Beethoven Academie auctioned on eBay

[Peter]

Originally posted by Chaszz:

Rod, you could listen to Bach forever and never understand it. You never reply to my contention that your brain is simply not wired for it. Three hours of listening or three weeks of listening prove nothing. You cannot perceive the meaning in it.

Chaszz, there are and have been many great musicians whose opinions mystify me. Tchaikovsky for instance whilst admiring Mozart and Beethoven detested Brahms and also thought little of Bach and Handel. Wagner of course had hardly anything good to say about anyone except Wagner - there really is no accounting for musical tastes!

------------------
'Man know thyself'

[Rod]

Originally posted by Chaszz:

Rod, you could listen to Bach forever and never understand it. You never reply to my contention that your brain is simply not wired for it. Three hours of listening or three weeks of listening prove nothing. You cannot perceive the meaning in it.

I must have missed that Chaszz. Au contraire I understand it only too well, here is my brief assessment. It's easy listening, music for study or observant churchly meditation but very rarely dramatic rhetorical performance pieces in the Beethovenian (or for that matter Handelian) sence.

Bach is for the most part the most neutral sounding music I have ever heard, as was required of him professionally, and he worked happily within these contraints it seems. Endless contrapuntal meandering without any semblance of interesting thematic material or development does not good listening make. Beethoven never wrote like this. why should this method, obsolete in its own lifetime, be regarded as the ideal? And going from Bach to Handel is like going out from a dim smoky room into fresh air and brilliant sunlight.

Bach is good from a teaching perspective but that's about as far as it goes. When I listened to a live broadcast of the St Matthew Passion at the Royal Albert Hall, at the end the applause was the least enthusiastic out of anything I've heard at the Proms, I think it was more out of relief than approval. This is not concert music, it was written for a congregation of sinners, for them to join in too in places (didn't hear that happening at the RAH!). Don't believe the hype.

You know for me Beethoven is the benchmark by which all others are judged, I always ask myself if Beethoven composed something to this standard would I think it worthy. Surely this is not unreasonable?

I'll say no more on Bach, you can have the last word. If you want a monologue on your other hero Wagner let me know. But I put this to your good self - if the 'effort' by Furtwangler you posted was your idea of a good interpretation, what does this say about your own standard of judgement Chaszz...? I leave you to your dim smokey room with the old men. As for myself? I look to the light.

------------------
"If I were but of noble birth..." - Rod Corkin



[This message has been edited by Rod (edited 07-01-2006).]

[Rutradelusasa]

Originally posted by Rod:
blah blah...

( )

Enough of this. The concept of light is different to each and everyone of us. We all seek the light, but if your light is Grieg, the other's Palestrina and the other is Cage, fine.
I love Bach, Chaszz also, Rod doesn't. Fine by me. This redundant discussion does no one any good.


------------------
"Wer ein holdes weib errugen..."

[Rod]

Originally posted by Rutradelusasa:


Enough of this. The concept of light is different to each and everyone of us. We all seek the light, but if your light is Grieg, the other's Palestrina and the other is Cage, fine.
I love Bach, Chaszz also, Rod doesn't. Fine by me. This redundant discussion does no one any good.

This is not redundant discussion, saying nothing but 'I love this, I love that' is redundant discussion, it is not even discussion. Upon a most wecome prompt I explained my position which is more than you usually get here. Without friction there is no birth, we just sit around like a bunch of mindless morons regurgitating the same crap like you get in the music academies. Do not try to stifle me Mr Rutradelusasa unless you have something more interesting to entertain us, this place has become way too mundane as it is and the moderators are conspicuous by their absence these days. I invite you to contradict the points I make above, starting with my using Beethoven as the quality standard, then my points about Bach.

------------------
"If I were but of noble birth..." - Rod Corkin


[This message has been edited by Rod (edited 07-01-2006).]

[Sorrano]

Originally posted by Rod:
This is not redundant discussion, saying nothing but 'I love this, I love that' is redundant discussion, it is not even discussion. Upon a most wecome prompt I explained my position which is more than you usually get here. Without friction there is no birth, we just sit around like a bunch of mindless morons regurgitating the same crap like you get in the music academies. Do not try to stifle me Mr Rutradelusasa unless you have something more interesting to entertain us, this place has become way too mundane as it is and the moderators are conspicuous by their absence these days. I invite you to contradict the points I make above, starting with my using Beethoven as the quality standard, then my points about Bach.

In other words, you wish to set the quality standard yourself with Beethoven? Then the discussion can only be based on your opinion and that (I mean this generally, not personally) is not productive either. Suppose I want to qualify Bach or Montiverdi as the standard, or even Handel? Then I am in disagreement with you from the beginning of the discussion with no hope for intersecting ideas.

