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Post by Uncle Henry on Mar 3, 2016 1:39:54 GMT -5
The informally clad announcer happily introduces this group of performers as "The National Youth Orchestra of Great Britain". That was in the year 2011. To-day we are already beginning to learn that "National" is as bad a word as "Negro" and "Great Britain" itself will very soon be a thing of the past. Only the geographical term "British Isles" will remain for the youth of to-morrow. Messiaen the composer is an interesting case. It cannot be denied that he was in many ways a pseud. Just look at the score of Cantéyodjayâ if you need to be convinced. But in fact he pushed pseudery so far that he turned it into a new art form! Here is his Turangalîla-Symphonie of 1948, performed in Albert's Hall by the youngish performers' orchestra of the British Isles. Is the behaviour of the pianiste tolerable do members think? You may click HERE to go on to see the performance, the full score, and a little additional literature. Wikipædia page: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Turangal%C3%AEla-Symphonie
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Post by Deleted on Dec 28, 2016 20:37:01 GMT -5
Personally am I fan of Messiaen, and of the Turangalila symphony.
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Post by the Administration on Dec 29, 2016 2:10:44 GMT -5
Do not forget your great-aunts members! We welcome any and all new contributing members to this forum for brilliant practitioners of the Arts. We have only one regulation, which encourages you always to bear in mind how your posts will be seen by your great-aunt, actual or potential: This in fact means that any contribution which would have been suitable for transmission by the Third Programme prior to 1967 will be acceptable here, and any which would not have been will not be. Think, in other words, of some nice English ladies with whom you might be taking afternoon tea. They would not think of eating cake without a cake-fork. They might go so far as to agree that Sir Edward Elgar had been a "pompous gentleman". Indeed my own Great-Aunt Maud, born in 1864, used that very phrase to me in the fifties of the last century. But they would never dream of allowing posts here that contain bad words. Having in mind the atmosphere we generate we will see that there are no fewer than nine expressions in the post above (f-e, c-t d-l, t-t p-r, f-a, u-d, p-t, s-l, h-d, t-s) that would not be acceptable to nice ladies; that should be obvious. For that reason they should in due course be removed. A repetition must lead to more serious consequences.
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Post by ahinton on Dec 29, 2016 3:57:29 GMT -5
Do not forget your great-aunts members! We welcome any and all new contributing members to this forum for brilliant practitioners of the Arts. We have only one regulation, which encourages you always to bear in mind how your posts will be seen by your great-aunt, actual or potential: This in fact means that any contribution which would have been suitable for transmission by the Third Programme prior to 1967 will be acceptable here, and any which would not have been will not be. Think, in other words, of some nice English ladies with whom you might be taking afternoon tea. They would not think of eating cake without a cake-fork. They might go so far as to agree that Sir Edward Elgar had been a "pompous gentleman". Indeed my own Great-Aunt Maud, born in 1864, used that very phrase to me in the fifties of the last century. But they would never dream of allowing posts here that contain bad words. Having in mind the atmosphere we generate we will see that there are no fewer than nine expressions in the post above (f-e, c-t d-l, t-t p-r, f-a, u-d, p-t, s-l, h-d, t-s) that would not be acceptable to nice ladies; that should be obvious. For that reason they should in due course be removed. A repetition must lead to more serious consequences. I'm unsure which to ask first; what in the name of le bon Dieu is the above supposedly about or what in the same name does any of it have to do with Messiaen's Turangalîla-Symphonie? Moreover, I wonder how many members here even have living great-aunts in any case? - and what might a "potential" great-aunt be? I also have no idea what you mean by seeking to distinguish the BBC Third Programme from BBC Radio 3, as though something suddenly changed out of all recognition at the point of the channel's rebranding. Likewise, the connections between Messiaen's work and "nice ladies" (whatever or whoever they might be), the partaking of "afternoon tea" therewith and Elgar are anything but obvious, especially given that Turangalîla is in every way a very different kind of "symphony" to any of Elgar's three.
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Post by ahinton on Dec 29, 2016 4:16:57 GMT -5
Personally am I fan of Messiaen, and of the Turangalila symphony. . I don't accept all of that. I, too, hold Messiaen in very high regard. I do believe that Boulez, in his youth, was pretty much as you describe him (or at least appeared to behave as though he was) but to single him out as an example of the "truly talentless" is really something that doesn't ring true to me. His remarks about Shostakovich were despicable and his apparent urge to throw away the past (understandable though that might have been in the immediate aftermath of WWII) were notable for their absurdity at the time and, late in his career, for their fraudulence given his desire to conduct Ravel, Debussy, Mahler, Bruckner and Wagner. I can tell you from my own experience, however, that the person who conducted a programme of the egregious Igor's rather tiresome windy symphonies as though it was a work of immeasurable greatness, something else (which I've now forgotten), the Webern Op. 6 pieces and Erwartung with Jessye Norman must have been someone else with the same name who also did not use a baton and who was about as far from an "also-ran auto-pilot conductor" as it would have been possible to get, for even in the ungrateful acoustic of London's Baby-can, it was one of the most memorable orchestral concerts that I have ever attended; Norman's psychological as well as musical and vocal virtuosity in the Schönberg was remarkable beyond words and I've never heard so much detail in that troubled and complex score in any other performance. Toilet paper? All too much French music used to be printed en france on papier de toilette over the years, from Billaudot's Alkan to Durand & cie's Debussy, Fauré and heaven knows what else that it almost became a tradition of sorts! I was raised during my first days in music on the Darmstadtters of the 1950s and early 1960s before I knew and Mahler, let alone Beethoven and Mozart and a major feature of this perhaps rather unusual education (from an ex-pupil of Webern) were the three piano sonatas of Boulez, which eventually came to surprise me with their pianistic ineptitude, especially given that Boulez was apparently a fine pianist in his youth. I cam away from all that having felt that I'd somehow allowed myself to traverse the wrong path and more or less had to start all over again (although the experience certainly sharpened my ears!) - but afterwards did I find Boulez to be significantly less of a composer than Stockhausen, Nono et al? Not really. I can't say that I'm a fan of Maître Pierre, but there are some things - including Pli selon pli - that I'd rather not have to live without, even if I don't feel inclined to listen to them at all often.
