HDTenEightyP/NetNews huggingface dataset:
From: danielh@sequent.com (Daniel Hobbs)
Subject: Disappointed (Was Re: Help, which instrument?)
Organization: Sequent Computer Systems Inc.
Distribution: usa
Date: Wed, 15 Apr 92 19:22:31 GMT


I've followed this group for several months, and time and again have
seen relatively uninformed or naive requests treated with ridicule and
lack of seriousness.  The recent request "Help, which instrument?" is
only one example.

Since this is an unmoderated group, I guess folks are free to express
themselves as they wish.  I'm taking this opportunity to say that I
find put-downs of any request disappointing and bad form.  While this
seems an appropriate forum for the "experts" to argue about how many
Beethoven conductors can dance on the head of a pin (and in the areas
that I know something about, I'm as interested in such issues as the
next person), I hope that it also remains a forum where the newcomer
can ask for and get useful information without having to endure the
rhetorical equivalent of hazing.


Dan Hobbs
danielh@sequent.com
Newsgroups: rec.music.classical
From: dcovell@intelhf.hf.intel.com (David Covell)
Subject: Re: Help, which instrument?
Organization: Development Tools Operation, Intel Corp., Hillsboro  OR
Date: Thu, 16 Apr 92 20:10:18 GMT


As a guitarist for many years, I recommend the acoustic guitar, not only
because i personally like it, but because it has several "tactical" advantages
over most other instruments:
1. It is one of the very few instruments that allow both chording and melody.
   You can do either, or both simultaneously, depending on your level of
   ability. This is quite impossible with wind instruments; thus, the guitar
   allows one to provide their own accompaniment. A sax solo is nice, but
   without backing instruments to provide tonal and timing references the
   listener often doesn't get the full picture, since he doesn't hear the
   total sound canvas you hear in your head. 
2. It allows to sing along. Try that on a wind instrument!
3. It's very portable (a piano meets #1 & 2 but fails here. Don't see too many
   pianos at the beach...
4. As mentioned by others, a few chords can go along ways, allowing you to
   basic songs with reasonably decent tone (the dog won't howl) after a few
   months of practice. This isn't usually the case with wind instruments
5. A "student" model guitar is cheaper than a student model wind instrument
   (recorders don't count here ;^)
From: coren@osf.org (Robert Coren)
Newsgroups: rec.music.classical
Subject: Re: Oboe family (was Re: Cor Angl*)
Date: 14 Apr 92 14:10:14 GMT
Article-I.D.: osf.1992Apr14.141014.18014
Organization: Open Software Foundation

In article <1992Apr13.175020.1@eagle.wesleyan.edu>, phoogenboom@eagle.wesleyan.edu writes:
> In article <1992Apr13.153115.24234@osf.org>, coren@osf.org (Robert Coren) writes:
> > I have no idea. I'm only quoting (from memory, so possibly slightly
> > inaccurately). I do know that there's no distinction between "tenor"
> > and "bass" trombones (as there is for the tubas).
> 
> Actually there is.  Tenor in B-flat is pitched a fourth above the bass in F. 
> Modern trombones now have a valve or two that allows them to play in both
> ranges, but still the distinction is usually made, with the difference being in
> the size of the bore and the bell and so on.

What I meant was that Wagner makes no such distinction in the _Ring_,
and presumably expected all his trombones (apart form the contrabass)
to be able to play in both tenor and bass ranges.

> 
> >> > The "contrabass trombone"
> >> > (which he uses sparingly) has a lower range (lower than any
> >> > non-Russian bass voice :-)), although not as low as the "contrabass
> >> 
> >> How low is that?   ;)
> > 
> > Well, again, my scores are at home and I'm not, but I think it gets
> > down around the A below the bass staff.
> 
> I seem to recall reference to a contrabass tbn in b-flat which would probably
> be playable down to below that A (my speculation).  However, the slide would
> have to be VERY long, or crooked.

Once again, I'm talking abstractly about the capabilities of the
instrument, but about Wagner's use of it, or rather my highly
imperfect memory of the latter. I probably will *not* take the trouble
to go through my scores looking for all the contrabass trombone
passages to see how low he actually took it.
From: lampson@tellabs.com (Dave Lampson)
Newsgroups: rec.music.classical
Subject: Re: Jascha Horenstein - help requested
Date: 14 Apr 92 22:51:37 GMT
Organization: Tellabs, Inc., IL

In article <1992Apr12.151917.1@camins.camosun.bc.ca> you write:
>For anyone who is interested I have made avaalable for anonymous FTP the text
>of an article I wrote surveying many available Mahler recordings.[...]
>
>The article (which is about 40K, so I am not posting it here) [...]


