Music Chat: Sibelius--The Worst Composer in the World
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- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 19 ธ.ค. 2020
- This little pamphlet by René Leibowitz, French composer, conductor, pedagogue, and apostle of Schoenbergian dodecaphony, was written in 1955 to "celebrate" Sibelius' 90th birthday. It has got to be one of the bitchiest, most mean-spirited essays in musical history. I loved every word. Splendidly translated by Brian Reinhart, I am grateful for the opportunity to share it with you.
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Coincidentally, I've been listening to Sibelius all day, and I'm happy to confirm that Leibowitz was talking out of his arse.
Great fun when musicians bad mouth each other: Vaughan Williams on Mahler "A very tolerable imitation of a composer.”; Mendelssohn on Berlioz "Indifferent drivel, mere grunting, shouting and screaming back and forth."; Stravinsky on Messiaen "All you need to write like him is a large bottle of ink.” ; Bizet on Wagner " He is endowed with such insolent conceit that criticism cannot touch his heart - admitting that he has a heart, which I doubt. ”; Prokofiev on Stravinsky " Bach on the wrong notes.”; Stravinsky on Handel's Theodora " It's beautiful and boring. Too many pieces finish too long after the end." ; Beecham on Elgar "The musical equivalent of St Pancras Station.". However in terms of style, this bit of vitriol by a Parisian critic Louis Schneider (a figure long since consigned to the dustbin of history) writing about Debussy's La mer is hard to beat "The audience seemed rather disappointed: they expected the ocean, something big, something colossal, but they were served instead with some agitated water in a saucer." Funny but wrong!
@@Tysknaden Oh well, each to their own; perhaps when you're in Paris next, you can drop some flowers on old Louis' grave - if you can find it! 😁
Well, Bizet pretty much got it right.
Mendelssohn seems to have been referring to a specific work, not Berlioz in general, and I suspect Prokofiev's comment was not meant as an insult.
Stravinsky, unsurprisingly, comes up with the best insult here
@@ThreadBomb Yes, I'm sure Prokofiev would have admired Stravinsky with whom he coincided during the heady days of the Ballet Russe in Paris. This comment would have been about some of his neo-classical works. I think he can be forgiven for that since a neo-classical work by Prokofiev predates Stravinsky's neo-classical period by a good six years. Prokofiev's Classical Symphony was completed in 1917 whereas Stravinsky's Octet was finished in 1923. Who knows? Maybe Stravinsky got the idea from Prokofiev. As for Mendelssohn, I have no idea but I know that the two met more than once in Rome. Mendelssohn may well have been thinking of some of Berlioz's recent vocal and choral works like Lélio or La Mort de Sardanapale which had earned him La Prix de Rome. Although Lélio has many engaging moments, these are probably not amongst his best or most enduring works.
Leibowitz, affectionately known as "who?"
In case you don't know Leibowitz let me introduce him to you as the worst Beethoven conductor of his time.
That Leibowitz piece was a masterpiece of narcissism! It reveals more about the writer than about Sibelius.
Woohoo! My pleasure to share this with everyone and to see all the commenters join in the outrage-slash-mockery. Laughed out loud at the reveal that Mr. Ideologically Correct also recorded polkas, waltzes, and tangos.
Thank you so much, Brian!
I understand René Leibowitz fancied himself a composer. And today I hear the statue of Schoenberg is to be demolished, because the city wants the site. Leibowitz never had a statue. Both are held in very high regard in the Hall of No One Cares.
@@niko_____3820 Schoenberg is both historically significant (though in retrospect we can see how much of a dead end his path proved to be), and is a genuinely interesting, often compelling composer. His 'Moses and Aron' stands as one of the most imaginative and powerful operas of the twentieth century.
It was Theodor Adorno who first famously named Sibelius as the world's worst composer. His criticism was very influential and prejudiced many against Sibelius , including I believe Claudio Abbado. I am not hostile to Second Viennese School or even to serialism, but they were very dogmatic people (bit like Bolsheviks).
