Classical Music breakdown

1. I like sonatas, concertos, suites, preludes and fugues almost always. Symphonies are on my "favorites" list, but there are plenty that I just don't like.

2. I really like smaller orchestras vs. huge ones, cellos and strings (but not a fan of violin solo), anything in the "piano family" (especially various precursors to the modern piano).

3. I know that the period versions I've heard sometimes sound more interesting than the "old school" versions, but not all the time. Sort of annoying, but variety is the spice of life, right?

4. Bach, Vivaldi, Beethoven, Mozart. I like me some others, too, with more interesting and slightly less recognizable names. Trying to limit myself to 4... I know a lot of stuff I sample is just too dramatic for me or too boring, but I at least like any of the typical names on a "Modern Masters" type compilation.

5. I have no idea who my favorite conductors and musicians are. I often see LEONARD BERNSTEIN when I'm flipping through and think of that REM song and think that he must be really good because his CDs always cost about $5 more than the others (so I don't buy them, of course, because I'd rather have a lot more music for a lot less $). I can't imagine myself being the sort of classical music critic that hears a disc and declares the rendition "insipid and tedious" because, frankly, I wouldn't know the difference.

6. I have a couple 10 box sets and about a dozen single or double CDs as well, but really clueless about the majority of classical music. Bach's "entire collection" (not even) is on a 170+ CD series, so it's just ridiculous how much stuff is out there. I don't really know what I'm getting other than internet research and knowing which genres and instruments I like. If I flip a cd over and it has a bunch of stuff I recognize (but don't own), I won't buy it because most of the stuff I recognize from popular culture I really hate.

2. I don't have an instrumental preference, really; Britten and Berlioz have done some amazing things with orchestras, as has Stravinsky.

3. I like performances that bring out new nuances in a piece. One of the best concerts I've ever sung in was a "Carmina Burana" performance conducted by one of Orff's pupils (Fruehbeck de Burgos) where the tempos were just WACKY compared to the way it's usually done. (BEST "Tempus et jocundum" EVAH)

4. Brahms, Verdi, Beethoven, Howells, Britten, Martin, Bach, Mozart, Mendelssohn, Byrd, Tallis, Purcell, Palestrina, Ockeghem, des Prez, Vivaldi, Tavener, Durufle, Roihl.

5. Christine Goerke, Denyce Graves, Susan Graham, Rene Pape, Hei-Kyung Hong, Renee Fleming, Malcolm Lowe, Elita Kang, Owen Young, Steve Ansell, James Somerville, Ann Hobson-Pilot, Elizabeth Remy, Seiji Ozawa, James Levine, Bernard Haitink, Raphael Fruehbeck de Burgos, James Conlon

6. The vast majority of classical CDs I have are pieces I've sung/groups I've sung in.

I don't know enough to be able to tell one from the other (but i am not sure how accurate/comprehensive/useful such terms are either?)
i investigated CM not on the basis of forms but on basis of time periods - discovered pretty fast that the so-called 'baroque' period of abt 1600-1750 was the one i liked most - so i guess this rules out 'symphonies'
i pretty much dislike (classical -> romantic) period rumpety tum music

2. What's your INSTRUMENTAL preference?
— full orchestra, strings, keys, solo instruments, etc.

tying in with the above: prefer smaller ensembles generally for the clarity of line and tone in music up to the big switch in last century -
when CM becomes more soundscape/timbral/spectral in 20th C, full orchestra soundpower can be amazing
(biggest problem is that orchestra can -> bumptious and sentimental when playing 'proper tunes', though sometimes the line between this and great-big-spectacle or hear-the-size-of-MY-emotions can be difficult to determine eg some of Planets Suite,Wagner,etc)

fav instruments/sounds:
generally early -> mid baroque instruments:
precursors to piano - Harpsichords/Clavichords
precursors to strings - Viols (thinner sounding, less 'expressive' (& hysterical) than their descendants)
precursors to guitar - theorbo, chittarone

least fav instruments/sounds:
generally dislike large (and not-atall-large) choral work - find the sound very muddy (one of my biggest self-disappointments is that i cannot get locked on to Renaissance & late-Renaissance polyphonic(?) vocal stuff - Palestrina, Josquin, Tallis, Tye...)

church organ (tho as with orchestra as above - certain things can sound astonishing)

brasses

flutes/piccoloes (particularly horrible)

'operatic' soprano & counter-tenor (prefer lower-register voices)

reeds/percussion/piano = depends

(yes it ALL depends on the works to an extent - but there are of course connections between them)

apart from solo harpsi/clavi generally prefer non-solo pieces

3. What's your feeling on "period" renditions vs. "old school" renditions?

i prefer the 'period' renditions - i would never have heard instruments i like if it weren't for them
one of the worst things i heard on Radio 3 was JS Bach performed 'in the romantic style' - all that plum sauce ruined him

(i still often wonder whether keyboard pieces written for harpsichord 'should' be performed on piano, even though i have sometimes liked the results...)

4. Who are your favorite composers?

Bach, Purcell, Jenkins, Locke, Scarlatti (Domenico), Byrd, Lawes, Gibbons, Tompkins, Couperin

don't like much of what i've heard of Vivaldi (getting a bit chitty chitty bang bang), or as much of Handel as Bach - but there is so much as yet unheard it's almost ridiculous...)

i do have some 'modern' stuff - eg Ligeti, Schnittke, some i can't remeber, and the user-friendly areas of minimalism both secular and 'religious' eg the US minimalists, Arvo Part, Tavener...

5. Who are your favorite conductors and musicians?

in spite of the fact that this would be very useful stuff to know in a field of music as open to interpretation as CM, i can hardly name any....
musicians: like what I've heard of Glenn Gould (in spite of so much being piano-fied transcriptions)....a few yrs ago heard a soprano called Emily Van Evera(?) whose tone didn't rip the skin off my ears (which i find most do)....

conductors: no idea. Probably some who specialise in 'period' renditions (if they do 'specialise'...i have little understanding and therefore appreciation of their craft and therefore tend to imagine them as overblown-thesp-types..)

6. Do you have dozens of classical CDs and did you really know what the hell you were getting when you bought your classical CDs or did you just say, "Mozart... 2 discs for $4.99, sure I'll get it" and basically go through a lot of trial and error?

