# Paul McCartney talking about Classical Music in the 60s



## PresenTense (May 7, 2016)

A young (and ignorant about the topic) Paul McCartney on classical music. I don't agree at all with the pop stuff he said.


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## Weston (Jul 11, 2008)

But I do agree to an extent. 

There will always be pop garbage, but there will also be the brilliant ones like The Beatles who write timeless works. It was true in the 60s. It's probably true today if you disregard the pop-by-numbers mass-produced-by-committee heard mostly on TV and radio. A really good pop song is not an easy thing to write. I feel certain Lennon and McCartney will provide nearly as much historical impact as Mozart in the grand scheme of things.


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## Nereffid (Feb 6, 2013)

"Pop music is the classical music of now", said McCartney.

Well, it's certainly true that the popular music of centuries past has been admitted to some degree into the classical canon, and a gradual assimilation of some popular music continues today. And arguably, at the time of that interview, the gap between popular and new classical music was wider than ever, and popular music could be considered to have taken over some portion of the "middlebrow" audience from which classical had departed.


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## Dim7 (Apr 24, 2009)

Surprised that he mentioned Schoenberg.


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## Zhdanov (Feb 16, 2016)

PresenTense said:


> A young (and ignorant about the topic) Paul McCartney on classical music.


he didn't know at the moment what it all boils down to in the end: pop stuff manipulated by politics to deprave people and make, as Dostoevsky put it, "trembling beasts" out of them.


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## Magnum Miserium (Aug 15, 2016)

Zhdanov said:


> he didn't know at the moment what it all boils down to in the end: pop stuff manipulated by politics to deprave people and make, as Dostoevsky put it, "trembling beasts" out of them.


Taking Dostoyevsky's politics into consideration, I take this to mean pop music makes people less likely to come to Jesus and kill Jews.


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## Magnum Miserium (Aug 15, 2016)

PresenTense said:


> A young (and ignorant about the topic) Paul McCartney on classical music. I don't agree at all with the pop stuff he said.


He may well be lying here to some extent or entirely (to keep up his populist image with the kids, or alternately to gently encourage the kids to check out the classics, or who knows for what reason). According to Astrid Kirchherr as relayed by Howard Sounes he was listening to The Rite of Spring 7 years prior to this. https://books.google.com/books?id=pV8pb_ah-U8C&pg=PA40


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## Magnum Miserium (Aug 15, 2016)

Weston said:


> I feel certain Lennon and McCartney will provide nearly as much historical impact as Mozart in the grand scheme of things.


I'd say about as much as Verdi and Tchaikovsky, anyway, and that's saying a lot.


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## Zhdanov (Feb 16, 2016)

Magnum Miserium said:


> Taking Dostoyevsky's politics into consideration, I take this to mean pop music makes people less likely to come to Jesus and kill Jews.


so its okay to kill other people as long as jews are safe?


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## kanishknishar (Aug 10, 2015)

Nereffid said:


> "Pop music is the classical music of now", said McCartney.
> 
> Well, it's certainly true that the popular music of centuries past has been admitted to some degree into the classical canon, and a gradual assimilation of some popular music continues today. And arguably, at the time of that interview, the gap between popular and new classical music was wider than ever, and popular music could be considered to have taken over some portion of the "middlebrow" audience from which classical had departed.


I am sorry but I am having trouble understanding what you're trying to say. What do you mean?

Popular music was incorporated into classical music in the past? Really? I thought it was only folk music. And the rest, no clue.


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## Zhdanov (Feb 16, 2016)

Magnum Miserium said:


> I'd say about as much as Verdi and Tchaikovsky, anyway, and that's saying a lot.


no, beatlemania is completely a product of media coverage, while Mozart's been established as a genius by musicians, composers, academics and listeners.


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## Magnum Miserium (Aug 15, 2016)

Zhdanov said:


> no, beatlemania is completely a product of media coverage, while Mozart's been established as a genius by musicians, composers, academics and listeners.


https://books.google.com/books?id=67FA4aJAy8kC&pg=PA116


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## Magnum Miserium (Aug 15, 2016)

Herrenvolk said:


> I am sorry but I am having trouble understanding what you're trying to say. What do you mean?
> 
> Popular music was incorporated into classical music in the past? Really? I thought it was only folk music. And the rest, no clue.


