# For once let's all be completely honest with each other.



## John Lenin (Feb 4, 2021)

No recordings made before 1980 have any relevance to today's audience.... you know it's true.


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## DaveM (Jun 29, 2015)

And yet, they still are incredibly popular. You know it’s true.


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## joen_cph (Jan 17, 2010)

John Lenin said:


> No recordings made before 1980 have any relevance to today's audience.... you know it's true.


True, except you got it the wrong way round: No recordings made _after_ 1980 have any relevance ... everything has been said, and people are just being uninformed, starting all over.


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## John Lenin (Feb 4, 2021)

Nonsense. Pre 1980 recordings are stained with that faux romantic business nonsense of the impresario


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## joen_cph (Jan 17, 2010)

No, you had HIP tendencies from at least the 60s and 70s, with names like Harnoncourt, Scherchen, Bylsma, Leonhardt, Kuijken, Koopman etc.


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## SONNET CLV (May 31, 2014)

John Lenin said:


> No recordings made before 1980 have any relevance to today's audience.... you know it's true.


To be completely honest, the only reasonable response I can think to make to this comment is to quote something from Russian absurdist author Daniil Kharms. The link takes one to his comment titled Symphony no. 2, which seems appropriate for this Forum and which should explain everything, at least as clearly as can be explained to the OP's comment.

http://www.sevaj.dk/kharms/stories/symphon2.htm


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## HenryPenfold (Apr 29, 2018)

I like Karajan's studio Mahler 9. He began recording it in 1979 and finished it in 1980. Does that count?


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## John Lenin (Feb 4, 2021)

Yes joen... but until the late 80's it was all bluff... but yes, I see where you are coming from. And for once I agree with another human being.....


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## Heck148 (Oct 27, 2016)

John Lenin said:


> No recordings made before 1980 have any relevance to today's audience.... you know it's true.


LOL!! good one!! You're joking, of course.....


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## Manxfeeder (Oct 19, 2010)

John Lenin said:


> No recordings made before 1980 have any relevance to today's audience.... you know it's true.


Yep. Robert Johnson, trash. The Beatles, garbage. Miles Davis, what a hack. Society has been waiting 6,000 years for Cardi B. You know it's true.


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## John Lenin (Feb 4, 2021)

Heck148 said:


> LOL!! good one!! You're joking, of course.....


Why would you assume that I am not being 100% serious.... in everything I say


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## joen_cph (Jan 17, 2010)

Well, 
100 might being rounded up from say 51 ?


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## premont (May 7, 2015)

John Lenin said:


> No recordings made before 1980 have any relevance to today's audience.... you know it's true.


Who are today's audience? You? Me? All you can say is, that they may be irrelevant to you. But they may be relevant to others like me.

Ad to this, that HIP isn't the final truth about the music in question.


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## MatthewWeflen (Jan 24, 2019)

I read an interesting article:

https://theconversation.com/dont-feed-the-trolls-really-is-good-advice-heres-the-evidence-63657


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## John Lenin (Feb 4, 2021)

I'm certainly 'todays's audience'.. I'm young and hip.... I'm not sure about you.


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## HenryPenfold (Apr 29, 2018)

John Lenin said:


> I'm certainly 'todays's audience'.. I'm young and hip.... I'm not sure about you.


Be honest John, you are a bit of a [email protected]


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## John Lenin (Feb 4, 2021)

Henry... we all may disagree with each other from time to time.


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## Bulldog (Nov 21, 2013)

John Lenin said:


> I'm certainly 'todays's audience'.. I'm young and hip.... I'm not sure about you.


I'm tomorrow's audience - old and in need of a hip replacement. :lol:


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## ArtMusic (Jan 5, 2013)

John Lenin said:


> No recordings made before 1980 have any relevance to today's audience.... you know it's true.


This was recorded in 1979. It was the first HIP of _Messiah_ and still one of the finest.


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## NoCoPilot (Nov 9, 2020)

The present day composer refuses to die.


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## EnescuCvartet (Dec 16, 2016)

I listen almost exclusively to pre-80's recordings. Not as a rule, because I'm a reasonable man, but more often than not. It would be terrible to lose Busch/Serkin playing Schubert, Sofronitsky playing Scriabin, Rachmaninoff playing Rachmaninoff, Geiseking playing Debussy, et al. Etc. So many great recordings and great interpretations.


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## John Lenin (Feb 4, 2021)

Oh come on... vinyl was great.... but CDs were better


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## premont (May 7, 2015)

MatthewWeflen said:


> I read an interesting article:
> 
> https://theconversation.com/dont-feed-the-trolls-really-is-good-advice-heres-the-evidence-63657


Thanks for this link. Taken ad notam.