They were musical bolsheviks. An entire century of creative endeavor wasted on a style of music that nobody wanted to listen to. Hell, I prefer just about anything to serialism. The same travesty happened to jazz with the free jazz movement. Just awful stuff.
Actually not. Schoenberg made positive remarks about Sibelius, Shostakovich, Gershwin...
The late 50's - 60's were the dark ages for classical music since so many gifted composers were dismissed only based off the fact that they didn't compose serial music. Thanks God this serial fascism lasted only for 15 years or so.
"it has got to be one of the bitchiest, mean-spirited essays in musical history. I loved every word. "
this is exactly the sentiment that people miss out on when they have their feelings hurt by the opinions of others rather than simply enjoying the game
This is what happens when music becomes an academic pursuit instead of an artistic one. It's all about "form" and "style" instead of pleasure.
In his case it was about ideology and "us versus them".
Leibowitz has just been awarded the Hanslick trophy for musical incomprehension.
I only wish someone would take the pains of writing something as nasty about me for my 90th birthday. Sibelius would have taken it as a great honour ... that's the Finnish spirit--take it from someone born in "Finlandia." No one insults you unless you've done something Great.
What a wonderful philosophical way to look at it! Bravo
The fact that someone takes the time to study the compositions of a composer they don’t like, write down their thoughts, spend the effort and money to publish a pamphlet, and then promote the thing tells you more about them than the composer they are denigrating.
Yes, that they are motivated by vanity and fear of irrelevance.
Well, the thing is, that Leibowitz and Adorno, probably the whole Schoenberg school were not only into progress & avant-garde, but also romanticists. They had the belief, that music isn't just entertainment, but has an important message. So they were thinking, you couldn't do anything in music.
In the 19th century music was controversial. There was the conflict Brahms camp vs Wagner camp, Tchaikovsky was bashing many composers (including himself). At least you could say to romanticists with all their quarrels music was really important.
So it's not all that bad, when Leibowitz writes a pamphlet after studying the compositions of a composer instead of just saying: "Ok, I don't like Sibelius. It's just a question of taste".
You call that STUDY?
Fortunately, we couldn't care less, Mr. Leibowitz.
It must have irritated Leibowitz to no end how famous Sibelius was. Watch the 1944 film Laura - the detective picks up a clue because the symphony concert had to cancel the Sibelius symphony. For a living serious composer to mentioned in a movie was and still is unheard of. Sibelius must have been quite a force. Leibowitz is lucky he made that astonishingly great Beethoven set for Reader's Digest. (I still have my LP set.) But I still have a tough time reconciling the conductors unlistenable music with such superb conducting.
I don't think the conducting is all that superb, but that's another matter.
It’s quite a discovery (the Beethoven set). Brushes up very well to my ears.
Great fun! But be careful, David. In fifty years, you may be similarly quoted in the liner notes for the latest recording, "Bruckner - 30 Symphonies".
You mean "Symphony No, 2: Thirty Versions (complete critical editions)"
Bruckner: 30 symphonies, only nine of which are worth listening to.
Ever hear a single work of Leibowitz in the concert hall? Neither have I. But that darn Finn keeps getting programmed 64 years after his death and counting!
Your French is very good, I love it! Always puts a smile on my face
Thank you! 😃
Ah yes, those French critics who believe that artists, like tuna, must come in "schools".
To mr. Leibowitz and all of the serial dictators, I always like to remember that none other than MORTON FELDMAN loved Sibelius. That's a genius admiring another genius without any trace of fundamentalism.
Well, that's quite a dubious praise, isn't it? It doesn't touch any of the critiques of Sibelius' music in respect of it's themes, form, suspense, being kitsch. Feldman was into color & orchestration.
@@Sulsfort , well, I'd say that such a commentary by another amazing composer is quite something. In fact, Feldman was talking about the transitions in Sibelius' 5th, so, he referred to the form of the symphony.
