an improbable and unwelcome event, it would take someone with at least the aural perceptive capacities of a Pierre Boulez to be able to distinguish between the sounds of Steinways being destroyed and that of Bösendorfers undergoing the same treatment.

Ah, well; it takes all sorts, I suppose...

Best,

Alistair

[4candles]

OK, it's a matter of personal opinion, inevitably

I honestly think everyone could have left it there. We are all, inevitably, going to have different tastes in music.

I, for one, digest (not literally of course) certain compositions posted on this forum, and elsewhere, far more easily than others and I wouldn't presume other music lovers should have the same tastes as me.

I will defend a composer's work if I genuinely feel that it merits defending, but I won't push the point if I find there's no point in it as, more often than not, I realise that others have their own opinions and are going to hold to those opinions, no matter what anyone else thinks - as we have seen here.

The joy of music is that there is so much of it going around that someone like me can dip in and out of what they do and do not like whenever they choose. I like some Stanford and I like some Sorabji, for instance, without wishing to say anything more on the matter. Life's too short!

But that's just my opinion

[thalbergmad]

The difference between your non-academic assertions and Sorabji's, however, is that his knowledge and practical experience of certain musical subjects was inevitably greater than yours

Yeh, I see what you mean. Aborted jellyfish clearly displays his superior knowledge.

Anyway, I have changed my mind. I now think Sorabji is Plonky Plinky.

Ah well, it takes all sorts.

Thal

[ahinton]

The difference between your non-academic assertions and Sorabji's, however, is that his knowledge and practical experience of certain musical subjects was inevitably greater than yours

Yeh, I see what you mean. Aborted jellyfish clearly displays his superior knowledge.

Point carefully eluded once again, I see. My statement that Sorabji's "knowledge and practical experience of certain musical subjects was inevitably greater than yours" arose from the obvious fact that he was a composer who accordingly had inside knowledge and experience of what it is to compose; his reference to "aborted jellyfish" (creatures which, like your gangland gibbons, I confess never to having encountered in real life) was intended to do what it did - express his personal opinion, no more, no less - for all that his opinion would necessarily be based on the kind of technical knowledge and experience of musical composition that he possessed and that you cannot be expected to possess.

Anyway, I have changed my mind. I now think Sorabji is Plonky Plinky.

Is that U turn? If so, you turn if you want to (&c.). Either way, you once again refrain from telling us what it is about Sorabji's music that prompts you to think as you do and, even though you may not have sufficient technical expertise to be able to do so in academic terms, no one is expecting you to do it like that, so all that one might reasonably expect from you is that you tell us - in the plain English to whose usage you are accustomed - what it is about what you hear in some of it that persuades you to classify it thus and, for that matter, what it is about the rest of it that doesn't (and some citations of particular works in both categories wouldn't come amiss here). No obligation, of course, but it might help readers to understand where you're coming from with this and why, even if some of them might still take a different view. Maybe it would also help if you illustrated some other composers' works that you'd classify as "plinky-plonk" in the context of trying to explain why these and Sorabji's make you feel like that about them.

Anyway, I had thought that plinky plonk might be a way to describe music for banjo, but what do I know?...

Ah well, it takes all sorts.

You mean it sorts all takes, surely?...

Best,

Alistair

[thalbergmad]

his reference to "aborted jellyfish" (creatures which, like your gangland gibbons, I confess never to having encountered in real life) was intended to do what it did - express his personal opinion, no more, no less

Which is exactly what my Plinky Plonky is doing, no more, no less.

Thal

[ahinton]

his reference to "aborted jellyfish" (creatures which, like your gangland gibbons, I confess never to having encountered in real life) was intended to do what it did - express his personal opinion, no more, no less

Which is exactly what my Plinky Plonky is doing, no more, no less.

In terms of its meaningfulness to readers here, quite abit less, actually; all that you need to do is give a few examples of what it is that you hear in Sorabji's music that prompts you to use that term (in which I note you have now reverted to the original order) - can't you please do that?

Sorabji could have told you what it is in Prout's that gave rise to his reference to "aborted jellyfish" and it rested on what he saw as an almost abject lack of personality and a willingness to rest on the laurels of others on Prout's part, as though the textbook writer could only write material fit for textbooks rather than individual musical expressions of his own. It is surely obvious what was meant by "unbelievably feeble and jejune recollections of watered(-down) Mendelssohn and second(-)hand Haydn", just as it is that music that exhibits "not one single flash, one sparklet of character, invention or even pleasantly ingenious joinery" is unlikely to elicit compliments, let alone praise.

[thalbergmad]

can't you please do that?

No, I can't.

In order to do so, I would have to spend time listening to Sorabji recordings and having done so in the past, I have no great desire to put myself through that kind of torture again, especially as I have some non plinky Alwyn to listen to tonight.

Even if I did, you would still not accept, what after all, is simply my personal opinion which i do not have to justify.

Most people on here simply accept me for the jibbering musically illiterate idiot that I am, so I suggest you do the same.

Thal