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## joen_cph (Jan 17, 2010)

John Lenin said:


> Oh come on... vinyl was great.... but CDs were better


According to some, yes (a lot of audiophiles disagree). But: that's also why tons and tons of LPs were transferred to CDs and the digital media.


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## John Lenin (Feb 4, 2021)

Nostalgia Joen.... it effects all the old people... about 10 years before Altzhiemers kicks in...


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## joen_cph (Jan 17, 2010)

John Lenin said:


> Nostalgia Joen.... it effects all the old people... about 10 years before Altzhiemers kicks in...


That's hardly compatible with all the youngsters preferring LPs nowadays, rather than CDs. No nostalghia or alzheimers there, though probably some youngish expressions and spelling at times ...


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## DaveM (Jun 29, 2015)

John Lenin said:


> ..I'm young and hip...


The last time I heard that term was before 1980.


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## John Lenin (Feb 4, 2021)

Was it the Geography teacher in a cord suit.... we need go no further


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## Phil loves classical (Feb 8, 2017)

John Lenin said:


> No recordings made before 1980 have any relevance to today's audience.... you know it's true.


If I see a conductor's job as being a stick waving machine, then yes.


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## Heck148 (Oct 27, 2016)

John Lenin said:


> Why would you assume that I am not being 100% serious.... in everything I say


Because no sane, rational person would spew forth such drivel and expect it to be taken seriously...


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## premont (May 7, 2015)

John Lenin said:


> Nonsense. Pre *1980 *recordings are stained with that faux romantic business nonsense of the impresario


Why not 1996?


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## MarkW (Feb 16, 2015)

John Lenin said:


> No recordings made before 1980 have any relevance to today's audience.... you know it's true.


I might as well just die, then.


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## Ethereality (Apr 6, 2019)

I came in this thread with high expectations of seeing everyone be honest for a change. How's it going so far? The wise know better to not ask.


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## Oldhoosierdude (May 29, 2016)

The concept of relevance has no relevance. You know it's true and your mind is blown!


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## BachIsBest (Feb 17, 2018)

Ethereality said:


> I came in this thread with high expectations of seeing everyone be honest for a change. How's it going so far? The wise know better to not ask.


And yet, in the same post, you asked...


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## vivalagentenuova (Jun 11, 2019)

> I'm certainly 'todays's audience'.. I'm young and hip.... I'm not sure about you.


Nothing says "young and hip" like use of the phrase "faux romantic business nonsense of the impresario".


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## Rogerx (Apr 27, 2018)

John Lenin said:


> No recordings made before 1980 have any relevance to today's audience.... you know it's true.


Think for yourself please, ridiculous statements.


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## Nereffid (Feb 6, 2013)

John Lenin said:


> No recordings made before 1980 have any relevance to today's audience.... you know it's true.


I won't agree with anything stated so dogmatically. But there's a nugget of a valid point in there.

Thinking of my own history, I started seriously listening to classical music around 1990, with the aid of the local library - recordings on CD, so there would have been a bunch of newer things plus reissues from the 70s and 60s. Actually building up a big collection myself didn't happen for another decade or so, and that tended heavily towards newer recordings, with a reliance on older stuff only when filling particular repertoire gaps such as opera. I'd much rather spend my money on unfamiliar music rather than multiple recordings of familiar music. I've got all the standard repertoire now, and a lot more besides, and the independent labels keep producing unfamiliar music, so these days pretty much everything I buy is a new recording.

Given that the mainstream repertoire still is being recorded in plenty of excellent performances, I don't think it's unreasonable to say that anyone coming to classical music now could survive very happily only on recordings from this century, never mind from 1980.


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## Merl (Jul 28, 2016)

Change the year to 1950 and I totally agree.


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## Coach G (Apr 22, 2020)

Bulldog said:


> I'm tomorrow's audience - old and in need of a hip replacement. :lol:


Hip replacement or HIP replacement?


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## Coach G (Apr 22, 2020)

I like old recordings. I kind of think of the 1950s-1980s as sort of a "Golden Age" of classical music recordings where you had an overabundance of great musicians who came along just in time when sound technology was coming into a more listenable state.

We catch the tail end of Toscanini, Furtwangler, Mitropoulos, Bruno Walter, Pablo Casals, but then also get Reiner, Szell, Stokowski, Bernstein, Karajan, Ormandy, Solti, Boulez, Heifetz, Isaac Stern, Zino Francescatti, Vladimir Horowitz, Serkin, Glenn Gould, Claudio Arrau, Rostropovich, young Yo-Yo Ma, young Anne Sophie Mutter...then the singers: Pavarotti, Domingo, Corelli, Leontyne Price, Jessye Norman! Too many to list and really a galaxy of classical music super-stars.