Anyway, what I was trying to say is that you haven't to be a romantic oriented composer to like Sibelius. I think some of the Leibowitz's reasons to reject Sibelius came from him being a serial composer. And I must say that I like serial music too. But you can't stay in one only style rejecting others.
@@josecarmona9168 "In fact, Feldman was talking about the transitions in Sibelius' 5th, so, he referred to the form of the symphony."
That's quite interesting, indeed. Glenn Gould, who was much of an influence on my musical taste (for example he convinced me of the music of Schoenberg), liked Sibelius and especially his 5th. To me Sibelius' 5th is still Tschaikovsky without nice melodies. I think, the end is not quite convincing, at least not in the way, Sibelius thought.
But I will give it a chance from time to time. Not so much the moods, but the sounds in this music still keep me interested.
"well, I'd say that such a commentary by another amazing composer is quite something.
[...]
Anyway, what I was trying to say is that you haven't to be a romantic oriented composer to like Sibelius. I think some of the Leibowitz's reasons to reject Sibelius came from him being a serial composer."
But I still think Feldman had other standards than the serialists, Glenn Gould and probably most of the Sibelius aficionados, and maybe not at least Sibelius himself (which might be lacking some sense of humour, I suspect).
@@Sulsfort in that I agree with you. Sibelius is one of my favorite composers, but, of course, you may not like his music. But before having an opinion, you must listen to it and decide, as I see you have done.
But I think there was a kind of avantgarde tiranny in the middle of the 20th century that rejected any tonal music only by the fact it was tonal music. That's why Sibelius' music was neglected outside Finlandia (and Great Britain) for so a long time. It is with this tiranny I don't agree. And it's not that I reject the avantgarde music, in fact I like some if it very much (I really love Ligeti, he had quite this sense of humour you mention). But there is no point in dismiss an style only because it's different than other, or it's old-fashioned.
So basically you’re telling me, when he wasn’t slagging off Sibelius and writing atonal nonsense, he was pretty much the Andre Rieu of his day!
That’s cute!
Hello from Finland!
Greetings from everywhere else!
Haha seeing that title without any context really gave me a scare!
On me too haha
Just another reason to detest the militant serialists. History and modern performance remembers Sibelius well, and Monsieur Leibowitz scarcely at all.
I grew up with Leibowitz's recording of Schumann's Rhenish Symphony. I listened to it the other day, and it has its moments. There is a very long list of conductors who were forgettable composers. Dorati, Markevich, Celibidache, Furtwangler. I can forgive Leibowitz for being a mediocre, forgettable composer. But it's harder to excuse him for being a plain jerk on Sibelius's birthday, no less.
@Alex Madorsky: Detest as you must, but keep in mind that, Schoenberg, the father of dodecaphony, was not a "militant serialist."
Leibowitz orchestrated Bach's BWV 582
What a sad, miserable piece if humanity Leibowitz must have been. I'm proud to announce that I have not one of his recordings.
Well. I've just discovered Egon Wellescz. Serious but attractive music, not in a nasty style, taught by Schoenberg as was Eisler.
Sibelius is one of the best.
I'm with Toscanini on this one. Sibelius is my 2nd favorite composer, right after the Big B.
Bartók?
"The harmony that you think is wrong"?? Isn't that the major hurdle we have to overcome to appreciate serial music?
Absolutely. Monsieur Leibowitz would be delighted to have us continue trying - but we are too busy as we continue listening (like... to Sibelius)! :)))
Composers would be wise to look anew to folk music for melodic and rhythmic coherence. None of it is serial.
Well, Sibelius once said: “Pay no attention to what the critics say; there has never been a statue erected to a critic.”
Also, who did Leibowitz teach to compose? Pierre Boulez!😂
Yes but Boulez more or less trashed Leibowitz and his dogma and, in later years anyway, let it be known that he enjoyed listening to Sibelius. Even more wondrous was his taste for Vaughan Williams, of whom he said "now he is really interesting".