Well I basically approached CM as a result of 2 things: being at someone's house when they put on a Bach thing and finding i quite liked some of it (because the pulse/counterpoint reminded me of the minimalists i liked), and as a follow-on from liking some of Michael Nyman's stuff (remembering the sleeve notes to 'Draughtsmans Contract', I got the house owner to put on some Purcell, and found I quite liked some of that too).
So I bought 'The Cambridge Encyclopedia of Classical Music', then started to listen regularly to a classical radio station, making a note of what i liked then cross-referencing with this book and a list of composers-and-their-time-periods in order to place what i was hearing in some structure

i only have about 30-40 CD's though - most of what i listen to i recorded from Radio 3 programmes (have 6 or 7 C90's worth) - there were so many issues around 'which performance' to get of some things that I couldn't get started dealing with it

i listen to CM only once every few months now

in meantime, re qn 3, i'm not sure you can answer this in generalities, you need to focus on a specific recording or pair of recordings. e.g. i keep meaning to start a thread on either the rattle/vienna phil. beethoven cycle or the pierre laurent aimard beethoven piano concerto recordings. Urgent & key: what abt a freaky trigger style focus group on these?

2. What's your INSTRUMENTAL preference?
— generally full orchestra, but I often like solo piano and string quartets

3. What's your feeling on "period" renditions vs. "old school" renditions?
- Usually, the first time I hear something, I try to find it performed in an "old school" way, or in a performance that lots of people agree is very good. After I'm more familiar, I tend to be open to pretty much anything, and just go with my gut.

4. Who are your favorite composers?
- Debussy, Messiaen, Ravel, Stravinsky, Bartok, Gershwin, Ligeti

5. Who are your favorite conductors and musicians?
- I'm not terribly well-versed on conductors. I tend to associate the sound of an orchestra with the actual orchestra for some reason (probably being that my background in classical music was as a performer) -- I like the sound of the New York Phil, Chicago SO, Cleveland, San Francisco, Boston, Montreal. Conductors would be people like Solti (and Reiner for older recordings), Ozawa, Masur, Dutoit, Mehta. My fave musicians are lots of trumpet players: Phil Smith, Bud Herseth, Mike Sachs, David Bilger. I think I don't really listen to enough solo music to have a lot of fave instrumentalists, but I always love to hear recordings of Rostropovich.

6. Do you have dozens of classical CDs and did you really know what the hell you were getting when you bought your classical CDs or did you just say, "Mozart... 2 discs for $4.99, sure I'll get it" and basically go through a lot of trial and error?
-I don't have a huge collection of classical CDs, but because I majored in music, I got exposed to lots of music. When I first started buying CDs, I had a decent idea of what I was getting into (though my budget did compel me to purchase a few of those Laserlight specials), though of course there's nothing like wading through a CD store with nothing but a listening booth at the front for real "education". Over time, I've maybe forgotten as much as I learned about the history, but I have certainly developed a "taste" of my own.

1)I like them all. For all of the criticism it has received over the centuries, there is something very satisfying about the sonata form. I can get into more abstract structures too.

2) For concertos, I prefer piano as the solo instrument, although I wish there were more great cello concertos. (Any suggestions?) I love most of the woodwinds, especially clarinet and oboe. There are also a lot of great moments involving the horn, especially over subdued strings.

3)I think that period interpretation has something to offer but a lot of the conductors seem to overemphasize certain effects to produce a reaction. A well-balanced, exciting performance is always better than a poorly thought-out one that strives too hard to "prove" that the way it has always been done is wrong.

4)Mozart, Brahms, Haydn, Schubert, Beethoven, Stravinsky...

5)Musicians: Murray Perahia, Alfred Brendel, Emil Gilels, Maurizio Pollini. Conductors: Fritz Reiner, George Szell, Colin Davis.

6)I probably have 200-300 CDs although most of them were bought a few years back and I don't buy much classical anymore. One of the original appeals of classical was the low price of the cheapies but I quickly became more "informed" and started shelling out more $ for CDs. There are some great bargains that are fantastic performances though.

This is the main reason I like Vivaldi so much.

2. What's your INSTRUMENTAL preference?
Sounds a bit glib, but: the full orchestra, preferably with massed choirs. There's something about the texture that's just incredible. Within an orchestra, the percussion and brass; as solo, viola perhaps - there's more interesting music for the violin, but the sound can easily become grating. I prefer choral voices above solo for the most part - the countertenor voice is the exception that proves the rule, and sometimes young male or female treble/alto so long as they don't stray into warbly coloratura.

3. What's your feeling on "period" renditions vs. "old school" renditions?
I think they all have their place - period renditions are most interesting when there's an actual instrumental difference, for example with baroque music. I'm afraid I rather fall into the "whatever sounds best" camp - I've heard and taken part in some fantastic versions of pieces which did deviate from the old-school style, and also in some quite frankly horrendous ones.

4. Who are your favorite composers?
Above all else Britten. Also Mahler, Orff, Berlioz, Ravel, Stravinsky, Bach, Mendelssohn, Tartini, Reich, Bryars, Taverner (is that the right spelling? the one who's alive now). Definite bias toward people who've written music with childrens' choirs in it, as I tended only to learn composers' names when I was singing their music, and nowadays seem to tune out when the names come up on the radio.

5. Who are your favorite conductors and musicians?
Kazushi Ono is a fantastic conductor: extremely enthused and some inspired ideas about the music he's dealing with. David Daniels has possibly the purest countertenor I've ever heard. Itzhak Perlman's a pretty amazing violinist, too, and I like the Smith Quartet a lot. But I don't tend to know musicians' names (and conductors I know as "the one with the hair! who was on the phone! at that recording! right."), so.

6. Do you have dozens of classical CDs and did you really know what the hell you were getting when you bought your classical CDs or did you just say, "Mozart... 2 discs for $4.99, sure I'll get it" and basically go through a lot of trial and error?
Generally, I just listen to (BBC) Radio 3. If I am buying, I'll generally do so with a knowledge of what piece I'm getting but often not of any performance specifics: I tend to avoid the really cheapy labels and anything that looks like it could be "hooked on classics pt 75!", but I don't exactly aim for the insanely expensive poncey recordings either. Occasionally I buy on the basis of the musicians involved, with little or no knowledge of the music they'll be playing.

Taverner's the dead one from centuries ago; Tavener is the one writing the ridiculously cool choral music. (If you like Tavener, check out Frank Martin's "Mass For Double Choir".)