I would like to encourage you to post this article to the newsgroup.  40K
is definitely not too large for a general distribution.  Another factor is 
that the majority of NetNews readers are not directly tied to Internet 
(mostly through Uunet), and thus can't access FTP.  I'm one of those people,
so I'd appreciate seeing it in the newsgroup, or alternatively, please mail 
me a copy.



-- 

Dave
lampson@tellabs.com

For detailed lists of Recommended Classical CDs, Basic Repertoire and Buying
Guide access cs.uwp.edu (131.210.1.4) by anonymous FTP, or email me for info.

Contribute to the rec.music.classical biography project!  Email me your bio!
Xref: sparky rec.music.classical:5964 comp.music:2468
From: gt3281c@prism.gatech.EDU (TABLER,JOHN ALEXANDER)
Newsgroups: rec.music.classical,comp.music
Subject: Re: Help, which instrument?
Date: 16 Apr 92 17:54:53 GMT
Followup-To: rec.music.classical
Organization: Georgia Institute of Technology

>In article <1992Apr15.152108.6448@unx.sas.com> sasghm@theseus.unx.sas.com (Gary 
>Merrill) writes:

>>Saxophones suck (I know. I played the beasts for over 15 years until
>>it finally dawned on me that it was a terrible instrument.)

>What an odd thing to say! I wonder what it means.

  Yeah, Peter, I thought so too.  Must be an indication of a narrow mind.  Or 
perhaps the result of being frightened by a sax as a small child.

Bye

John T.
Newsgroups: rec.music.classical
From: smoliar@hilbert.iss.nus.sg (stephen smoliar)
Subject: Re: government and the arts
Reply-To: smoliar@iss.nus.sg (stephen smoliar)
Organization: Institute of Systems Science, NUS, Singapore
Date: Fri, 17 Apr 1992 01:20:05 GMT

In article <1992Apr16.134825.4051@unx.sas.com> sasdrf@daedalus.unx.sas.com
(Dave Frederick) writes:
> Is it appropriate for a government to fund a Piss Christ
>that offends many of its citizens (This is not an indictment over the
>work itself...simply look what the sponsorship of that work and the
>resulting outcry have done to have our government want to impose
>greater control to see the problem with public sponsorship). However,
>were this funded by Ball Jar Co. (see, the mason jar didn't even leak),
>or Musselman's Apple Juice (so pure, you can see through it), etc.
>with their own money, offended citizens could cry outrage without
>affecting the funding. That (rather than the "let the marketplace
>decide") is the primary reason I favor private funding (other
>conservatives may disagree).
>
Probably the best case study here is Bennetton's.  Recently, there
advertisements have taken on a strong flavor of social conscience
in the form of photographs which are as artistic as they are poignant.
However, would the advertising agency which proposed a photograph of the
agony of an AIDS death have even CONSIDERED such an idea prior to the
controversy which arose around Mapplethorpe and Serrano?  As the old
joke goes, first you have to get their attention.  Is it appropriate
for the government to support new ways to seize public attention, even
when some of those ways may offend a portion of that public?  I would
classify such support under the rubric of "continuing education" and
find it entirely appropriate.
-- 
Stephen W. Smoliar; Institute of Systems Science
National University of Singapore; Heng Mui Keng Terrace
Kent Ridge, SINGAPORE 0511
Internet:  smoliar@iss.nus.sg
From: roger@phoenix.Princeton.EDU (Roger Lustig)
Newsgroups: rec.music.classical
Subject: Re: government and the arts
Date: 16 Apr 92 23:47:49 GMT
Distribution: na
Organization: Princeton University
Originator: news@ernie.Princeton.EDU

In article <1992Apr16.200523.10908@unx.sas.com> 
sasghm@theseus.unx.sas.com (Gary Merrill) writes:
>In article <16APR199213161382@amarna.gsfc.nasa.gov>,
 packer@amarna.gsfc.nasa.gov (Charles Packer) writes:
>|> In article <1992Apr15.124058.264@Princeton.EDU>,
 roger@phoenix.Princeton.EDU (Roger Lustig) writes...
>|> >Well, the government has been subsidizing performances of Schoenberg and
>|> >Webern for some time now, and I haven't seen many people casting their