Unfortunately, as much as it pains me to say this, Sibelius turned out to be incorrect; a statue was in fact erected to the vicious and mean-spirited critic Claudia Cassidy, who seemed to take perverse pride in hounding out of town two of the Chicago S O conductors / music directors, namely Jean Martinon and Rafael Kubelik.
She was known as the woman with the "whim of iron"...
@@colinwrubleski7627 . She blasted Kubelik for programming too much modern music : Britten , Bartok etc.
@@MorganHayes_Composer.Pianist The same with Martinon, who loved modern music also.
How interesting. And yet there were (at least when I first began listening) some doubts and questions about Sibelius. I recall an early review of the violin concerto that said it was a lot of work for little reward. I read somewhere that Nadia Boulangier referred to 'poor dear Sibelius'. To which one can only point to hundreds of recordings, eager searching out of even dubious early works (those cello variations are quite amazing) and a truckful of symphonic cycles. And how much Boulangier do we hear?
It reminds me of the way Bruckner got trashed, though that was more motivated by Hanslick taking sides against Wagnerians. It was interesting that you pointed up how Sibelius may have used Bruckner. The development from Beethoven - like small motifs, abrupt changes to something else and the whole gradually pulling together, though Sibelius seems more organic so to speak. But a lot of music that seems bewildering or lacking can, with listening, come mean a lot. I might cite VW's 4th, Sibelius' 4th and indeed (for me at least) the finale of Bruckner's 9th.
David Hood.
I suspect Leibowitz's Marijuana Variations might work well paired with Lyapunov's Hashish!
Might kill ya if you are not careful... a mix of substances is never good.
I have heard the marijuana piece. It should be illegal.
Anyone drawing that much of a reaction is definitely worth paying attention to.
It sounds a lot like Adorno, whose unforgivable sins also include a political dismissal of Jazz as a form of alienation for the masses... unbearable and tasteless 😢
Adorno was compulsory reading back in the 1980s when I was at conservatoire. Is anybody still teaching that unreadable tripe?
Some of these comments are as hilarious and well-informed as Dave himself! Very enjoyable video. I love most Sibelius myself.
I think Mr. Leibowitz is absolutely spot on - but that he'd mistakenly played Bantock's Hebridean Symphony.
LOL!
after i heard you say "Hora staccato, I don't know why anybody plays that", I noticed there are indeed only a few recordings on youtube. I personally remember it from when i was young and i always enjoyed it. I was wondering why you (and so many others, apparently) believe it is not worth playing anymore?
I'm considering beefing up my Sibelius collection a bit, so I was watching Dave's various reviews, and the algorithm led me here.
I can trace my love of classical music back to two LPs that happened to be in my mother's tiny collection. One was a Columbia LP entitled "Bach's Greatest Hits." The other was an RCA Victor LP entitled "The Power of the Orchestra." This LP features two works by Mussorgsky, performed by the Royal Philharmonic, conducted by Leibowitz. Included on the LP are Ravel's orchestration of Pictures at an Exhibition and Leibowitz's idiosyncratic version of Night on Bare Mountain. Since I imprinted on this LP as a child, the usual Rimsky-Korsakov version sounds strange to me, and the Leibowitz version sounds normal. The record was eventually destroyed (children are hard on records), and when I tried to find another copy later, it turned out that it was a very rare record that had attracted the attention of the audiophile crowd. I finally found a copy, paid a fortune for it, and digitized it, so that I could relive my childhood. It seems that there was a release on SACD at some point, but it is long out of print, and digital downloads are not available.
I feel grateful to Leibowitz for making the record that got me started on classical music, but I simply can't agree with him about Sibelius, as much as I love hearing his vitriolic screed. In response, I think I'll have to listen to Sibelius this evening.
Incidentally, there exists a recording of chamber music of Leibowitz that features Marijuana. I'm tempted to buy it.