I read somewhere that classical music didn't make a whole lot of money for a such as CBS or RCA, that made all their money on pop music, but for the sake of culture they kept their classical music lines going and when I started listening to classical music as a teenager of limited spending power, I relied heavily mostly on CBS and RCA reissues that were first recorded in the 1950s and 1960s. By that time a lot of the musicians were either dead or elderly, but the music was great. In those days, I knew nothing about performance and was just trying to build a collection based upon the standard repertoire, so I'd get Beethoven's _Violin Concerto_ with Isaac Stern as soloist; Beethoven's _"Tempest" Piano Sonata_ with Glenn Gould, Shostakovich's _Symphony #5_ by Bernstein; Barber's _Knoxville_ with Leontyne Price, Mozart's _Clarinet Concerto_ with George Szell conducting the Cleveland Orchestra with in-house clarinetist, Robert Marcellus, Debussy by Boulez, Beethoven's _"Moonlight Sonata"_ by Horowitz, ...

I had no idea who these musicians were and little did I realize they were the best the world had ever seen on BUDGET lines, and it was the Gold Standard, the Cadillac or the Lincoln Continental of classical music recordings.

Then again, I tend to like old things, anyway: old music, old movies, old TV shows, old books, etc.


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## Heck148 (Oct 27, 2016)

Coach G said:


> I like old recordings. I kind of think of the 1950s-1980s as sort of a "Golden Age" of classical music recordings where you had an overabundance of great musicians who came along just in time when sound technology was coming into a more listenable state.
> ..


Yes, most definitely....great recordings by great artists...


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## Marc (Jun 15, 2007)

I'm quite convinced that young newbies to the classical world can still be enthralled by many recordings from the Mercury Living Presence and the RCA Living Stereo series.
(Just as an example.)


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## John Lenin (Feb 4, 2021)

Marc said:


> I'm quite convinced that young newbies to the classical world can still be enthralled by many recordings from the Mercury Living Presence and the RCA Living Stereo series.
> (Just as an example.)


Whatever that era brought, and it was mainly introducing a new US middle class to (buying) serious music was nullified by thick textures, sugar sweet nostalgia, sugar sweet over sentimentality and poor recording technique.


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## Marc (Jun 15, 2007)

John Lenin said:


> [...] and poor recording technique.


Your audio system dates from after 1980, I presume.


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## Brahmsianhorn (Feb 17, 2017)

When I first started collecting, everything had to be digital. I subscribed to the assumption that newer is always better. I snickered like a teenager at old sounding recordings.

But then I began to realize through the crackles and less than polished playing, the older performances displayed more passion, more risk-taking, and more personal identification with the music. It seems like they live and breathe the music as opposed to merely trying to play perfectly as so many modern interpretations do.

Am I nostalgic? Yes, for great artistry. So sue me.


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## Heck148 (Oct 27, 2016)

John Lenin said:


> ...serious music was nullified by thick textures, sugar sweet nostalgia, sugar sweet over sentimentality and poor recording technique.


Toscanini, Reiner, Monteux, Mravinsky - "sugar sweet over sentimentality, thick textures"??!!
Surely, you jest......


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## millionrainbows (Jun 23, 2012)

My favorite recordings are from the late 1960s into the late 1970s. These were the "golden years." And now, with improved CD mastering and SACD and Blu-Ray, we can hear transfers of many of these.
I prefer the 1955 version of GG's Goldbergs to his 1980 version.
The Beatles, The Stones, and Dylan in mono? Gotta have 'em! The mono mix of Day Tripper is clearly superior to the stereo version.


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## Music Snob (Nov 14, 2018)

Take a walk on the wild side and see the Historical Wagner Recordings thread over at the Opera board...


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## Barbebleu (May 17, 2015)

Stereo is why nature gave us two ears! Unlike Davy Crocket who had three!!:tiphat:


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## John Lenin (Feb 4, 2021)

Stereo is obviously superior to mono, but how many of us listen to Dylan or the Sones with the speakers far enough apart to care about how it differs to mono. Headphones are just for those with too much time on their hands.


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## Dimace (Oct 19, 2018)

With all my respect to our fellow member the declaration ''No recordings made before 1980 have any relevance to today's audience.... you know it's true.'' is paralyzing every attempt for serious conversation, because it is forcing thousands of collectors (like me) to throw away almost everything they have... :lol:


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## larold (Jul 20, 2017)

_No recordings made before 1980 have any relevance to today's audience.... you know it's true._

So these recordings are meaningless ...

