Music is a mystery for people who play it, write it, listen to it, and write about it. The only thing I can really do when I try to say something about music is assume.
Friday, January 29, 2010
Stephen Hough and Pianiastic Gaydar
I don't know if I agree with his argument, but the comments on this article by Stephen Hough are fascinating.
1 comment:
Anonymous
said...
The whole thing sounds like a bunch of silliness. If being gay or Jewish is supposed to be a criterion for great artists, then naturally it "proves" why so few straight women can be great artists. I say this as an absurdity, because following the argument that one gay sex life affects the quality of one's work is not only unproven but rages against an obvious truth, that many artists were so deeply involved in their creative work that their sex life, gay or straight, occupied little of their time. The same is true for cutting-edge inventors and scientists. The modern craze for gay as proof of artistic temperment and talent is a fad without demonstrable merit. But a lot of musicologists are busying themselves with such things, showing how little they have to say about the actual music and how it is made by other than their own genitalia. Masturbation can be intellectual too.
I am active as a composer, a violist, a violinist, a recorder player, and as a teacher. I have been keeping this space in the blogosphere alive with assumptions about music (and assorted other things) since 2005.
1 comment:
The whole thing sounds like a bunch of silliness. If being gay or Jewish is supposed to be a criterion for great artists, then naturally it "proves" why so few straight women can be great artists. I say this as an absurdity, because following the argument that one gay sex life affects the quality of one's work is not only unproven but rages against an obvious truth, that many artists were so deeply involved in their creative work that their sex life, gay or straight, occupied little of their time. The same is true for cutting-edge inventors and scientists. The modern craze for gay as proof of artistic temperment and talent is a fad without demonstrable merit. But a lot of musicologists are busying themselves with such things, showing how little they have to say about the actual music and how it is made by other than their own genitalia. Masturbation can be intellectual too.
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