When I can afford it, I plan to get Berlioz' Symphonie Fantastique, Messiaen's Turangalila Symphony... and Stockhausen really sounds like some special stuff judging by what the reviews at Amazon say... So glad I found that website!

messaien and scriabin were both synaesthetic (and so is mel caramel on ILx)

i think that associating classical form with genre is probably a mistaken way of thinking about form, but it's like a billion degrees and the middle of the night here so i can't think this through at the moment

Dunno, I got it directly off Amazon. When you're narrowing down your search FORM/GENRE is the heading for sonatas, symphonies, etc. Before I noticed that, I was just calling them "styles".

unusual instruments also for a quartet, not just for him (all that wz available in the prison camp)

This is kind of funny because I put the "(for him)" in after I'd read it was all that was available to him in prison in the liner notes. I was going to leave out the "(for him)", since it is probably more common now in chamber music and some Mr. Knowledgable guy would correct me and say, "Oh at one time, it might have been unusual, sure, but not so much now..."

Just can't win.

Anyway, I'd still like to know if this is totally different than most of Messiaen's other work, if anybody knows...

Messiaen is most famous for his organ works, and for his symphonic works. You will find many fans of his Turangalila Symphony and Trois Petit Liturgies for Orchestra at ILM, so if you want to check out stuff beyond this Quartet you might start there. I also love his version of L'Ascension for Orchestra.

??

I do love pianos, huge grand pianos where the highs sound like bells and the lows sound like foghorns. Strings -- used to like cellos a lot, now they just sound really cello-ey and obvious and monochromatic ("dark" and that's it). Violins have more emotional range.

2. maybe the answer to question 1 should go here

3. i've heard two versions of herma, both quite different, neither performed by the dedicatee -- i don't think it should matter unless the composer is involved in the rendition

4.(b.t.w. i like the way a lot of these guys change the key all the time, keeping it interesting, but i wouldn't go as far as to say that i like all their works)
shoenburg (so finite, a pity), milton babbitt, jacob druckman, charles wuorinen, some early feldman, lots of other mostly american academic post-serialists like mel powell, roger sessions, stefan wolpe, seymour shifrin, donald martino, et, al., & also weirdos like harry partch, xenakis & kagel

5. people who bother committing time and effort to learning, playing and recording this often complicated music

who to me seem to deserve much more than the typical 'cultured' instrumental & orchestral hacks who regularly churn out relatively easy to play melodic lines of the clasical canon, sounding and looking to me to be easy listening music dressed up as high culture

oh & i hate the continuing presence of john cage's music -- his ideas were ok and as involved as he was in the rewnditions, well that was interesting, but the endless re-recordings with player 'improvising' seems like a dressed-up fake 'avant-garde' industry to me

oh and i thought "4tet for the end of time" was cool when i was sixteen, but it got boring after ten listens, and that final part seemed to be just a wrecked re-hash of the musical materials that had gone before, a real anti-climax, as i'd saved side two of the record once i'd fully immersed myself in side one -- but then i suppose that was desperate music written in desperate times and supposed to represent someting of a dead end

*sigh* well isn't this 'well his ideas were interesting but his music wasn't' line a bit tired? and he had quite a few 'ideas' too so can we start by picking on which ideas were good and which might not have been?

oh, and how many of his "happenings" do we see these days featuring well-rehearsed or inspired players, as opposed to these limpid recordings (which yeah, he hated the permanency of) being sent out to all the worlds libraries (for boutique label profits ?)

see rob young's piece abou attending a cage performance as a youth (in a recent Wire -- a real event in the spirit of what cage imagined)

i see lot's of cage's inventions played out for recording for "posterity purposes" using the minimum of resources & players
cf: the large scale events he envisaged for the opera set (eg fifteen pianos + symph orch)

so it's lip sevice, in the composers absence, isn't it ?
and how many of these precious classical players could be bothered getting their heads around some of the works of all those other composers i've mentioned upstream ? that would be too hard for them, wouldn't it ? and it would be too challenging for music buyers, who'd look elsewhere

cage is 'hip' because he's easy -- you don't have to 'get' the music, understand it to feel it in the same way you do with those other composers, so the whole cage clique or vogue or whatever it is that causes resources to be poured into stuff that's comparitively easy to play, with no real criticism of the musical validity of the whole excersise possible given so many "indeterminate" elements,..

well, it's just 'pop' music masquerading as 'intellectual' music for the benefit of the little industry and the poseurs who claim to get something out of their high-brow fantasies -- their is no musical rigeur, no coheresence to be gleaned from cage, performed or on recording

i'm sorry, but compared to the scant attention paid to so many other recent composers, the attention paid to cage is really sad, as though deadheads make the decisions about what's played, who's paid

sorry if it seems "tired" julio, but in the time since cage was alive & had some control over his works the situation has just got worse (to the detriment of all the less cult-ish less pop composers)

didn't christgau invent a special category for his own purposes especially for riley's 'rainbow in curved air' ('pop classical' or 'classical-cross' or something ?) -- well i mean cage as 'pop clasical' in a more traditionally classical demeaning way (like opera buff look down from the special boxes at the aria twits in the stalls)

how do you know he's easy?

well i have a problem with that 'get' in yr arg bcz, you see, I've never studied music and i don't really know much abt it from a musicological point of view. I listen to lots like feldman and scelsi (more 'difficult' stuff to play apparently) and improv by the likes of amm and so on: but the point is that I feel that i can connect with it despite not being able to really know the stuff from a 'musical' point.

you don't need to know much abt music to enjoy derek bailey CDs. it might hinder you if you want to talk abt it but not in terms of listening to it.

I listen to this stuff and read args pro and against but in the end the decision is still mine so you need to have some judgement.

I don't know how 'hip' cage is but i don't care really. I would have thought he was actually seen as a joke (he composed 4'33'', not symphony no 9).

recently i read his lectures on the book 'silence'. I enjoyed a lot of it. need to read more. a good writer whose sense of humour i like.

''i'm sorry, but compared to the scant attention paid to so many other recent composers, the attention paid to cage is really sad, as though deadheads make the decisions about what's played, who's paid''

that always is a problem but i don't that if there were less recordings of cage that would mean other composers would recognition instead. one wouldn't follow from the other. the problem is with the 'industry' and not with cage.