First, folk music isn't "popular music" in the same sense as the Beatles. "Popular music" is urban.

Second, something like Rossini's "Di tanti palpiti" WAS popular music in its own time, in approximately the same sense as the Beatles - https://books.google.com/books?id=iOVTw59fM5wC&pg=PA201 - and is of course now "classical music" - though it was also seen as classical music then too. The almost total segregation that exists today between popular and classical music is a recent development; I would date the trend as beginning no sooner than 1841 (the year of Verdi's Nabucco; Donizetti still shows no sign of feeling any contradiction between classical and popular music; Verdi begins his career writing operas that are also popular music, but his entire career is, to some extent, an exercise in transforming Italian opera into something that is NO LONGER popular music; at about the same time, in 1842, Hervé wrote the first operetta, a genre whose existence testifies that opera, even comic or melodramatic opera, was beginning to be perceived as something rarified).

Third, even if we take examples of popular music that were NOT seen as "classical music" in their own time - Offenbach's operettas, Johann Strauss II's waltzes - they are now seen as, if not exactly "classical," then at the very least as "light classical." And most Beatles songs are more serious in intent than Orpheus in the Underworld or "The Blue Danube," to the point that the difference is one of kind rather than degree - especially after 1965, but to some extent even from the beginning of their career. In that respect the early Beatles are more the heirs of Rossini and especially Donizetti than of Offenbach or J. Strauss. The later Beatles are to some extent the heirs of Verdi in the scale of their artistic ambition, but unlike Verdi, for better or worse, they stopped short of ceasing to be popular music altogether. (The ultimate ideal, of course, is Mozart's operas - simultaneously popular music and supremely ambitious, supremely sophisticated classical music.) After 1969, McCartney to some extent became more modest in his musical ambitions - making Donizetti again the perhaps more appropriate analog - while Lennon became even less ambitious than McCartney musically, while remaining somewhat more ambitious textually - making him more analogous, approximately, to, for example, Albert Lortzing.


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## Marc (Jun 15, 2007)

Dim7 said:


> Surprised that he mentioned Schoenberg.


He was interested in modern classical music.
He got Lennon interested in Stockhausen.

Which lead to _Tomorrow Never Knows_ (great!) and _Revolution 9_ (uhh... garbage?).


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## Magnum Miserium (Aug 15, 2016)

Marc said:


> _Revolution 9_ (uhh... garbage?).


I kind of suspect it's as good - in its basically different way - as Hymnen.


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## Marc (Jun 15, 2007)

Magnum Miserium said:


> I kind of suspect it's as good - in its basically different way - as Hymnen.


Is _Hymnen_ also a proof that McCartney actually died in November 1966?



(Must admit that I'm not that much into Stockhausen's oeuvre, let alone consider myself a worthy Stockhausen analyst.)

For the rest: I think The Beatles just listened to all kinds of music and picked whatever they liked to inspire themselves. Both autodidact and eclectic guys actually. The various kinds of music they played at the Cavern, in Hamburg and at the Decca audition already was the proof of that. At Decca no one understood. Luckilly the boys met George Martin of EMI/Parlophone half a year later.


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## EddieRUKiddingVarese (Jan 8, 2013)

Wasn't this from before agriculture


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## Nereffid (Feb 6, 2013)

Herrenvolk said:


> I am sorry but I am having trouble understanding what you're trying to say. What do you mean?
> 
> Popular music was incorporated into classical music in the past? Really? I thought it was only folk music. And the rest, no clue.


Magnum Miserium said it in much more detail than I'd ever bother, but he's thinking the same way as I am on this, particularly his third point. Though I use the term "popular music" in its broadest sense, so I don't see it as specifically urban; "folk music" is definitely "popular music" in my mind.


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## gardibolt (May 22, 2015)

My recollection is that Jane Asher turned him on to Vivaldi, which led to the string quartet background to Eleanor Rigby.


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## EddieRUKiddingVarese (Jan 8, 2013)

But what led him to *Silly Love Songs*!!!!!!!!!!!!! and other such dribble


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## Magnum Miserium (Aug 15, 2016)

EddieRUKiddingVarese said:


> But what led him to *Silly Love Songs*!!!!!!!!!!!!! and other such dribble


Musically, Gamble & Huff. Textually, the desire to p*** you off (and it worked!).


