Prejudices

I believe everyone has some sort of prejudice about something, and I am no exception.     My prejudices are almost all musical.     I've mentioned a few before.    Confession is supposed to be good for something so here is a list of things, actions, beliefs, opinions, and behaviors that make me want to scream at people or inform them of the fact that they are small-minded lazy idiots.   In case you've missed them.    In no particular order:

I loathe Wagnerites.    Mind you, I'm not talking about people who love Wagner's music even though they can hear it's excesses and redundancies, notice the flawed libretti, the uncomfortable political overtones, the all-but-impossible demands on singers requiring even the most tolerant listener to accept some really ugly sounds roaring across the the orchestra pit.    You know, smart, knowledgeable music lovers who accept Wagner as one of the greats and add him to their collection of performances, recordings, DVD's, etc.    Notice how I said one of the greats.    One of many.

These are not Wagnerites.     They would be the people who cannot be bothered to listen, view, learn, discuss, ponder anyone other than Wagner.   Who see every performance they can get into of every production of every one of his works and nothing else.   Nothing else.    Who know every cast of every minute of music ever played at Bayreuth.    Who are horrified if they are ever done in translation.     Who believe his music is the pinnacle so why would you ever listen to anything else?     Those people.   They flock to every work of his when it appears at the Met.   You can find them at Walkure if you go.     They will be the jerks pontificating during the intermissions.     Shame it's against the law to just walk up and slap them.     Or scream "pull your heads out of your asses...there is a whole millennium of music being played and it's wonderful, too.     And some of it is not even opera!"

And I loathe people who only know the "war horses" and rarely if ever venture far afield of them.    Who know some Bach, but only the orchestral stuff (and they're not quite sure of the names); all the Mozart that's on the Amadeus soundtrack (their favorite classical cd); Beethoven's popular symphonies, a few piano sonatas, maybe some quartets (but maybe not); Brahms' violin concerto, his 1st Symphony, maybe The German Requiem (or maybe not); Tchaikovsky's violin concerto, sixth symphony, Romeo and Juliet, 1812, (but Eugene Onegin? certainly not;) Dvorak's cello concerto and The New World Symphony; Schubert's unfinished, maybe one or two more symphonies, the Trout (song and quintet); and a whole slew of one-offs by big names like Schumann, Handel, Haydn, and even Saint-Saens (Carnival of the Animals, it's soooo charming.)     They are the reason we have fourteen thousand recordings of Beethoven's Fifth.     They are the people who tell you how wonderful the "classics" are when they find out you are a classical musician but stare at you when you answer their question about what you are working on at the moment.    They rave "don't you just love Lang Lang?"   Or explain why they no longer buy season tickets.      They should be locked in their houses with their 22 cd's of the Brahms' violin concerto whenever any hall is playing anything worth hearing.  Not that any classical music would be filling their homes.     They probably don't listen to any  anymore.    Too many programs on TV.     "Don't you just love Glee?"

And I want to shoot every person who brings up in conversation how they "hate" new music...but then can't name any of it.   Because they have no idea what's being written.    They still think Schoenberg is new.   They might venture out every decade or so to hear something people have been "raving" about, but they won't like it that much.    No matter what it sounds like.     It could be as popular in style as The Rhapsody in Blue but they won't like it and will add it to the (non-existent) list of reasons why they hate new music.    Well, new music hates you back!

And then we have the "I only listen to..."symphonies, or opera, or chamber music, or solo piano, or vocalists singing favorites, or "crossover", or Bach, or Beethoven, etc.   But unlike Wagnerites, they do not have everything memorized down to the note.    In fact, they stopped listening to classical music "as much as they used to" because their lives got too hectic or their work changed or they got HBO.   And "yeah, we should go to a concert again.     Let us know when you're performing!"    "Sure, I'll leave those seats empty in your honor."

Of course, there's the house favorite: "I know what I like."    (Yes, I'm talking to you.)    No...you like what you know ...as of whatever you knew when you stopped trying to learn anything.    Therefore, anything that sounds like what you know is good.    Anything that does not sound like what you know is not.     Why would you want to bother learning how to appreciate anything different [read: more difficult] when you have all these favorites at your fingertips?    I have yet to met anyone who says this and means Stockhausen and Babbitt or Birtwistle and Carter.    In fact, I'm not sure I've met anyone who has said that cliche who would even know anything about those four.     Probably not even all of their first names.     (An admission:  I think Stockhausen and Babbitt are overrated but I have heard and studied their music, quite a bit actually, and formed my opinion afterward.    I'm not saying I don't understand their music.    I think I have a pretty good grasp of it.   And I actually do like some of Stockhausen, parts of his operas in particular.   But he had a buttload of really bad ideas and had no shame in sharing them.    I like exactly one piece by Babbitt.    It's short and for guitar.     A guitar can make anything tolerable.)