Bailey: well it's your attention span vs. his (or his sparring partners perhaps) -- he's another guy out on a limb with his "total improvisation" line -- i don't know how much improv is part of AMM practise but it's i suspect a shared attention/concentration thing

i'm not saying you need to be able to read music or approach it technically to 'get' any of these guys

the same might be said for some of Scelsi, the stuff for solo instrument at least -- but in any case he was going for a meta-music divine tone type thing wasn't he ? not so much pitch variety, more measured austerity ?

in all these cases there's a whole that dervies from your assimilation of shapes in time, rises and falls, intensity (Scelsi was all about that), patience & appreciation of overall scope

but in all these cases it's not pitch manipulation (ie myriad different octaves bearing backwards motifs et al) -- there's not so much delicate multi-level harmonic variety

all of these guys are into a shared energy experience, intensity which is built over time, time shared with them, they demand you get into the ebbs and flows of what they're doing, to 'get' it, but you do not get much sophisticated harmonic manipulation and it's pretty safe to say that harmonic tension itself is not something these guys even favour (ie they are part of the free school which is loosely considered to be actually anti-serialist, opposed to integrated/complex harmonic & timbral & non-rhythmic manipulation; they see these movements in composition, composition itsels an anathema to some of them, as alienating audience)

so i put cage squarely in the free-flow school that many of these people, notably feldman and bailey, quite publicly align themselves with, as an antidote to what they see/saw as over-intellectualisation or un-natural practise, etc.. whatever they want to throw at the post-serialists

cage is after all famous for rebelling in ever increasing ways against his former teacher Schoenburg and the serialist school that got hatched in the US in the 40s and 50s in general

so all these guys you've raised, they're from the other side, the other kettle of fish, the other school, and so it seems you're picking examples that will always clash with the guys i listed above because the basic principles and practises are so different in each case

the notes are all over the place but they make sense -- it's confusing but pulls in and makes attention worthwhile

mark sinker, do you want me to to try and convert into english something that's a completely musical experience ? how would you explain your enjoyment of cecil taylor, huh ? ('cause the enjoyment i get from taylor's music is not so different to that which i get from the piano music of babbitt or xenakis or powell)

i never say anything about the content, huh ? i think you're trying to talk up a storm with your simplistic generalisations -- i seem to remember saying a lot more than you did on your bowie/lodger thread with regard to the actual content

mark, you're no good at arguing against what i say except for this sort of generalising & provoking here -- why ? what do you think about these composers ? how would you describe your favourite composers content without resorting to awful poetry ?

and i'm not saying something is more intellectual than something else, rather that some of this music is easy listening pop type music but because it comes from a composer it get's treated differently to music from a stoner drone band

and talking about me in the third person : "xyz always says [efghi] but never backs it up with [abcde]" -- it's like you're sitting around at the back making cheap jokes while someone else is trying to talk -- why don't you obey a little bit of etiquette here -- why not address the subject rather than throw cheap generalisations to bystanders ? are you running for political office ? isn't this a little childish ? didn't the moderaters have a little thread of their own recently that could be read as opposing inferences and imputations in posting ? are you just too busy to be bothered contributing properly ? is this just a big wind-up to you ? why are you here ?

It is not just a line but a fully worked out aesthetic. with AMM it is improv, and improv is a music that requires attn/concentration (so does most music actually but there is a bigger deal made out of this when talking abt it)

''and compared to those guys i listed above, yeah it's no wonder there are all thes cage and scelsi and feldman re-hashes recently, because compared to the post-serialist school they're easy to sell to a supposedly intelligent audience''

what rehashes? do you mean new recordings coming out? feldman's has its own difficulties but its even more 'subversive' bcz it does sound 'beautiful' and 'easy' (not many notes etc) but it is a challenge for the listener.

when i say that a lot of this stuff is easy i'm just trying to say: it isn't as diff as you think it might be. once you grasp the idea and engage with it can become pretty easy. this applies to all types of music.

the same with the drone type stuff you cite. there are difficulties but diff kinds of things to get a hold on.

''now you tell me why you chose those composers (which i call avant-pop composers) and not the ones i listed above, or perhaps you might like to respond to this by telling me what you think of some of the ghuys i've listed there''

bcz i haven't got any recordings of most of them yet. I think xenakis is the one i've heard quite a bit of. I'll search more kagel and partch but as for the others i don't have anything.

but you know, feldman/scelsi isn't really ''avant-pop''. I haven't seen whole concert seasons or anything by them, in fact there was a season dedicated for some of kagel's music (see interview with the recent wire and his criticisms of serialism) i know the no of recordings has increased but you know...also partch is admired by minimalists like Glass (I have a doc on partch where glass talks v enthusiastically abt him etc). wasn't ppl like stockhausen quite, er, popular in the 60s, say. also boulez.

I thought you liked scelsi?

mark for prime ministah! *make note to self to think of a slogan for his campaign*

I know we could all use a few lessons in rhetoric, but I don't think you are going to win many converts by going around telling everyone how stupid they are.

[god everyone at work is so annoying this morning. It must be because I was awoken two or three times last night by mosquitoes.]

Relatively easy melodic lines: must not be any good. So is almost the whole classical music tradition a farce because it doesn't live up to the standards of difficulty set by serialism and neo-serialism?

watching the audience at "the proms" react to birtwhistle's piece (five years ago ?) was interesting -- if an orchestra plays stuff like that, the audience will boo -- yes, if the orchestra just plays one piece that a large chunk of the audience doesn't like, they're in trouble (another example would be the debut of stockhausen's "trans" which was booed despite the fact that it was being reorded for an lp by dg)

to appear modern, contemporary, up with it, orchestras will play minimalist stuff, which at least has populist hooks in it, or maybe they'll play john cage -- but it's probably going to be too difficult for the orchestra to learn neo-serialist stuff (let's call it), especially if a large chunk of the orchestra doesn't like the music anyway -- apparently orchestras don't like learning pieces that consist of myriad dicrete notes

so they don't bother, and so that music doesn't get played

some sort of obligation to listen to and try to enjoy the most diffucult, most complex, most emotionally unpleasant music that is out there
interesting if extreme case, because you say 'emotionally unpleasant' -- i've never felt that music to be quite fitting that category -- i associate feelings of euphoria with it myself, because it so much more interesting, so much is happening at once (that's the key for me, the illusion of great speed and striking acrobatic manoevres, in 'music space') -- maybe it sounds earnest to people who aren't used to it, maybe it just sounds weird -- well i wish i could hear more music that i could just say sounded 'weird'

i suppose that in this thread i've exhibited the same sort of childish open display of contempt for to-me-more-boring 'classical' music that i'm criticising others for not keeping to themselves (eg the intolerance of the non-birtwhistle crowd at the proms)