[Hofrat]

Originally posted by Hofrat:
I found this in my Yahoo news alerts:

The Belgian chamber orchestra, the Beethoven Academie, lost its 2007 government funding. Its management found a very novel way to refinance: it put itself up for auction on eBay!!

The Beethoven Academie specializes in late classical and early romantic music.


Hofrat

Dear Forum;

The Beethoven Academie has been taken off the auction block. Its management was compelled to look for funding or sponsors in a more conventional way.


Hofrat

[Rod]

Originally posted by Sorrano:
In other words, you wish to set the quality standard yourself with Beethoven? Then the discussion can only be based on your opinion and that (I mean this generally, not personally) is not productive either. Suppose I want to qualify Bach or Montiverdi as the standard, or even Handel? Then I am in disagreement with you from the beginning of the discussion with no hope for intersecting ideas.

Sorry I totally missed this post, but thanks to Mr Hofrat here is my response:

My quality standard is Beethoven, if that makes me Mr Crazy I am happy to sit with the lunatics. It is essential to find out what people here regard as the best example/s of music, it helps in assessing their viewpoint on a particular piece of music or composer.

Putting it cruedly, by volume of quality output, my standard for instrumental music is Beethoven, for theatre music it is Handel. By default if you have a pre-conceived level of expectation, chances are a lot of music will not meet this quality.

But my main point is that from my experience Bach is the standard for those musically educated and the higher up you go the more that is the case, but from extensive listening to the music I cannot see how this is justified.

------------------
"If I were but of noble birth..." - Rod Corkin

[Sorrano]

Originally posted by Rod:
Sorry I totally missed this post, but thanks to Mr Hofrat here is my response:

My quality standard is Beethoven, if that makes me Mr Crazy I am happy to sit with the lunatics. It is essential to find out what people here regard as the best example/s of music, it helps in assessing their viewpoint on a particular piece of music or composer.

Putting it cruedly, by volume of quality output, my standard for instrumental music is Beethoven, for theatre music it is Handel. By default if you have a pre-conceived level of expectation, chances are a lot of music will not meet this quality.

But my main point is that from my experience Bach is the standard for those musically educated and the higher up you go the more that is the case, but from extensive listening to the music I cannot see how this is justified.

Obviously, you can't see how it is justified. You use a different standard than the "musically educated and the higher up you go"!

[Rod]

Originally posted by Sorrano:
Obviously, you can't see how it is justified. You use a different standard than the "musically educated and the higher up you go"!

Yes, that's what I said. I can't see how these guys rate Bach above Beethoven.

------------------
"If I were but of noble birth..." - Rod Corkin

[Peter]

Originally posted by Hofrat:
Dear Forum;

The Beethoven Academie has been taken off the auction block. Its management was compelled to look for funding or sponsors in a more conventional way.


Hofrat

Interesting - I wonder how they were able to do that as there were apparently many bids on this going as high as around £80,000 last time I looked? Were these bidders perhaps management or orchestra members, in which case surely they were breaking the legal requirements?

------------------
'Man know thyself'

[Hofrat]

Originally posted by Peter:
Interesting - I wonder how they were able to do that as there were apparently many bids on this going as high as around £80,000 last time I looked? Were these bidders perhaps management or orchestra members, in which case surely they were breaking the legal requirements?

Dear Peter;

From what I understand, the auction was illegal for two reasons. First, there was no real final price. The auction winner would have to pay his bid, but also fund the orchestra from 2007. Second, it is forbidden to auction people on eBay.

So, all bids were cancelled, and as I said, the orchestra will have use more orthodox methods to secure funding.

From what I know, they have some 17 projects in the works.


Hofrat

[Chaszz]

Originally posted by Rod:
I must have missed that Chaszz. Au contraire I understand it only too well, here is my brief assessment. It's easy listening, music for study or observant churchly meditation but very rarely dramatic rhetorical performance pieces in the Beethovenian (or for that matter Handelian) sence.

Bach is for the most part the most neutral sounding music I have ever heard, as was required of him professionally, and he worked happily within these contraints it seems. Endless contrapuntal meandering without any semblance of interesting thematic material or development does not good listening make. Beethoven never wrote like this. why should this method, obsolete in its own lifetime, be regarded as the ideal? And going from Bach to Handel is like going out from a dim smoky room into fresh air and brilliant sunlight.

Bach is good from a teaching perspective but that's about as far as it goes. When I listened to a live broadcast of the St Matthew Passion at the Royal Albert Hall, at the end the applause was the least enthusiastic out of anything I've heard at the Proms, I think it was more out of relief than approval. This is not concert music, it was written for a congregation of sinners, for them to join in too in places (didn't hear that happening at the RAH!). Don't believe the hype.

You know for me Beethoven is the benchmark by which all others are judged, I always ask myself if Beethoven composed something to this standard would I think it worthy. Surely this is not unreasonable?