Dear Mr Hurwitz, how about your Top 10 (or Top 5) ”worst composers” or ”worst works” list? I, for one, would be extremely curious. I would give Pfitzner and Klemperer (the composer) a nomination.....
There, of course, being a difference between the worst and a "worst" composer/work? In a way, both would be interesting, as in, how they were perceived by contemporaries/critics, and how that fame/notoriety has held up.
Thank you for reading Leibowitz's pamphlet on Sibelius! I had heard OF it but never read it. I love some of Sibelius's symphonies and other works, of course.
What Leibowitz was like as a composer, I don't know.
However, he was a very fine conductor! His recordings of the Beethoven symphonies with the RPO are wonderful, among my favorites. The only real problem with the 9th is the bass, who is actually a good singer but who has an old fashioned rather swoopy style.
He also did a wonderful recording of Mozart's Jupiter symphony, which is as good as any I have heard.
I now can stream in high res, and I am going to listen some of his other recordings, notably Pictures at an Exhibition.
Leibowitz attacked also Bartók for writing the "Concerto for Orchestra".
Yeah, for taking time off from dying to write a masterpiece that happens to be popular.
Theodor W. Adorno published a review of Bengt de Törne’s book Sibelius: A Close-Up (Faber & Faber, London, 1937). He was irritated by the uncritical personality cult in that book, but his actual target was Sibelius. ‘If Sibelius is good, then all criteria of musical excellence valid from Bach to Schoenberg, such as complexity, articulation, unity in diversity, multiplicity in oneness, are frail.’ Sibelius’s scores are a ‘configuration of the banal and the absurd;’ all details sound ‘commonplace and familiar,’ but their arrangement is meaningless, ‘as if the words gas station, lunch, death, Greta, plow blade had been arbitrarily put together with verbs and particles.’
Actually, that last reads more like Adorno's description of his own writing style.
His gas station lunch burned like death as Greta beat his sword into a plow blade.
Milan Kundera, in his best book, the essays of 'Testaments Betrayed' (he is better here than as a novelist, I think), forever makes it impossible to take Adorno seriously as a music writer: he utterly misunderstands Stravinsky, just because he can't place him in a neat line of 'linear' development, with Schoenberg as the pinnacle. Adorno also condemns Stravinsky for showing lack of empathy, apparently, with the young girl in her sacrificial dance in The Rite of Spring. What a sadistic monster Stravinsky must have been to write such a scene!
Adorno was wrong about Stravinsky & Jazz. He corrected himself about Stravinsky a little bit, when he became a serial composer. He did it in the essay "Strawinsky - ein dialektisches Bild".
So Adorno was often wrong and his writing style was awful. But I still like to read his texts.
Adorno was an intellectual fraud, and it is pitiable that he is still taken seriously in some circles.
I think there's an elephant in the room here, that little European episode from 1933-1945.
"In 1934, Sibelius was invited to play a part in the Permanent Council for International Cooperation among Composers, chaired by Richard Strauss. The following year, Adolf Hitler awarded him the Goethe Medal on his 70th birthday. In 1942, the propaganda minister, Joseph Goebbels, founded the "German Sibelius Society". And yet numerous statements by the composer and numerous facts, set out by Jean-Luc Caron in a very detailed article, show that Sibelius did not support Nazi Germany."
(From "7 little things you might not know about Jean Sibelius") This may go some way to explain why a Frenchman may have regarded Sibelius with some distaste in 1955.
You're right ... my father fought in the Winter War against the Russians; Finland was hemmed in by a visious attacking Bear by the name of Stalin and that demanded a truce with Germany, otherwise Finland faced total destruction.
Politics had nothing to do with it. Leibowitz's motivation was entirely musical and aesthetic. There is no reason not to take him at his word, especially since, as a Frenchman, he still had the highest regard for German music of all sorts.
@@brucknerian9664 Sibelius was then not composing, and he was the greatest living composer then living in the realm of the Axis Powers unless you speak of some Jewish composers who could not get out in time. Ligeti was very young and R. Strauss was very old. Orff? No.