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## starthrower (Dec 11, 2010)

Silly Love Songs. I like the how the bass is way up in the mix.


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## EddieRUKiddingVarese (Jan 8, 2013)

starthrower said:


> Silly Love Songs. I like the how the bass is way up in the mix.


Yes must admit the bass was good but that was it nothing else ok............


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## James Mann (Sep 6, 2016)

Are kids still talking about Paul McCartney these days? I'm amazed 

I've never liked pop music though, something about the Beatles grates my ears


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## starthrower (Dec 11, 2010)

EddieRUKiddingVarese said:


> Yes must admit the bass was good but that was it nothing else ok............


That's why I zone in on the good part. Same for Goodnight Tonight. I never bought a McCartney record because it's all Paul. With the Beatles you get some Lennon and Harrison to temper all the pop sweetness.


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## EddieRUKiddingVarese (Jan 8, 2013)

starthrower said:


> That's why I zone in on the good part. Same for Goodnight Tonight. I never bought a McCartney record because it's all Paul. With the Beatles you get some Lennon and Harrison to temper all the pop sweetness.


That would explain why I have got Harrison, Lennon and even some Ringo but no Paul solo stuff too


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## Magnum Miserium (Aug 15, 2016)

James Mann said:


> Are kids still talking about Paul McCartney these days? I'm amazed


The kids are LISTENING to Paul McCartney: 






starthrower said:


> With the Beatles you get some Lennon and Harrison to temper all the pop sweetness.


This never happened.


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## PresenTense (May 7, 2016)

Revolution 9 is a ***&/$· masterpiece! I really love that piece. Well, maybe I love it because I love Stockhausen and Schoenberg.


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## Vaneyes (May 11, 2010)

There was the quintessential like Abbey Road, A Day In The Life...and then there was, I Want To Hold Your Hand.


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## PresenTense (May 7, 2016)

_"So these things started to be part of my life. I was listening to Stockhausen; one piece was all little plink-plonks and interesting ideas. Perhaps our audience wouldn't mind a bit of change, we thought, and anyway, tough if they do! We only ever followed our own noses-most of the time, anyway. 'Tomorrow Never Knows' was one example of developing an idea."_

- Paul McCartney

For some reason, I can't picture Paul listening to Stockhausen and Schoenberg. I mean, just look at these pictures.


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## Vaneyes (May 11, 2010)

Amazing, not one grey hair on this old Beatle. He's aged well.


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## Nereffid (Feb 6, 2013)

PresenTense said:


> _"So these things started to be part of my life. I was listening to Stockhausen; one piece was all little plink-plonks and interesting ideas. Perhaps our audience wouldn't mind a bit of change, we thought, and anyway, tough if they do! We only ever followed our own noses-most of the time, anyway. 'Tomorrow Never Knows' was one example of developing an idea."_
> 
> - Paul McCartney
> 
> For some reason, I can't picture Paul listening to Stockhausen and Schoenberg. I mean, just look at these pictures.


I dunno, maybe both Kanye and Stockhausen occupy that genius/nutjob borderland.


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## Marc (Jun 15, 2007)

gardibolt said:


> My recollection is that Jane Asher turned him on to Vivaldi, which led to the string quartet background to Eleanor Rigby.


The Asher family was very important in stimulating his interests and artistic development. McCartney himself was eclectic by nature, and the posh Ashers were into many kinds of art, being it music, fine arts, theatre, literature, film or whatever. Paul had the time of his life during his stay with the Ashers in that Swinging London period, but unfortunately his relationship with Jane remained too detached, I think.


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## Marc (Jun 15, 2007)

Magnum Miserium said:


> The kids are LISTENING to Paul McCartney:
> 
> 
> 
> ...


Indeed.
McCartney the Sweetie is a myth. He liked to rock, too.
And there was enough pop 'sweetness' in guys like Lennon and Harrison.


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## Pugg (Aug 8, 2014)

Vaneyes said:


> Amazing, not one grey hair on this old Beatle. He's aged well.


He spend as much money on the hairdresser just like Mr. Hollande '.


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## brianvds (May 1, 2013)

Vaneyes said:


> Amazing, not one grey hair on this old Beatle. He's aged well.


Isn't it peculiar how fashion works? Nowadays, almost all older people dye their hair dark, while there is a huge fashion among the young to dye their hair grey!