it's not a question of 'that music being dumb' -- i didn't mean what i said that way -- it's more that there's all this new modern classical music designed for that '20th century slot' in orchestral concerts, an opportunity for some of that neo-serialist-ish music to be played usually forgone in favour of more pop material -- it's as though neo-serialist type music will die out, as no-one will be playing it or getting used to listeing to it

and it's not as though it took ten years to understand, more that it just gets better year after year, to the point where fifteen years in i've heard some of this music too often, so i _remember_ it and the charm of it unfolding is lost -- a ten year cycle is a little more enduring than the typical love affair with a pop tune i figure

and when i started listening to this stuff it made no sense at all, and i had no-one to explain it to me, and so i took it as a challenge, and it did pay off as i'm glad there's this whole 'other' sort of music i can listen to -- but far from feeling elitist about that, i wish more people listened to it

i figure lots of people in ILM probably find orchestra music boring and unchallenging -- ok, julio is keen to hear stuff he hasn't heard before, keen to hear orchestras that sound interesting -- i think a lot of people in my generation or my age have given up on orchestras altogether -- who will be interested in funding ochestras in fifty years ? maybe the music i like is a bit extreme for a lot of people (though 'emotionally unpleasant', that's like equating music listening with some horrible task) -- regardless of what i like, classical music is a broken down case, a culture that's just about over

I don't know what orchestras should be doing, but apparently people would rather hear, say, Steve Reich or Lou Harrison, than neo-serialist works. All I hear you saying is "Well, you people should be listening to this stuff (because it's more complex, ultimately more rewarding, etc.) rather than that other crap." But what are the orchestras to do? They have to get money from somewhere. Maybe the state should fund more adventurous programming. I'm not sure.

I repeat though: I don't think my case is that extreme. A lot of people have a strong aversion to this sort of music (if they ever get exposed to it). I don't mind music that poses some degree of challenge, but there has to be something there initially to hook me into persevering, and I never like anything about serialism enough to persevere with it. (I admit I'm a little foggy on how neo-serialism differs from old school serialism.)

(I probably should have just stayed off this thread, since I'm not any kind of classical music lover (except for a little of the pop avant-garde you don't like, plus a few rare cases here and there, esp. from the Baroque period).)

La di da.

La di da, Episode I.

Is there specific other composers you'd suggest for work, reading and relaxation? For me, this rules out dramatic and loud/soft stuff.

Good candidate, yes, but not deservedly. This reminds me of the crapload of wonderful country and bluegrass my father had on those old gramophone-styled lead 78 records. When I saw "O Brother Where Art Thou" and "Ghost World" and heard some of these old songs, I became very depressed that the stack of records and the gramophone were given to my aunt who then sold them in a yard sale... Thanks, mom, ya fuckin' dumbass.

I'm lurking, I'm lurking... ; )

My dad likes to put on bassoon concertos by vivaldi and oboe concertos by vivaldi, handel and/or haydn. They are relaxing but also eerie, like what you'd think an elephant funeral was like.

I actually think that the enhtusiam for serialism will come and go. as long as there are records there will be ppl interested in any kind of music, including serialism. and some of them won't just bitch endlessly in message boards, they will go out there and do something abt it. and i look forward to what these ppl will offer.

I recently acquired an old dg LP of stockhausen's: carre on one side/gruppen on the other and i think that music doesn't push any obv emotional triggers, or that appears to be non-emotional is v interesting. Interesting that many of the shapes in this kind of music i found similar to those in free improv, say.

Paul: if you can, do contribute something to this thread. I would like to read something from you.

i think it's an example of a decent recent classical cd, as it covers so much ground (without repeating material available elsewhere) and it's so well paced/organised (unfortunate, but that article in the wire didn't really deal with many of the more recent kagel works like these)

well the large-ish accordian composition "episodes, figures" would be my favourite,
but there's also "MM51" (supposedly deliberate scary film music as composition),
and with the other accordian and piano material, it's all over the place

you couldn't call this neo-serialist, maybe post-serialist, i dunno

anyway my point is that this edition isn't going to be available forever, and unlike so many discs that feature maybe 1 or 2 central compositons, this has 6 quite distinct compositions, all well enough annotated

i keep coming back to it, listening to different bits, and so i think it's actually worth buying (as opposed to borrowing from the library)

Some favorite composers (and works), more or less chronologically by style period: Josquin Desprez, Orlando Lasso, Claudio Monteverdi (1610 Vespers), Domenico Scarlatti (keyboard sonatas), J.S. Bach (St. Matthew Passion, Brandenburg Concerti, cello sonatas), Haydn (string quartets), Beethoven (symphonies, string quartets, piano sonatas, violin concerto, 4th and 5th piano concerti), Schumann (most of the earlier solo piano works and the major song cycles), Chopin (middle- and late-period piano works), Brahms (piano trios and quartets, string sextet, piano concerti, violin concerto), Schubert (prefer his chamber music, like the Arpeggione sonata and the c minor string quintet, over his songs, actually). Sibelius (symphonies), Prokofiev (piano sonatas, violin concerti), Stravinsky, Schoenberg (works from the free atonal period more than earlier and later things), Webern, Copland (generally the more abstract works; his piano sonata is a favorite). I could go on! (But actually it’s tedius and reading it probably would be too...)

But my strongest and most enduring musical enthusiasm, as some here know, is for classical music of the postwar era, especially those more or less in the "modernist" tradition. I certainly don’t love it all uniformly, and I’m not particularly swayed by the rhetoric originally advanced by its main advocates (I’ve been reading through an old book of Boulez’s essays; the ones devoted to compositional "shop talk" fascinate me but all the rest bore and irritate me).

Some of the appeal of this music for me is the density of detail and the high degree of coordination throughout the material; in this way I find the music rewards very attentive listening. I also like the way in which each work is, beyond its particular features, also a "window" onto some more general system of musical principles. Listening to this music allows me to be very focused while simultaneously letting my mind wander around the larger world the music seems to occupy. (I think this is probably not so different from the delight J.S. Bach reportedly got from predicting the most fruitful treaments of a fugue subject.)