Many who had been in Europe had fled: Schoenberg, Milhaud, Stravinsky, Hindemith, Bartok, Martinu, Rachmaninov. Britten, Vaughan-Williams, Prokofiev, and Shostakovich were obviously unavailable. Culture of course thoroughly ossified in Germany while it flourished in America and Britain.
His views on Sibelius haven’t stood the test of time but his vital Beethoven cycle from 1961 has.
Lighter music is more variable though he had less good orchestras at his disposal : his Chabrier (there’s an underrated composer!) “Espana” doesn’t take off and the Bizet Symphony rather charmless.
Agree on the Beethoven, the Third is tremendous, fast tempos, and the feeling: “man, this is modern music!”
Leibowitz' rendition of Beethovens 7th to me is unsurpassed...however I just listened to a mono recording of Sibelius' 5th by Collins/Decca and I like it. But thank you for that post, I think classical music needs more humour and less dust.
This is not actually by Leibowitz. It’s a translation into French (perhaps by Leibowitz) of a famously-nasty essay by Theodor Adorno
Lovely. Another winner.
The pet aversion of Leibowitz was in fact Hindemith. Sibelius was not even worth mentioning.
Poor Sib. If only he had been born twenty years or so earlier. His fame in the Anglo-world was in some ways his undoing (boosted by gramophone recording: -Tapiola could fit onto two 78 shellacs -as could the 7th) Once he became silent and also around the time of his death there came a strong reaction against him with a resulting hangover lasting into the 1960s. The popular clamour of the 30s for his music, inc. the phantom 8th, gave those who needed to hate his music, their feed. In the 60s, I read in Grove's Musical Dictionary, that he was "a minor composer". He got a paragraph. Lesser talents got several. However, he famously asked whoever saw a statue to a critic.
I have a statue...
It’s very interesting how a composer’s reputation can rise and fall and then rise again. Even as late as the late 60s and early 70s Sibelius could be described as, at best, a minor European Nationalist.
My favorite critical phrase about Sibelius’s music is “antediluvian monstrosity.”
Lol. Oh goodness... I just can't help but view serialism as anti-music. Music effaced in favor of math and theory, the human heart entirely ripped out of it. Sibelius on the other hand will enrich and inspire lives on and on.
And yes, on his 90th birthday?! Maybe that's what comes of listening to horror film music all one's life...
There is excellent serial music. You just have to take each piece as it comes.
@@DavesClassicalGuide That's true, but I always feel it's excellent *because* it manages to transcend the ideology of serialism as such.
@@paulb356 I think this is why many people I've known say that Berg successfully finished the job that Schoenberg started. The possibility of writing emotionally and dramatically rich gripping music without being limited to tonal centers.
The SVS isn't serial. The first Serialist is Boulez (or technically Messiaen)
"You've got to have impotence..." LOL
There's no accounting for taste.
i hope Sibelius never got to know about that essay!!
Ideology trumps sense.
Remarkable how much power a commenter gives himself by styling as "we." OF COURSE I'm not just speaking for myself! There are HORDES whom I speak for!
We agree.
You might be interested to know (if you don't) that Leibowitz died on your eleventh birthday (if Wikipedia is right in both cases)!
Exactly according to plan.
I was about to comment in depth, but I'm distracted by Marijuana on TH-cam. It's full of catchy little tunes, unlike the "music" of that stupid Sibelius (insert sarcasm emoji here).
Marijuana is distracting, no question about it.
A serialist complaining of awkward themes and "incorrect" harmonies?
Yes, I thought that was odd!
After Mahler, Sibelius was the greatest composer in history
Haydn. Neither Mahler nor Sibelius would have been possible without him.
@@paulbrower Beethoven towers over Haydn artistically (though Haydn was much the finer human being), though one concedes that Beethoven worked with forms developed and refined by Haydn.
Its funny to hear such well said nonsense.
