tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10680113.post1452449527980060955..comments2024-03-23T11:40:13.092-05:00Comments on Musical Assumptions: Preparing MusicElaine Finehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14248422399226824168noreply@blogger.comBlogger1125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10680113.post-79471540766412011312014-07-31T08:21:13.087-05:002014-07-31T08:21:13.087-05:00Once again you cut to the quick, making a path thr...Once again you cut to the quick, making a path through the thicket of opinions about yet other musical opinions, as is Overgrown Path's musing on a reviewer's review of yet another staging of an opera. Is there too much Wagner? Too much Britten? Too uch classical music? Decidedly no. Britten and Wagner write no more, and the opera omnia is compleat. Are there too many subsidized performances? Quite likely, but as the photo at that blog showed, it was yet another stage director's offering of yet another "vision" of a central work in our musical canon. If people do not attend, it is indeed a central symptom that there might be too many subsidized performances of works, ground out by marketeers. But, Ms. Fine, the parallel to cooking is more than apt. Schubert soirees and small groups gathered to hear Haydn quartets were probably more the norm than not. Like a dinner party for friends or perhaps even a church social, classical music (new as old) can serve a delightful meal, in spite of Overgrown Path's worries that there is just too much to "eat." I eat what I need, and what I want. Not more than that, in spite of the marketing and advertisements and calls for "new and improved" and "chic" and "trendy." Too much classical music? Were that true, one should think in parallel there is too much food in the world. Malarkey is malarkey, which is one reason your blog makes far more sense than many others. You don't serve it up on your menu, while some serve it as their blue plate special. As a Wagner fan of many years but no fan of the latest crop of modern stage directors, the photo of the Freiberg production would have been enough for me to have passed by the musical Norwich restaurant. As to a Britten recording fetching a price of "less than £1.50 a disc" I say, "fine." (Pun not intended.) Britten loses nothing in the deal, does he? "Preparing music" is a fine comparative image to preparing a meal. I guess if you prepare a little new music, an Overgrown Path view must be that you are contributing to the "glut." Personally I think not. There is no glut excepting perhaps a world sated with opinions of little consequence, and perhaps this is a fine day to go out and garden a bit the rich, musical soil of today. Best wishes. Best musical wishes for something more added to your menu.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.com