# Why are Mozart, Bellini, Donizetti et al trite and pointless?



## Barbebleu (May 17, 2015)

Before all you lovers of the above composers blow a fuse I should point out that this is actually a response to a statement in another thread that said that Wagner was long-winded. Composers are nothing of the sort. They are what they are. If one finds their output devoid of meaning and 'long-winded' then the fault is yours and not that of the composer. Why certain people still fail to understand that simple fact is beyond me. 

I personally don't find bel canto appealing but I would hesitate to make a disparaging remark regarding the ability of the bel canto composers to compose music that has appeal to someone who 'gets it'.


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## Biffo (Mar 7, 2016)

Barbebleu said:


> I personally don't find bel canto appealing but I would hesitate to make a disparaging remark regarding the ability of the bel canto composers to compose music that has appeal to someone who 'gets it'.


Pretty much my feelings too. On the rare occasions I have heard bel canto operas live (Donizetti, Rossini) I have enjoyed them but not felt the need to repeat the experience soon or buy a recording. Many years ago a friend tried to get me interested in bel canto and was offended when I dismissed it as musical wallpaper. Nowadays I am more tolerant but it doesn't form part of my regular listening.

In his book 'Ring Resounding' John Culshaw says 'inferior operas survive only to provide employment for inferior conductors: can you think of one *real* conductor who has shown one atom of passion for Bellini'. I am not sure how prevalent that attitude was in 1967, and Culshaw was a man of strong opinions, but I don't think it applies now.


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## Madiel (Apr 25, 2018)

Barbebleu said:


> Composers are nothing of the sort. They are what they are. If one finds their output devoid of meaning and 'long-winded' then the fault is yours and not that of the composer. Why certain people still fail to understand that simple fact is beyond me.


what you call "simple fact" is not simple at all imo, looking at old newspapers, letters et cetera you can read harsh opinions about composers written … by other composers, or when I read how audiences reacted years ago with music that they disapproved
my sensation is that all this civility reveals that music has lost the ability to stir social emotions, I guess it had to be fun living in times when discussing music was as exciting as discussing politics or soccer.


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## Madiel (Apr 25, 2018)

Biffo said:


> Pretty much my feelings too.


I believe you, but the OP had made quite clear that this thread had another scope


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## Biffo (Mar 7, 2016)

I was replying to second part of the OP, the part that I quoted.


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## DavidA (Dec 14, 2012)

Biffo said:


> Pretty much my feelings too. On the rare occasions I have heard bel canto operas live (Donizetti, Rossini) I have enjoyed them but not felt the need to repeat the experience soon or buy a recording. Many years ago a friend tried to get me interested in bel canto and was offended when I dismissed it as musical wallpaper. Nowadays I am more tolerant but it doesn't form part of my regular listening.
> 
> In his book 'Ring Resounding' John Culshaw says *'inferior operas survive only to provide employment for inferior conductors: can you think of one real conductor who has shown one atom of passion for Bellini'.* I am not sure how prevalent that attitude was in 1967, and Culshaw was a man of strong opinions, but I don't think it applies now.


Of course. Serafin I suppose wasn't a 'real' conductor? And of course Bellini's operas only exist for the employment of 'inferior' sopranos like Callas. Culshaw might have been a genius in the recording studio but some of his opinions were idiotic, especially when Callas and Karajan had caused a sensation at La Scala with Lucia. And I know it's by Donizetti but Bel Canto opera. The fact that he chose Solti above Karajan to record Tristan when Solti (by his [Solti's] own later admission) was 'not experienced enough' shows a certain lack of judgment even in Wagner. Culshaw was given to strong opinions and self-justification (as in his tale of Bjorling and Ballo) but he wasn't always right.


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## Woodduck (Mar 17, 2014)

Madiel said:


> what you call "simple fact" is not simple at all imo, looking at old newspapers, letters et cetera you can read harsh opinions about composers written … by other composers, or when I read how audiences reacted years ago with music that they disapproved
> my sensation is that all this civility reveals that music has lost the ability to stir social emotions, I guess it had to be fun living in times when discussing music was as exciting as discussing politics or soccer.


Being rather fond of terse skewerings myself, I sympathize with this, but history has a way of putting the wild or stern judgments pronounced upon new music into perspective. Nowadays those hurling imprecations at Tchaikovsky for his sentimentality are as risible as Tchaikovsky was when he called Brahms a "talentless b*stard." Some of us are at least as excited by music as by sports or politics (some of us even find getting excited by sports incomprehensible) but don't like the taste of crow.

Then again, there's the possibility that if we were to call a lot of recent classical music what it deserves to be called the language of invective would quickly lose its force. :devil:


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## Sieglinde (Oct 25, 2009)

You. Me. Forest clearing at dawn. Swords or pistols, your choice


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## Tuoksu (Sep 3, 2015)

Biffo said:


> Pretty much my feelings too. On the rare occasions I have heard bel canto operas live (Donizetti, Rossini) I have enjoyed them but not felt the need to repeat the experience soon or buy a recording. Many years ago a friend tried to get me interested in bel canto and was offended when I dismissed it as musical wallpaper. Nowadays I am more tolerant but it doesn't form part of my regular listening.
> 
> In his book 'Ring Resounding' John Culshaw says 'inferior operas survive only to provide employment for inferior conductors: *can you think of one real conductor who has shown one atom of passion for Bellini*'. I am not sure how prevalent that attitude was in 1967, and Culshaw was a man of strong opinions, but I don't think it applies now.


I'm pretty sure Richard Wagner can be considered a real conductor.


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## Tsaraslondon (Nov 7, 2013)

I'll let Wagner make my point for me.



> Bellini's music and particularly his vocal melody, has of late excited so much attention, and kindled so much enthusiasm, even in Germany, the land of the learned…Melody is in short the language in which a man should impart his musical thoughts to others, and if this be not as independently constructed and conserved as every other cultivated language should be, how shall he make himself understood?


Wagner tenderly called Bellini the "gentle Sicilian," and suggested that his flowing melodies had the unique italiante capacity for "bel canto" expressiveness.



> We must not be ashamed to shed a tear and express emotion. It is not a crime to believe in this music. People think that I detest the entire Italian school, in particular Bellini. This is not true - a thousand times no! Bellini is my first preference, because there is strength in his vocal writing, and his music lends itself so perfectly to the original text .... Of all Bellini's operas, Norma is the one which unites the richest flow of melody with the deepest glow of truth .... I admire Norma's melodic inspiration, which joins the most intimate passion to the most profound reality; a great score that talks straight to the heart - a work of genius.


Personally I don't see why one has to use Wagner as a stick with which to beat the _bel canto_ composers, or vice versa. They are what they are , and you can prefer one to the other or even, as I do, enjoy both.


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## Woodduck (Mar 17, 2014)

GregMitchell said:


> Wagner tenderly called Bellini the "gentle Sicilian," and suggested that his flowing melodies had the unique italiante capacity for "bel canto" expressiveness.


Fascinating, too, that in the midst of composing the rapturous phrases of Tristan and Isolde's love duet Wagner wrote to Mathilde Wesendonck that he was thinking of Bellini. Had Bellini lived long enough to hear _Tristan_ he might have been surprised to find that he was an inspiration to its composer, but less so had he been aware that Wagner had conducted _Norma_ in Riga in 1837 and even composed an extra aria for Oroveso.

Here's an interesting article on Wagner and Bellini which includes a performance of Wagner's aria:

http://www.interlude.hk/front/let-the-sunshine-in/


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## Seattleoperafan (Mar 24, 2013)

All I can say is I am clutching my PEARLS!!!!


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