I think a great deal of modernist music is just gorgeous, ravishing, if you’re open to the diversity of harmonic sonorities and timbres and the elegant ways these details are organized, and the richness and complexity of its rhythmic surface. Compared to others who’ve posted here, my tastes align less exclusively with one side of the "minimalist"/"maximalist" divide. I agree that the former style tends to have a much broader appeal both with the general audiences for both "popular" and "classical" music (should these be opposing poles at all?). But I’m not as offended by this as George Gossett seems to be (if I’m reading his sentiments right); I guess I really don’t care about having my favorite music reach a huge audience, as long as there’s a more specialized audience that’s hungry for it and willing to support it. (And the other thing I do very much care about is that there should be opportunities for everyone who wants to develop an appreciation for this music, which is one of the main reasons I have a strong commitment to my work as a teacher. )

Miscellaneous points that seem like they should have some place in my argument. I tend to be pretty indifferent about virtuosity in performers, while appreciating compositional virtuosity. Nothing bothers me more in contemporary classical music than a piece that apes an established style but gets it wrong out of incompetence or ignorance. Unsurprisingly, I’m often put off by compositional eclecticism; it’s a rare composer who’s mastered all the different dimensions of craft required to do this "properly" (in my view). Finally, given my tastes and predilections, perhaps it’s understandable that I’m less interested in (really: less aware of) experimental improvisation. I tend to miss in this music the organizational rigor I favor. On the other hand, I enjoy how some of this music (AMM and Anthony Braxton and Furt and George Lewis being some examples I know) deals with an enlarged vocabulary of sounds and musical gestures in ways that freedom from the dictates of an explicit score makes possible.

Again some favorite composers and works (more or less chronologically by generation, or clustered by style/"school"): Boulez (Derive, a short offshoot of Répons, is a favorite), Ligeti (Lontano is a favorite, but I also like recent stuff like the violin concerto), Lutoslawski (not consistently inspired, I suppose, but the Livre pour orchestre is certainly a favorite), Stockhausen (like Julio, I find Gruppen and Carré thrilling; I also like Zeitmasse and lots of other stuff; Gesang der Jünglinge is brilliant; the live-electronics stuff like Mantra often strikes me as disappointingly primitive), Xenakis (but not the UPIC stuff), Barraqué (the complete works on the cpo label is a bargain and highly recommended), Babbitt (Groupwise is a great piece, lots of the later piano works are really splendid; sadly, no one’s playing or recording his masterpiece, A Solo Requiem -- probably because they figure his death one of these days will be the proper occasion for that), Mel Powell (his Woodwind Quintet and the double piano concerto Duplicates are favorites). Morton Feldman I like a great deal (especially the works for his circle of friends in Buffalo, like Crippled Symmetry); and speaking of Mortons, I’m quite fond of the classic album-length Buchla-based work of Subotnick (although the work that came after that is worse than dreadful -- but I haven’t given up on him and he seems to have entered another more interesting phase recently). Steve Reich (the one who stopped composing around 1980) -- and for that matter Philip Glass (the one who stopped composing around the same time); Louis Andriessen fits in here somewhere too. Harrison Birtwistle (Carmen Arcadiae Mechanicae Perpetuum, despite the off-putting title; and more recently Pulse Shadows is brilliant), and also several British composers of subsequent generations: Brian Ferneyhough, Michael Finnissy, Richard Barrett, Chris Dench (and the younger American Jason Eckardt is another fine composer closely aligned with these folks). Finally, Elliott Carter is probably my single favorite composer; he’s best known perhaps for his string quartets, which I adore, but I think better starting points are Night Fantasies (solo piano), the Duo for violin and piano, the Brass Quintet, and the recent Symphonia. Again, I could go on. (Oh, I already did I guess...)

thanks for that. I liked yr mention of Furt (I must get round to their record on Matchless), I'd also recommend Bark's 'swing', which is on matchless. they are a guitar, electronics, percussion trio and they are in the same ballpark, i'd say.

''But my strongest and most enduring musical enthusiasm, as some here know, is for classical music of the postwar era, especially those more or less in the "modernist" tradition. I certainly don’t love it all uniformly, and I’m not particularly swayed by the rhetoric originally advanced by its main advocates (I’ve been reading through an old book of Boulez’s essays; the ones devoted to compositional "shop talk" fascinate me but all the rest bore and irritate me).''

do search the archives for some boulez hate. its quite funny.

''Stockhausen (like Julio, I find Gruppen and Carré thrilling; I also like Zeitmasse and lots of other stuff; Gesang der Jünglinge is brilliant; the live-electronics stuff like Mantra often strikes me as disappointingly primitive)''

Yes, i also have an LP of zeitmasse. I love that as well. gesand der Junglinge isn't widely available but i hope to hear it someday.

''Xenakis (but not the UPIC stuff)''

Don't know to what works you're refeering to here but I love persepolis, the electronics CD compiled on EMF and Legend d'er. Of his acoustic works I have to say 'Nomos alpha' for cello is a fave but I haven't played some of the other stuff enough to have an opinion one way or the other yet.

Morton Feldman from 77/78 I find it flawless. not a dud disc heard, so far.

same here. there needn't be a divide. and if ppl start can use minimalism as a way in to classical then they could work up to post-war music such as stockhausen etc. and that surely isn't a bad thing.

i do enjoy the minimalism from the likes of charlamgne palestine and phil niblock. There is a simplicity on a surface level but they do deceive the listener, there is quite a bit to listen to and that's before getting to the duration of these works. but i haven't dug enough into the works of glass, reich and riley to really know.

other stuff i've taken the plunge and bought over the web, like Babbitt and Wuorinen -- thank goodness i did, since half these cds are now out of print -- Stockhausen's put a lot of effort into preserving his legacy via cd, but these other composers, you have to take your chances

i appreciate the audience for a lot of this lets-call-it post-war music is slim, but it doesn't get played on the classical networks (except some specialist show occasionally called names like "20th Century Shock" typically), doesn't turn up in the classical bins in any local stores (except Boulez, another who seems keen to preserve his name in history), so it's all marginalised in so many ways

availability is _always_ limited by the expenses of reproducing orchestral music on cd, getting the orchestras to do it, getting the orchestras controlling bodies to let the music to go down -- oh and forget about hearing "difficult" music played anywhere in public, normal radio schedules included -- so people aren't used to it, maybe don't 'get it', but given all these mitigations, hardly surpising that that's a self-fulfilling prophecy

most depressingly though, i read in the wire recently that CRI, the composers label that has bothered to cover Partch through to Ruth Crawford (and been given a bit of a hard time by some writers and critics over the years for it's dedication to equal play for those "marginal" composers like Alvin Curran, writers who've labelled some of it's catalog "daft" or "oddball") is in financial difficulty, and so in this bold free trade world of ours, a lot of v. interesting american composers often sole recorded legacies will be winding up soon -- place your orders now or forget it

ok, i'm pissed off about the demise of CRI most of all (while P Glass recycles Eno & Bowie's "Berlin" period, providing belly laughs admittedly but an example of the worst rock star excess happening in the world of so-called "composers", or Mode setting out to re-issue all of Cage's works, despite the composer's oft-cited ambivalence about recordings at all)

that this often very unique yet beyond fashionable pop/ rock/ drone/ spoon music gets a far more raw deal than many OOP cult indie bands -- at least indie bands get their own special indie-press&web coverage, and a large chunk of the attention of posters here

and indie music _is_ comparatively _easy_ to listen to -- it's still v. often obeying standard rock heuristics
cf: the idea of music that takes a while to really get to know and doesn't have bass and drums chugging along, and maybe doesn't operate like music you've heard before, doesn't obey market forces etc..