Haters gonna hate
It's too bad Leibowitz didn't realize he didn't have to spend his time listening to and writing about music he didn't like. He could have spent his time on much more productive things.
Uh-oh, Monsieur Leibowitz sure must have been sour about something (like, not having a society in his name, I don't know). And I am triggered.
One gets the impression he bashes Sibelius foremost for not belonging to his oh-so-progressive school, and continuing to write in the "outdated" idiom? Really, it must have been terrifying to have been this "revolutionary" dogmatic's student! (He even LOOKS like a revolutionary in the photo, but that's beside the point.) Then, M. Leibowitz kind of blames the "rival" for selling out to the public, while Dave was nice enough to cite some of Rene's own recordings done for major labels... anything but dogged championing of his ideals, I say. :) Perplexing, but as far as can be judged by the pamphlet, ol' Rene draws all his far-reaching conclusions from listening to one single work (the 5th symphony), more precisely - its first movement. 8] I can understand the poor critic was so beside himself, "ennouie'd" to near-death experience that he just could not take any more! Alas, that is not what critics (ought to) do; seems he was just not fit enough for that dangerous job. :))
But of course, I burst out laughing on the angry mention of "schematicism" in Sibelius' work(s), THAT by a serialist?!? xD
I understand why this piece of writing remained so obscure for so long; maybe it should have. But on the other hand, it is good to get a glimpse or real people behind their legends. I am quite sure he printed out those 50 copies to hand out for polemics in his class. :)) Doesn't make it better though, as it sounds equivalent to musical Communism. And I fully partake in David's vision how these serialists might have been killing each other off over who their idol was supposed to be (poor Schoenberg and Webern...) - can we call them "serial killers" of music?
It's funny how, in claiming complete objectivity for one's ridiculous judgements, you end up with unbounded subjectivity and virtually no connection to the thing itself.
Wow…he really seems like someone you’d love to grab a beer with, doesn’t he? 😬…so many takeaways from that…Firstly - he’s a psychologist’s wet dream!…every sentence, without exception, tells us so so much about him and absolutely nothing about the purported subject!
Doubtless he lit a cigarette immediately after completion…I’ve never heard such masterbatory prose! Of course, he couldn’t resist getting the obligatory dig in about the Uk and USA…nothing gives more delight, to a French snob, than voicing contempt for everyone and everything related to those two countries…(that being said, on the whole, there’s a marked difference between the French and the Parisians…not that I’m making sweeping statements!) Some folks love the sound of their own voice…and the odd few, as I said , need a lit cigarette and silk sheets to accompany that love.
His petite manifesto is simultaneously hilariously entertaining and deeply disturbing…I’m torn…I think I’ll have a cigarette while I consider which one to go with.
What was he listening to, or was he listening at all? Geez!
😂😂😂😂😂😂and I adore Sibelius
The 12 tones serie is nothing but a new tool created by Schoenberg that musicians can do if they want or if it fits correctly in a passage of a particular work. It's at their dispossal. But they are not the 12 commandements that if you don't fulfill the rage of God will fall into your head. Those modernists who think this way are nothing but musical talibans. Maybe they should play their serialist works in Kabul.
What a gem! Hahahaha!!!
Live Hurwitz 1 - 0 Leibowitz
Yes, Sibelius was the worst composer of the Twentieth Century, with the exception of at least 200 others I can easily think of and probably another 1,000 I don’t know of…
…The Seventh Symphony is particularly bad in that you can appreciate its greatness immediately upon hearing it, and feel that greatness even more intensely upon repeated hearings. Awful. LOL
Yes- the 7th is so bad that I usually listen to it upon going to sleep most evenings
What a big pile of bullshit René wrote. A good reason not to completely trust anyone in the musical world.
Rene who?
Ah, Sibelius! Did that Leibowitz really tried to diminish the composer of the (probably) best violin concerto? Is it possible that he sufficed with the symphonies cycle recorded by the fire brigade orchestra of Helsinki?
Leibowitz? Who?