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## Magnum Miserium (Aug 15, 2016)

brianvds said:


> Nowadays, almost all older people dye their hair dark, while there is a huge fashion among the young to dye their hair grey!


As usual, the young are better.


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## Marc (Jun 15, 2007)

Have fun with this:


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## Magnum Miserium (Aug 15, 2016)

Marc said:


> Have fun with this:


I've seen that before and I'm grateful for the analysis of "Penny Lane" around 21:00, but the only really edifying article I've seen on the Beatles from the perspective of somebody with classical training is still the very first, by William Mann, because it focuses on what makes the Beatles different from a contemporary popular song composer like Frederick Loewe.

http://aeoliancadence.co.uk/ac/Time...nt_key_switches_songwriting_appreciation.html


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## Pugg (Aug 8, 2014)

Marc said:


> Have fun with this:


Thanks, interesting watching.


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## Totenfeier (Mar 11, 2016)

EddieRUKiddingVarese said:


> But what led him to *Silly Love Songs*!!!!!!!!!!!!! and other such dribble


Q: When did Paul McCartney write "Silly Love Songs?"

A: from 1962 to 2017


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## Sloe (May 9, 2014)

Marc said:


> Have fun with this:


Not all classical music was like this at that time.


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## Marc (Jun 15, 2007)

Sloe said:


> Not all classical music was like this at that time.


I agree. I appreciated and liked the documentary myself, but there is a one-sidedness in it.


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## Petwhac (Jun 9, 2010)

Ah yes, the age-old debate. The same old misconceptions and prejudices are evident.
You cannot classify and file away music in neat little boxes. Skill, imagination and musicianship are required to produce a piece of symphonic music or a popular song or, more significantly in the case of the Fab Five (inc. G.Martin), an iconic pop record.

The skill sets overlap. It's the _sensibilities_ of the creators that determine what kind of music is made.

Pop music wasn't in the 60s and isn't now, the 'classical' music of it's time. It's far more influential and significant than 'classical' music ever was!


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## Magnum Miserium (Aug 15, 2016)

Petwhac said:


> Pop music wasn't in the 60s and isn't now, the 'classical' music of it's time. It's far more influential and significant than 'classical' music ever was!


This would have had some truth to it - more untruth, but some truth - in 1967, or even 1992. But now? Since Kanye West seems to have gone into hibernation, who are our _major_ working popular musicians? I don't think Kendrick Lamar and Run the Jewels quite cut it.


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## Zhdanov (Feb 16, 2016)

Petwhac said:


> Pop music wasn't in the 60s and isn't now, the 'classical' music of it's time. It's far more influential and significant than 'classical' music ever was!


that influence is limited to making people ignorant and boorish to pack barns of sweating hordes... what good is it?


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## Petwhac (Jun 9, 2010)

Magnum Miserium said:


> This would have had some truth to it - more untruth, but some truth - in 1967, or even 1992. But now? Since Kanye West seems to have gone into hibernation, who are our _major_ working popular musicians? I don't think Kendrick Lamar and Run the Jewels quite cut it.


All depends what you mean by 'major'. As with classical music, those or artists or pieces with lasting appeal will be come evident.... ...eventually.


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## Petwhac (Jun 9, 2010)

Zhdanov said:


> that influence is limited to making people ignorant and boorish to pack barns of sweating hordes... what good is it?


Easy to say but harder to prove. Besides, the aristocratic patrons of Beethoven and Mozart for example, may on many counts have been found to be both ignorant and boorish despite their wealth and education.


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## JAS (Mar 6, 2013)

Petwhac said:


> Easy to say but harder to prove. Besides, the aristocratic patrons of Beethoven and Mozart for example, may on many counts have been found to be both ignorant and boorish despite their wealth and education.


While the masses are ignorant and boorish despite their lack of wealth and education. It is a strange world.


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## Zhdanov (Feb 16, 2016)

Petwhac said:


> Easy to say but harder to prove.









Petwhac said:


> the aristocratic patrons of Beethoven and Mozart for example, may on many counts have been found to be both ignorant and boorish despite their wealth and education.


on whose counts? names please? any facts?


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## Petwhac (Jun 9, 2010)

JAS said:


> While the masses are ignorant and boorish despite their lack of wealth and education. It is a strange world.