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Post by Deleted on Dec 29, 2016 5:24:13 GMT -5
I'm unsure which to ask first; what in the name of le bon Dieu is the above supposedly about or what in the same name does any of it have to do with Messiaen's Turangalîla-Symphonie? Moreover, I wonder how many members here even have living great-aunts in any case? - and what might a "potential" great-aunt be? I also have no idea what you mean by seeking to distinguish the BBC Third Programme from BBC Radio 3, as though something suddenly changed out of all recognition at the point of the channel's rebranding. Likewise, the connections between Messiaen's work and "nice ladies" (whatever or whoever they might be), the partaking of "afternoon tea" therewith and Elgar are anything but obvious, especially given that Turangalîla is in every way a very different kind of "symphony" to any of Elgar's three. Oh well Mr. H, if you don't see the problem ... if you don't agree with me that the tip of the iceberg should be nipped in the bud ... what I will do is concentrate purely on the worldwide wireless section and assisting Uncle Henry ... for about three months (January, February, March) and we'll see how things stand - where they are - only after that. In other words I will keep clear and refrain utterly. If I remember rightly it ended last time in hideousness, chaos and a desperate flight of great-aunts. I don't know why all that has to happen ... the reason for it I mean.
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Post by ahinton on Dec 29, 2016 10:09:16 GMT -5
I'm unsure which to ask first; what in the name of le bon Dieu is the above supposedly about or what in the same name does any of it have to do with Messiaen's Turangalîla-Symphonie? Moreover, I wonder how many members here even have living great-aunts in any case? - and what might a "potential" great-aunt be? I also have no idea what you mean by seeking to distinguish the BBC Third Programme from BBC Radio 3, as though something suddenly changed out of all recognition at the point of the channel's rebranding. Likewise, the connections between Messiaen's work and "nice ladies" (whatever or whoever they might be), the partaking of "afternoon tea" therewith and Elgar are anything but obvious, especially given that Turangalîla is in every way a very different kind of "symphony" to any of Elgar's three. Oh well Mr. H, if you don't see the problem ... if you don't agree with me that the tip of the iceberg should be nipped in the bud ... what I will do is concentrate purely on the worldwide wireless section and assisting Uncle Henry ... for about three months (January, February, March) and we'll see how things stand - where they are - only after that. In other words I will keep clear and refrain utterly. If I remember rightly it ended last time in hideousness, chaos and a desperate flight of great-aunts. I don't know why all that has to happen ... the reason for it I mean. It's not the "problem" (what "problem" per se, might I ask?) that I don't see - it's the connection between the Messiaen and great-aunts, afternoon tea (hardly a French institution), "nice ladies" (whatever they might be) and Elgar - but never mind. Thank you for posting the Messiaen in any case.
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Post by Deleted on Dec 29, 2016 11:00:19 GMT -5
All my great aunts are now dead, but I should perhaps confess that I never discussed the Turangalîla-Symphonie with any of them. I did, however, treat them with respect, which is what Sydney is suggesting that we do here.
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Post by Deleted on Dec 30, 2016 16:37:56 GMT -5
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Post by ahinton on Dec 31, 2016 4:55:27 GMT -5
Not only despicable - but ... Not "talentless" or "uneducated" but I'm not about to argue with the rest... who has already been forgotten outside his home country Some might say "if only"! IRCAM, Ensemble Intercontemporain, Centre Pompidou; I don't think that people within or outside France are about to forget those!... Failed to produce any orchestral music of any worth whatsoever. Failed to produce any operas, ballets or stage works. Failed to produce any vocal music. [/quote] Well, that's clearly your view; I don;t quite share it, but at the same time I do not place great value on much of Boulez's orchestral output at all. For what it's worth, Chopin, Reger, Scriabin, Medtner and other undoubtedly worthy composers produced no operas, ballets or stage works either. Vocal music? Well, OK, you dislike Pli selon pli intensely, but I think it to be one of his more compelling works. He did himself no more favours in developing an image as a young firebrand polemicist than he did to those who found themselves on the end of his venom in those far-off days. His treatment of his colleague and compatriot Dutilleux (an immensely greater composer - indeed, one of his country's finest of the second half of the last century) was a particularly significant black mark on his character (although I believe that the two made up much more recently); interestingly, Dutilleux never spoke an ill word about Boulez's music but did deprecate the sheer amount of power that he wielded. So, whilst I'm no fan at all (and cannot stand the piano music), I just wouldn't go as far as you do. It wouldn't do for us all to have more or less the same opinions, though!
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