I'll say no more on Bach, you can have the last word. If you want a monologue on your other hero Wagner let me know. But I put this to your good self - if the 'effort' by Furtwangler you posted was your idea of a good interpretation, what does this say about your own standard of judgement Chaszz...? I leave you to your dim smokey room with the old men. As for myself? I look to the light.

As I said above, you are making a mistake by trusting your own judgment of Bach. You are not capable of hearing it. Bach has provided me and countless others with deep dramatic emotional experiences in the religious music, like the B Minor Mass, and sublime joy in the secular music like the Musical Offering. You unfortunately are no more capable of hearing it for what it is, than humans are of seeing ultraviolet light. The means to apprehend it are not there. This does not mean that ultraviolet light does not exist. The more you tell me you have listened to Bach and found it trivial, the more I reply that you argue the wroing point. It is not Bach's music, it is Rod's mechanism.

Now since you are so high on B and H, being told you cannot listen to other composers, you don't have the equipment for it, is such a shock you can't take it in. But there it is, there is no help for it. Since I love Bach passionately, and not at all because critics tell me it is the right thing to do, and countless others love it also, and one person says it is no good, then the only rational conclusion is that that one person is wrong. As wrong as a flat earther.

[This message has been edited by Chaszz (edited 07-05-2006).]

[Nightklavier]

Rod - I don't mean to pry... well actually I do, but what are you? Do you mind if I ask what you do? You know a lot about classical music, you have some astute observations and often bold claims. Is your career involved with music in anyway?

[Rod]

Originally posted by Chaszz:

As I said above, you are making a mistake by trusting your own judgment of Bach.

That's a good line Chaszz, I might use this myself!

Originally posted by Chaszz:

You are not capable of hearing it. Bach has provided me and countless others with deep dramatic emotional experiences in the religious music, like the B Minor Mass, and sublime joy in the secular music like the Musical Offering. You unfortunately are no more capable of hearing it for what it is, than humans are of seeing ultraviolet light. The means to apprehend it are not there. This does not mean that ultraviolet light does not exist. The more you tell me you have listened to Bach and found it trivial, the more I reply that you argue the wroing point. It is not Bach's music, it is Rod's mechanism.

Now since you are so high on B and H, being told you cannot listen to other composers, you don't have the equipment for it, is such a shock you can't take it in. But there it is, there is no help for it. Since I love Bach passionately, and not at all because critics tell me it is the right thing to do, and countless others love it also, and one person says it is no good, then the only rational conclusion is that that one person is wrong. As wrong as a flat earther.

[This message has been edited by Chaszz (edited 07-05-2006).]

I've listened intensively to the B Minor Mass and, like the St Matthew, I was actually expecting something more than what Bach seems to offer - the grand moments seems relatively weak compared to Handel's great anthems or the big chouses in the Missa Solemnis, the gestures are not as convincing. Concerning the more solemn moments the music is nice but the emotion seems contrived because of the strict churchly tonality and frameworks that are omnipresent. Those in the Missa for example seem more sincere and heartfelt in their less contrained structures. Basically Bach sounds more corporate, I've said this before, Beethoven and Handel are musical free spirits in comparison.

It's not that I'm saying Bach's music is bad but considering the nature of his output this is not to my mind the ultimate solution to the art of music, not by a long way. This is my ulimate point.

I hear lots about the sublime joy of the Musical Offering, but Handel wrote like this all the time, many times people have mentioned to me about the good spirit of Handel's music whe I've played it, real joy for the system, even in the solemnest of largos. This is what I mean when I said about going from the dark into the bright sunlight when hearing the two composers one after the other.

As I've also said before my position is only offensive not because I am taking a side, it is the side I am taking that offends. If I'd said the very same words but replaced 'Bach' with 'Handel' you would have not concerned yourself one iota. So you cannot have any moral authority on the matter, none more than myself at any rate. And anyone who thinks I'm crazy for having Beethoven as my benchmark for quality really needs to ask themselves what is it they really get out of their classical music. For some it serves the same function as pop, they like the sound regardless of the composer but there is minimal intellectual engagement or consideration. That's not me.

------------------
"If I were but of noble birth..." - Rod Corkin

[This message has been edited by Rod (edited 07-05-2006).]

[Rod]

Originally posted by Nightklavier:
Rod - I don't mean to pry... well actually I do, but what are you?

Another classic line, again I bend the knee. Best not to ask really, a dream to some...a nightmare to others!

Originally posted by Nightklavier:

Do you mind if I ask what you do? You know a lot about classical music, you have some astute observations and often bold claims. Is your career involved with music in anyway?

You flatter me. I have no musical education at all, self taught you might say. Never been involved in the music trade at any level.

------------------
"If I were but of noble birth..." - Rod Corkin


[This message has been edited by Rod (edited 07-05-2006).]