And then there is the brother of the above: "Oh, I just don't like [fill in the blank.]     I've tried to appreciate him, but his music just doesn't speak to me."  Right.   Except they can't really describe any of it, or remember when they last heard any of it, or what exactly the aspects are that they don't like.   And it's never Bach or Mozart or Brahms but someone like Berlioz or Schoenberg or Stravinsky.    Because no one would dare admit they don't like Mozart.     Well, I would be more impressed if they said Mozart but loved Schoenberg.     Fat chance.

Or the sister of the above: "I don't like much 20th Century music."    Or more than a couple of hours worth, total, unless you mean Puccini.   Schoenberg, Strauss, Prokofiev, Ravel, Berg, Stravinsky, Vaughan Williams, Milhaud, Webern, Janacek, Bartok, Poulenc, Copland, Britten, Shostakovich,  Barber, Messiaen, Henze, Carter, Crumb, Birtwistle, Maxwell Davies, Adams, and Ades are all interchangeably uninteresting (assuming they have even heard music by all of these people.)    And this is to ignore the dozens of others they have never heard...and never will.    "Certainly none of these people can compare to Bach, Mozart, and Beethoven."  Well, those people can't compare with each other.    You can't really compare different musics as far as worth.    It's a useless waste of time, and personal taste is the only real arbiter.   All of these people have written wonderful music.   Also some of those people you've never heard.     The world is richer for having the B minor Mass and the War Requiem just to randomly pick two works.

Of course, I meet the tiny minority of music students (usually composition majors) who only like 20th Century music, especially the most complex...or the most simple.    Hopefully, they will come in contact with Monteverdi or Handel or Berlioz in a sizzling performance and expand their range.   If not, we have the happy knowledge that we won't be listening to too much of their music either, so the history of music wins this cosmic battle.     No one without appreciation of the past makes any kind of lasting impression on the present--my reinterpretation of an old saying.

Or the "I love opera!" people who mean they love opera singers.     And mostly retired and / or dead ones.   They can name every Callas recording.    Have shelves filled with Caruso and Flagstad and Bjorling and Nilsson and Corelli and Sutherland and Caballe plus a few favorites that are not necessarily as well-known so they can claim superiority over the mere casual fan (Magda Olivero is a big one.)    Yet they bash any singer today who has any measure of acclaim unless they are wildly popular yet thoroughly mediocre--then they hear some direct connection to one of the stars above.    Sort of an Emperor's New Clothes...only they, and their truly gifted counterparts, can see and hear why so-and-so is so fabulous.    And the (truly) greatest singers of the present age are not.    Naturally, they know everything by Bellini and Verdi but can't name more than three operas written after Puccini they that are completely familiar with.   But they keep buying their season tickets and priding themselves on their knowledge of the horrible decline in singing.    My response to them is "expletive deleted you, too."

And last (for today) are the snobs who will never admit someone who can write great "popular" music can be any good at "classical".     How Gershwin songs are wonderful, but An American in Paris is for people who don't know real classical music.   Or Bernstein's West Side Story is great, but A Quiet Place (if they even know it) is second rate.     If they don't know that one, they are sure to know one of his symphonies or Mass or Arias and Barcarolles to hold up as inferior.     Or Aaron Copland could only write simple "folk-like" music...everything else is sub-par.    ("What is it with that piano concerto?")   Or Sondheim's Passion or Sweeney Todd do not belong in an opera house, being "mere" musicals.    In fact, they don't understand why all these classically trained singers are wasting their time with them.    Or Weill only wrote those cabaret tunes for Communist musicals, didn't he?    God, who would want to hear an opera by him?  And so forth.    I just smile at these imbeciles.    They are missing out on glorious, difficult, memorable pieces that make quite a bit of "classical" music written by "classical" composers sound paltry.    Fine.   More seats for me.    And by the way, Weill wrote some wonderful operas.