oh well, i don't think i'm missing out -- when the dust settles on the 20th century, there'll be so many re-colourised hollywood re-runs on dvd etc. along with classic music (inculding indie cult music) -- i guess can and faust will be as easily purhaseable as led zeppelin and lloyd webber -- i figure some people will be left wanting something more

but y'know it's like watching music that was already an endagered species die, while the morton feldman and john cage estates provide appeasement, and cash in on interest in "new music"

http://www.newworldrecords.org/

Also, a lot of contemporary classical music by American composers can be heard at http://www.artofthestates.org/

Julio, the UPIC system (it has a new name as of a few years ago) is a computer music system with a novel graphic interface -- you can draw pictures directly on the screen to build sounds and to assemble them into complete compositions. Xenakis was always a very visual thinker (sketching several of his orchestral works on graph paper), so this idea appealed to him a lot. But the system seems to have had a lot of limits in terms of the range of sounds it could idiomatically produce. Xenakis used the system for most (all?) of the electronic music he produced after 1978 or so. Almost as a direct result of that fact, my favorite electronic stuff from him is the early stuff (specifically, earlier than 1978). If you don't know Xenakis major early orchestral works -- Pithoprakta and Metastasis especially -- you should definitely check those out.

Also -- Richard Barrett, whom I listed among my favorite younger composers, is of course one half of Furt. You might like his "notated" compositions too, if you like Furt. The Elision Ensemble, based in Australia, has recorded some of his stuff, along with the work of plenty of other interesting composers (several I've mentioned, plus Liza Lim, Michael Smetanin, others...)

http://www.elision.org.au/

is this approach too free-market ?
orchestras etc. have been propped up all over the west by a) govt or b) subcribers and patrons
these orchestras could be said to fighting for society by being 'pop', one step away from Lloyd Webber who makes lot's of money

i hope orchestras don't get much more commercially slanted, and i wish they'd swing back a bit the other way

if people aren't exposed (and live orchestra etiquette provides for a unique form of force feeding) to some of these ideas, they'll die out perhaps as the lack of exposure pre-determines it non 'art/pop'

j, i got the feeling kagel got pissed off with his interviewer and thus increasingly responded as though he didn't think much good would come out of talking to the wire
it's like he had to spell out how each of his earlier famous works were all about and so he ran of patience given space or tape length or style-not-substance questions, so maybe saying you're anti-serialist (and it was a "been there done that" anecdote anyway) was a just a press kit bid to appeal to whatever readership he might attracting and try and at least signal t them "i'm more post-modern than that" and more importantly "i'm not one of those boring composers"

none of the wild-anti-composer came out -- if you have to tell the story yourself to your interviewer you'll be modest and the interviewer still might not get it -- and so some quite spectacular musical coups came across quite flatly

perhaps the prospect of playing his stuff to a music festival had got to kagel getting him scared or anticpating unsympathetic audiences

it must be hard to appear excited when you're dictating to a young unknowledgeable newcomer to your work doing his job

one also wonders if the interview had elements similar to the piece on tilbury that tibury tried to disown himself from subsequently ? is this mag practising censorship ? eg five nyc figures in a row on its covers after 9/11 from memory and then that truly wretched ny commemorative issue -- this mag's biggest constituency in the us is probably nyc -- i suggest this as kagel is almost the opposite of apoltical and it is surprising he had nothing to say of recent historical matters, having rallied against fascism in argentina and germany with such vigour in other crucal times

i also recently bought a milton babbitt cd which had some of his electronic music on it, including some with sometimes processed female vocals doing singing and speaking and [german word for speak/sing, that thing shoenburg pioneered, which some people believe the female singer from sonic youth does], but not the usual opera-like shrieking (thank goodness)

it reminded me of the song-writing technique that i alluded to here

but it was also a poem, as straight forward as poems are, a poem in sound, not just read, more semi-sung, with musical electronic noise as well -- boulez wanted a poem and his musical setting to fold in and out of each other -- well this was the effect here -- not screechy horid opera diva hysteria, more pleasantly audible and recognisable english -- the poetry floated

i found this babbit music easy to get into with the poetry providing a thread -- like one of those zany ee cummings poems, this was a seductive musical affair, and so i would recommend it -- and the instrumental babbitt music on the same cd made sense having listened to the poetry

the music really required a new way of listening (more than the effect of hearing most new bands for the first time) -- so summed up, that was a whole new experience, reminding me that it's so easy to listen to such much music in the same way, get used to it, take it for granted, ignore it or love it for the same old reasons -- here was music to love in a new way

it also sounded like it must have been whipped up on a high-powered computer with morphing/ vocoding as features -- but no, this was very early synth work, pieces from 1964-75 -- it was amazing just how much detail and variety had been packed into the space it had been, providing that very seductive oomph to the head that you get with good art

Being relatively young, I credit the filesharing boom with getting me into classical music, so I'm afraid I can't say much in the way of buying blindly. I suppose my first 'serious' exposure consisted of Bach's "Brandenburg Concertos," back in Bucharest, on my dad's fickle tape player. I also recall a liking for specific pieces that would pop up every now and then, detritus, the usual suspects: Beethoven's 5th and 9th symphonies, Ravel's "Boléro," as well as various piano miniatures I didn't much care to identify at the time. My interests have passed through every musical specter imaginable (and I know that isn't saying much on ILM), until I heard Shostakovich's 8th string quartet, approximately 2 years ago. I felt as though I had exhausted my appreciation of pop music (something which, by now, is only half-true), and used the opportunity to move toward the altogether different.

