# The Joy of Streaming#1 Expurgating



## Ludwig Schon (10 mo ago)

C: The expurgated version!

P: (exploding) The EXPURGATED version of 'Olsen's Standard Book of British Birds'?!?!?!?!?

C: (desperately) The one without the gannet!

P: The one without the gannet-!!! They've ALL got the gannet!! It's a Standard British Bird, the gannet, it's in all the books!!!

C: (insistent) Well, I don't like them...they wet their nests.

P: (furious) All right! I'll remove it!! (rrrip!) Any other birds you don't like?!

I'm sure we all know and love the above scene with John Cleese's enraged bookseller and Marty Feldman's demanding customer.






Some of you will think this sacrilege, but like Marty I too have recently taking to expurgating passages/movements/sections/songs from albums, while downloading them on iTunes.

For instance, while I love Shostakovich's Symphony 15, I absolutely hate the first movement with its carnivalesque circus-dirge. My opinion of Shostakovich, Järvi/GSO and above all my ears are greatly enhanced, on account of this expurgating.

By contrast, much like Ludwig Schon's alter-ego in Lulu, I have taken a glinting carving knife to Beat Furrer's FAMA, with only Scenes 2, 4, 7 & 8 surviving this bloody assault; yet while the original work itself is altered beyond recognition, my aural experience has been dramatically improved.

Had I not undertaken such musical surgery, I do not believe I would ever really listen to either work again.

Thought?


----------



## Manxfeeder (Oct 19, 2010)

As they say, you do you.


----------



## TwoFlutesOneTrumpet (Aug 31, 2011)

Without expurgating I would not listen to any Wagner. You cannot pay me enough to sit through 4+ hours of a Wagner opera but I also don't want to be without my favourite excerpts. 

The way I see any work of art is that the artist offers and I choose. I don't have to choose the whole thing even if the artist meant it to be cohesive in some way.


----------



## Highwayman (Jul 16, 2018)

Like #3 I also expurgate Wagner and almost every Opera I listen to. I also don`t care for Beethoven`s vocal writing very much so I often finish listening his 9th prematurely without the _Ode_.


----------



## Sid James (Feb 7, 2009)

Overall, I prefer to listen to complete works, that's if I've retained them. Over the years, I've done regular culls of my collection, so I get rid of whole works rather than individual movements. In terms of compilations, the expurgating has been done for me already. A few things like that which I only have on compilation discs are:
Mahler - Symphony #5, Adagietto
Rachmaninov - Symphony #2, slow movement
Beethoven - Symphony #6, first movement
Gorecki - Symphony of Sorrowful Songs, second movement
Chopin - Piano Concerto #2, slow movement
Beethoven - Piano Concerto #1, finale
Added to that, I do have for example discs with opera overtures and also some recital albums (e.g. the three tenors), otherwise I've not retained any operas. Apart from art song, its my least favourite genre in classical.
In terms of non-classical, I have more compilations than in classical. With jazz, I'm more likely to own albums by the performers I like. In other genres (e.g R&B, pop, rock), compilations dominate.


----------



## Eva Yojimbo (Jan 30, 2016)

I don't have any objection to people who do this but I have no interest in it. I like only hearing works how they were intended to be heard by the artists that created them. I will, of course, listen to excerpts from time to time when the moods strikes to just hear any given piece or part, but if I'm going to listen to a symphony or opera it's going to be the whole thing.


----------