Solti's Ring from 1958, generally heralded as the greatest recording ever made.

Carlos Kleiber's recording of Beethoven's 5th and 7th symphonies.

Dorati's Haydn symphonies, Tchaikovsky 1812 Overture & Beethoven Wellington's Victory, two of the best-selling recordings in history.

Anything from Bruno Walter, Toscanini and Furtwangler.

Most music recorded by Glenn Gould, Bernstein and Karajan.

Everything ever known from Caruso and Artur Schnabel.

Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau's recordings of all Schubert's lieder.

Dennis Brain's Mozart horn concertos.

About two-thirds of Gramophone magazine's list of top 250 recordings ever made: https://www.gramophone.co.uk/featur...chosen-by-35-of-the-world-s-leading-musicians

Most of BBC Music Magazine's 50 greatest recordings of all time: https://www.classical-music.com/features/recordings/50-greatest-recordings-all-time/

No sweeping statement could encompass an idea but I think evidence indicates the opposite assumption may be closer to the truth: anything made after 1980 is closer to being irrelevant to the classical music listener that values quality and greatness.


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## BachIsBest (Feb 17, 2018)

Merl said:


> Change the year to 1950 and I totally agree.


If this post is serious may I inquire why?


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## david johnson (Jun 25, 2007)

John Lenin will soon air his full evaluation of how irrelevant the Reiner/CSO recordings of Respighi or Rossini Overtures are. Tune in on this thread for Troll Ravings.


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## consuono (Mar 27, 2020)

david johnson said:


> John Lenin will soon air his full evaluation of how irrelevant the Reiner/CSO recordings of Respighi or Rossini Overtures are. Tune in on this thread for Troll Ravings.


I wouldn't say "troll", just trying a little too hard to be the straw that stirs the drink.


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## HenryPenfold (Apr 29, 2018)

I thought he raised a few interesting points of discussion. It's a shame he's gone, but then I don't know the reasons why he was banned.


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## premont (May 7, 2015)

HenryPenfold said:


> I thought he raised a few interesting points of discussion. It's a shame he's gone, but then I don't know the reasons why he was banned.


It strikes me, that 1996D also was banned. Any similarity between him and John Lenin?


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## joen_cph (Jan 17, 2010)

HenryPenfold said:


> I thought he raised a few interesting points of discussion. It's a shame he's gone, but then I don't know the reasons why he was banned.


Ditto here, must've been something else than the posts I read, where the provocative stuff could be entertaining & wasn't that serious, and an underlying sense of humor could be sensed as well ...


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## HenryPenfold (Apr 29, 2018)

premont said:


> It strikes me, that 1996D also was banned. Any similarity between him and John Lenin?


Know eye dear ....


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## Guest002 (Feb 19, 2020)

joen_cph said:


> Ditto here, must've been something else than the posts I read, where the provocative stuff could be entertaining & wasn't that serious, and an underlying sense of humor could be sensed as well ...


Well, personally, I thought it a bit 'off' that he breezed in, fired off new thread after new thread with ridiculously provocative titles, and seemed intent not on any particularly serious or thoughtful discussion of a subject (which might well be or not be interesting), just drawing attention to himself.

I get that it could perhaps be entertaining, but I personally didn't find it so.

But that's just me. Oh, except apparently it wasn't.


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## SanAntone (May 10, 2020)

John Lenin said:


> No recordings made before 1980 have any relevance to today's audience.... you know it's true.


Most of the recordings I listen to have been made after 2000, in fact, I avoid recordings made more than 25 years ago as a general rule. I am more interested in what today's performers are doing with the standard repertory than what has been done in the more distant past.

Also, and especially in the last 10 years, performers are finding interesting methods of presenting the standard repertory. For example, Thomas Deminga's combining the Bach cello suites with works from the 20th century.

I responded to your post, not because I respect what you are doing on this forum (because I don't) but because I wished to make my point about current recordings and what it says about the dynamism and vibrancy that classical music still has.


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## hammeredklavier (Feb 18, 2018)

premont said:


> It strikes me, that 1996D also was banned. Any similarity between him and John Lenin?