Curiously though, the average attendee of a 'rave' today is probably more socially conscientious, more charitable towards others less fortunate and more open-minded than those courtly or pious music consumers of yesteryear! Go figure!


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## Petwhac (Jun 9, 2010)

Zhdanov said:


> on whose counts? names please? any facts?


I see neither ignorance nor boorishness in that video. Just some entertainers entertaining. Much cheering and smiling and dancing! Horror of horrors!
Whereas there are many anecdotes concerning Beethoven's and Mozart's displeasure with their patrons' or public's lack of understanding and disregard for the composer's art. You can find them in the various autobiographies available.


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## JAS (Mar 6, 2013)

Petwhac said:


> Curiously though, the average attendee of a 'rave' today is probably more socially conscientious, more charitable towards others less fortunate and more open-minded than those courtly or pious music consumers of yesteryear! Go figure!


There is a lot of talk about that, and many claims made without any tangible evidence. (I was actually at a conference recently where studies were reported that the current college generation is measurably less empathetic than previous generations. The cause was thought to be the non-face-to-face nature of social media and the self-isolating tendency of personal technology.)

Will the future generation really be more socially conscientious, charitable and open-minded? Perhaps we will get to see. (I presume that it will turn out to be a mixed bag, as it has always been. Claims of human progress are mostly illusory, an appealing mirage that is ever just over the next sand dune. I certainly hope that I am wrong on this point.)


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## Zhdanov (Feb 16, 2016)

Petwhac said:


> the average attendee of a 'rave' today is probably more socially conscientious


really? just like this 'socially conscientious' eh?



Petwhac said:


> more charitable towards others less fortunate


yeah, in order to feel their superiority over them...



Petwhac said:


> more open-minded than those courtly or pious music consumers of yesteryear!


being in LGBT doesn't mean open-minded.


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## Petwhac (Jun 9, 2010)

JAS said:


> There is a lot of talk about that, and many claims made without any tangible evidence. (I was actually at a conference recently where studies were reported that the current college generation is measurably less empathetic than previous generations. The cause was thought to be the non-face-to-face nature of social media and the self-isolating tendency of personal technology.)
> 
> Will the future generation really be more socially conscientious, charitable and open-minded? Perhaps we will get to see. (I presume that it will turn out to be a mixed bag, as it has always been. Claims of human progress are mostly illusory, an appealing mirage that is ever just over the next sand dune. I certainly hope that I am wrong on this point.)


Perhaps there are local troughs and peaks but if we look at the developed world greater acceptance of the need for equality and equal treatment irrespective of race, gender, disability and sexual orientation to name a few. It's not so long ago that we traded in slaves, put the blind in asylums, sent the poor to workhouses, allowed men to beat their wives and persecuted heretics.


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## JAS (Mar 6, 2013)

Petwhac said:


> Perhaps there are local troughs and peaks but if we look at the developed world greater acceptance of the need for equality and equal treatment irrespective of race, gender, disability and sexual orientation to name a few. It's not so long ago that we traded in slaves, put the blind in asylums, sent the poor to workhouses, allowed men to beat their wives and persecuted heretics.


You evidently didn't see the results of our recent election, and its constantly unfolding consequences. (All of the problems you mention are still present. We might even get back to child labor over the course of the next four years, if the ruling forces can overcome their general issues with their own incompetence.)


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## Zhdanov (Feb 16, 2016)

Petwhac said:


> I see neither ignorance nor boorishness in that video.


hopefully, you are not blind? Coldplay - check. Glastonbury - check.



Petwhac said:


> Whereas there are many anecdotes concerning Beethoven's and Mozart's displeasure with their patrons' or public's lack of understanding and disregard for the composer's art. You can find them in the various autobiographies available.


provide a link maybe?.. then we'll go through each incident, sort it out, etc, because such accusations are not to be tossed about like in British tabloid fashion, right?


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## Petwhac (Jun 9, 2010)

Zhdanov said:


> being in LGBT doesn't mean open-minded.


Not sure what that means! But not condemning people for their sexual orientation is surely a good thing isn't it?


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## Petwhac (Jun 9, 2010)

Zhdanov said:


> hopefully, you are not blind? Coldplay - check. Glastonbury - check.


Uncheck on both counts. Of what exactly are they showing their ignorance.