I don't play any instrument, nor, when asked, can I discern the difference between a G minor and a B flat minor. Among tighter classical circles, such details mean the world--not my cup of tea. If a piece merits careful consideration (e.g. much of Carter, Boulez, Webern) I am willing to take the plunge, but as with a memorable poem, only that which is felt is truly convincing. (Babbitt, Cage or Stockhausen, for instance, I respect more for their ideas than their actual, oft-dogmatic, music). Still, I surprise myself. My interaction with certain composers slips over periods of time, and I already find myself disliking old favorites, and vice versa.

I tend to prefer chamber music. It is difficult to justify the use of a whole orchestra, and very few composers manage the feat. Beethoven's symphonies, for instance, have left me dissatisfied at every turn, despite the many performances, old and new, I have tracked down in order to *hear* the man's extroverted side in all its glory. Only the 6th remains a favorite, due to its rare modesty. His string quartets, on the other hand, are like holding hands with God in 16 different ways, which, all things considered, is absurd, but I can't think of any better way to put it. One might say that string quartets are my 'fetish,' and I generally begin my investigation of a composer with them (provided they're available). Beyond the oft-quoted clichés (intimacy, introspection, musical diary, etc.) I do believe it to be the one medium in which the composer's bare-boned weight is tested.

If a composer has produced a major string quartet cycle, you can be pretty sure I'm a fan. Shostakovich, Bartók, Beethoven and Carter are usually listed here, and you'll hear no anti-canon diatribes from me. I mostly navigate through the 20th century, but I still cling to the notion that Bach was the greatest of composers. That György Ligeti's desert island disc is "Die Kunst der Fuge" played by Evgeni Koroliov should speak for something. The Sonatas and Partitas for solo violin, Suites for solo cello, Mass in B minor, Well-Tempered Clavier, most of the organ music, the St. Matthew Passion, the innumerable Cantatas--I'm afraid that no one has come near yet. I also adore Schubert's lieder (though I only grasp occasional fragments of German), as well as his piano sonatas. Add to that most of what comes from Gubaidulina's pen (in the words of one reviewer, she is incapable of writing boring music) and Mahler's late symphonies, particularly the 9th which not only justifies cheap imitators, but Hollywood movie music in general.

Those I love. As for who I like? Too numerous to name, but Berg, Schnittke, Rihm, Debussy, Ravel, Nono, Messiaen, Boulez, Scelsi, Mozart, Schoenberg, Sciarrino, Sibelius, Lachenmann, all come to mind.

In all honesty, I am more interested in specific performers. Under-rehearsed orchestras come alive in the hands of an able conductor, salon pieces take on character before a talented pianist, and so on. I suppose I should break this down a little.

Conductors:

- Yevgeny Mravinsky, Otto Klemperer, Pierre Boulez, Jascha Horenstein, Rafael Kubelik, Kiril Kondrashin, Carlos Kleiber

Pianists:

- Marc-André Hamelin, Pierre-Laurent Aimard, Stephen Kovacevich, Sviatoslav Richter, Maurizio Pollini, Evgeni Koroliov

Violinists:

- Gidon Kremer, David Oistrakh, Anne-Sophie Mutter, Oleg Kagan, Arthur Grumiaux

Cellists, Violists:

- Mstislav Rostropovich, Heinrich Schiff, Pablo Casals, Yuri Bashmet

String Quartets:

- Arditti, Italian, Borodin, Alban Berg, Busch, Kronos, Takács

Singers:

- Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau, Ian Bostridge, Galina Vishnevskaya, Jan DeGaetani, Cathy Berberian, Elisabeth Schwarzkopf, Christa Ludwig, Emma Kirkby, Peter Pears

...and it goes on in several different directions. As for opera, I've never quite warmed to it because the visuals are inseparable from the music. In other words, a recording gives me only half the story--like a radio play, or somesuch. Pre-Baroque music greatly intrigues me: I love, say, Machaut's motets, or Palestrina, Victoria, Gesualdo, or a great deal of orthodox liturgical music; I'll get around to hearing more of it some time.

And that's that.

Since this thread wz started I spent some of 2004 d/l lots of classical: on one hand this allowed me to dig into composers I wz already familiar with and to acquire other compositions by them -- it was nice to be into feldman by then -- very quickly as well getting introductions to other obscure ones but on the other hand context such as who played what would sometimes get lost. I'd still struggle to names fave quartets but arditti is easily one and kronos another for their recording of feldman 'piano and string quartet' as well as their eclecticism. As for soloists I'd take note of vinko glokobar (who is also a really good composer). Pollini's work with nono on piano is noted.

However, conductors are a totally diff bag as I can't exactly judge good conduction (been thinking of starting a thread abt this for a while), and, as theory is not something I'm familiar with 'what is felt' is the ONLY WAY. I'm still way too much into the 20th century and my dabblings with Beethoven symphonies remained that. There is something very cluttered abt his way with rhythm, or maybe his canonisation has paralysed my response to him...

but back to the 20th: whereas before I'd track down electronic music, now I'd go for their works for ensemble, or combinations with genre. 'jadgen und formen' was my first from wolfgang rihm (ensemble moderne), ditto Richard barrett's work with ELISON ensemble and jonathan harvery's 'bhakti' are the first 3 that come to mind. if not ensemble then str quartet or chamber and any odd combinations --'pierrot lunaire', boulez' marteau', 'zeitmasse', ferneyhough's 'etude transcendentale' (that's a mouthful) birtwistle's 'pulse shadows'. cis comment abt oratorio/works with massed choirs is otm -- I adore schoenberg's 'jacob's ladder' and much of nono/berio/messiaen. and to follow that any operatic works that are "operatic" can work well such as lachenmann's 'das madchen...', ligeti's 'aventures', and, again, nono. having said all of that abt 'anti-opera' I'd like to see an engagement with the musical format. this could be an avenue for exploration (?).

I listed many of my faves by now but I ought to add kagel's 'heterophonie', carter's 5th str quartet, as more of my favourites and webern's use of orchestra as being totally masterful in its provocation: the first punk, as mark s might've said.

also even though I am thinking of extra names I know I shouldn't list as there's something i'll always forget and there are many threads by now so I won't.

dunno how to include, except to say, ..

has anyone seen the Disney comic where professor cagey performs for duckburg fatcats with live jet engine noises and tapes of donald's latest gig pushing a noisy peanut cart and dragged out in horse-shoes and blinkers ?