1996D got temporarily banned a few times before for making offensive remarks. He called Wagner enthusiasts "autistic" just before getting permanently banned. 
The way John Lenin talks reminds me more of "aioriacont", albeit aioriacont loves Bach and Schubert, and was not known to hate the finale of Beethoven's 9th symphony.
There have been a few accounts I suspect of being created by aioriacont attempting ban-evasion. Such as "SyphiliSSchubert" (created in the september of last year, and got perma-banned after just 2 days and 15 posts). Because members typically get temp-bans first and then get perma-bans for offenses they do, - immediate perma-bans on members such as in these cases make me wonder if they're already-banned members attempting ban-evasion.


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## joen_cph (Jan 17, 2010)

AbsolutelyBaching said:


> Well, personally, I thought it a bit 'off' that he breezed in, fired off new thread after new thread with ridiculously provocative titles, and seemed intent not on any particularly serious or thoughtful discussion of a subject (which might well be or not be interesting), just drawing attention to himself.
> 
> I get that it could perhaps be entertaining, but I personally didn't find it so.
> 
> But that's just me. Oh, except apparently it wasn't.


I get your point, but also, there is a lot of repetition on these boards - this was at times a bit different.

The point about other accounts might be correct, I'm perhaps less orientated about earlier posters' characteristics, and didn't recognize this as one.

Though a few previous/banned posters/trolls do stand out, also for me ...


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## Marc (Jun 15, 2007)

premont said:


> It strikes me, that 1996D also was banned. Any similarity between him and John Lenin?


Aha!
Now I understand your proposal:



premont said:


> Why not 1996?
> 
> 
> 
> ...


Besides that: these 'ban' issues on world wide web music forums are quite confusing nowadays... one board bans too few, and another board bans too many members?

:lol:


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## Heck148 (Oct 27, 2016)

HenryPenfold said:


> I thought he raised a few interesting points of discussion. It's a shame he's gone, but then I don't know the reasons why he was banned.


Yes, he did raise some interesting points, albeit a bit way out.....but it stirred things up, got people thinking, posting....


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## Guest002 (Feb 19, 2020)

Heck148 said:


> Yes, he did raise some interesting points, albeit a bit way out.....but it stirred things up, got people thinking, posting....


...and, apparently, complaining to the mods!

I think you can probably stir things up without the 'lookatme, lookatme' immaturity that seemed to accompany his out-there posts (like the one that started the thread we're in).

*From wiki (who knew such things were defined somewhere?!*):

_In Internet slang, a troll is a person who *starts flame wars or intentionally upsets people on the Internet*. This is *typically done by posting inflammatory* […] *messages* in an online community (such as a newsgroup, forum, chat room, or blog), with the intent of provoking readers into displaying emotional responses and* normalizing tangential discussion*._ (emphasis and ellipses mine).


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## HenryPenfold (Apr 29, 2018)

Heck148 said:


> Yes, he did raise some interesting points, albeit a bit way out.....but it stirred things up, got people thinking, posting....


Yes. And he seemed pretty straight forward and honest about what discussion he was trying to get going. I personally saw nothing offensive in the way he went about it, but if we must conform to the house style .....

I don't know why those who disapproved didn't just concern themselves with other threads, there's plenty of them to choose from! Control freaks?


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## Merl (Jul 28, 2016)

Didn't bother me either. A bit of light-hearted crud is occasionally good for you. Aw well, makes no difference now.


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## WhateverDude (Jun 21, 2019)

.....and we see with the latest Cage 4.33 thread that far too many people don't want to hear the views of others. They actually just want to close down any discussion that doesn't reflect their exact views..... TRUE DECAY ON SHOW FOR ALL TO SEE


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## Merl (Jul 28, 2016)

WhateverDude said:


> .....and we see with the latest Cage 4.33 thread that far too many people don't want to hear the views of others. They actually just want to close down any discussion that doesn't reflect their exact views..... TRUE DECAY ON SHOW FOR ALL TO SEE


I think everything that could be said on 4' 33 has already been said in the thread that ran for 3 years on here. Take a look below. There was another 4' 33 thread on here that ran for a short time in 2010 (before I got here) but that got shut down after it degenerated into a slanging match.

Why is 4'33" disparaged, while Western forms of sacred music get their own forum?


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## Dimace (Oct 19, 2018)

Banned, came with another user name, but the IP address remains the same... Very easy for the admins to locate the intruder and bann him again. I don't like the ''punishments'' between adults, but I don't like more to write down declarations of nonsense, provoking the other members to participate to pointless discussions like this one. You must be completely irrelevant to classical music to declare that (example) the Ansermet (who passed away at 1964) made bad recordings or Böhm (died at 1981) was recording in vain. Such thoughts is better to remain... thoughts in a serious community.


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## Varick (Apr 30, 2014)

He is a troll, although not the worst I've seen.

V


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