Zhdanov said:


> provide a link maybe?.. then we'll go through each incident, sort it out, etc, because such accusations are not to be tossed about like in British tabloid fashion, right?


A few minutes on google....I haven't the time to search through my books but I remember this anecdote reported by his friend Ferdinand Ries I believe.

T_o Ludwig van Beethoven, respect was more important than friendship. A person's position did not matter to him.

Composers and musicians were considered the servants of nobility. Beethoven's fiercely independent spirit challenged that thinking. He said, "It is good to move among the aristocracy, but it is first necessary to make them respect."

Here are two incidents that show the strength of Ludwig's convictions.

A nobleman once talked during a performance. Beethoven stopped playing and declared, "For such pigs, I do not play!"

He would say to the face of a prince and benefactor,
"What you are, is by accident of birth; 
What I am, I created myself.
There are, and have been, thousands, of princes;
There is only one Beethoven.".

_


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## Petwhac (Jun 9, 2010)

JAS said:


> You evidently didn't see the results of our recent election, and its constantly unfolding consequences. (All of the problems you mention are still present. We might even get back to child labor over the course of the next four years, if the ruling forces can overcome their general issues with their own incompetence.)


In the USA? Slavery? Workhouses? Ill treatment of the blind or disabled?.

I take your point about Trump but I think (hope) you somewhat exaggerate the danger.


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## Zhdanov (Feb 16, 2016)

Petwhac said:


> T_o Ludwig van Beethoven, respect was more important than friendship. A person's position did not matter to him.
> 
> Composers and musicians were considered the servants of nobility. Beethoven's fiercely independent spirit challenged that thinking. He said, "It is good to move among the aristocracy, but it is first necessary to make them respect."
> 
> ...


hope you do realise that, had he lived in the West these days, he would eventually have ended up in jail?


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## Zhdanov (Feb 16, 2016)

aristocrats of the past obviously were much more tolerant and enlightened than Western authorities of today where Beethoven wouldn't even have a chance.


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## JAS (Mar 6, 2013)

Petwhac said:


> In the USA? Slavery? Workhouses? Ill treatment of the blind or disabled?.


Oh yes, we no longer call it slavery (although it still thrives underground, especially in the sex industry and for migrant workers) but all of these still exist. It is no longer genteel to speak about them favorably in public, if that can be considered progress. (I suppose we have to take what we can get.)



Petwhac said:


> I take your point about Trump but I think (hope) you somewhat exaggerate the danger.


I certainly hope that I am exaggerating the danger too, but I fear that I am not. Even if we regains some semblance of our senses in the course of the next two elections (and subsequently), I don't think that we will be able to undo all of the damage currently being inflicted. (And the rise of Le Pen in France shows that it is not isolated to the US, although they may keep her out of power in their general election.)


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## Magnum Miserium (Aug 15, 2016)

Petwhac said:


> All depends what you mean by 'major'. As with classical music, those or artists or pieces with lasting appeal will be come evident.... ...eventually.


Or it'll become evident that there just weren't any. Listen to much 18th century Italian opera buffa lately? (No Mozart doesn't count, he's German.) How about 19th century French grand opera? John Philip Sousa on days not the 4th of July? Post-Léhar Viennese operetta?


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## Magnum Miserium (Aug 15, 2016)

JAS said:


> I certainly hope that I am exaggerating the danger too, but I fear that I am not. Even if we regains some semblance of our senses in the course of the next two elections (and subsequently), I don't think that we will be able to undo all of the damage currently being inflicted. (And the rise of Le Pen in France shows that it is not isolated to the US, although they may keep her out of power in their general election.)


Yes, I'm afraid we'll never get back to that lost world of innocence where we bomb and starve foreign civilians to show we're tough and send a higher rate of people than any other country to the rape camps that we call prisons, but middle class people don't have to feel bad about it because the president is a nice guy.


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## Petwhac (Jun 9, 2010)

Zhdanov said:


> aristocrats of the past obviously were much more tolerant and enlightened than Western authorities of today where Beethoven wouldn't even have a chance.


That is something you cannot possibly know since there is no equivalent of Beethoven today. In fact there has been no equivalent of Beethoven since he died.

If by 'Western authorities' you mean the laws of a particular Western country made by an elected government, then what had Beethoven done that 'he wouldn't even have a chance'? Why would he 'eventually have ended up in jail'?


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