>|> So we've established that citizens will accept the government 
>|> subsidizing art to which they're indifferent. They'll probably
>|> even accept subsidizing =adventurous= art, as long as they can 
>|> remain indifferent to it. So the issue is with art that is
>|> repellant. What's needed there is not ideology, but pragmatism.
>|> A simple solution: Let those who review applications to
>|> government granting agencies refer those applications that might
>|> cause bad press to private foundations which they know are
>|> interested in backing that kind of stuff. It wouldn't need to be
>|> formally enunciated policy to do this, it would just require
>|> that well-connected people be appointed to the grant-giving
>|> positions. 

>In the past, societies which work in this way have been called
>"aristocracies". 

In the present, they're not.  The government has lots of panels and
boards and commissions that are peopled mainly by prominent citizens.

Of course, aristocracy never had anything to do with prominence, either;
instead, it relied on family.  So this is simply wrong.

> Wars have been fought to overthrow them.  I'm

So far, I have not seen any wars fought to overthrow the English, French
, German, Swedish, etc. armies.  Revolutions in these countries -- which
have a fair amount of government funding for arts and appointment to
posts on the basis of connections (which usually come about through
achievement, or concomitant to it) -- have been few and far between, and
when they did happen (as in Germany in 1918, 1933, and 1989) government
funding of the arts was not exactly an issue.

>afraid that a government "of the people" cannot exist in such
>an environment.  Sorry to let ideology intrude here, but I don't
>think we should chuck the constitution for the sake of public
>arts funding.

Which Constitution are you talking about?   I'm not sure what you mean,
other than perhaps the portion of Article 1 that calls upon Congress to
promote "Science and the Useful Arts."

>(Of course, any number of people might point out that there is
>*already* an aristocracy in place for funding the arts and other
>special interest areas.  This is precisely one of my objections.)

In what universe will it not be so?

Roger
Newsgroups: rec.music.classical
From: roger@phoenix.Princeton.EDU (Roger Lustig)
Subject: Re: government and the arts
Originator: news@ernie.Princeton.EDU
Organization: Princeton University
Date: Sun, 12 Apr 1992 01:07:21 GMT

In article <==vj8y=.vlad@netcom.com> vlad@netcom.com (Vladimir Kuznetsov) writes:
>In article <1992Apr9.173358.29008@unx.sas.com> sasghm@theseus.unx.sas.com (Gary Merrill) writes:
>>In article <1992Apr8.221929.21158@scubed.com>, hap@scubed.com (Hap Freiberg) writes:
>>|> In article <1992Apr7.113956.5324@vax.oxford.ac.uk> wilcox@vax.oxford.ac.uk writes:
>>|> >Let government do its duty and support the nation's culture! Without it,
>>|> >the arts will remain the preserve of the middle classes and the well-off.

>Just look what governament support did to the art in Nazy Germany and
>in ex-USSR.

Just look at what government support did to the arts in Medicean
Florence and Papal Rome and Absolutist Paris and Georgian England and
Ducal Saxony and Royal Prussia and Imperial Germany and Weimar Germany
and Federal Germany.  

Can you name an opera house on earth that is not government supported?

For that matter, despite all his trials, Shostakovich drew his salary
from the state for 50 years.  Prokof'ev, too, for a while.  And I do
recall a few decent instrumentalists coming out of the SU: Richter,
Gilels, Oistrakh, Rostropovich, Berman, etc.

> In both cases it was a complete devastation and riuning
>of he culture and cultivating if pseudo-art.

Funny, this very year New York will be host to *two* opera companies
from Russia.  And they weren't constituted in the last 12 months,
either.

>After all what is wrong with "preserve of the middle classes and the
>well-off"? The real art cannot be really mass and/or/ popular.

Devotees of Italian opera might disagree.  Not to mention readers of,
say, Dickens.

On the other hand, how does one tell what "real" art is?  

Roger

Newsgroups: rec.music.classical
From: roger@phoenix.Princeton.EDU (Roger Lustig)
Subject: Re: What in tarnation is "Vivace" in 3/2 time?
Originator: news@ernie.Princeton.EDU
Organization: Princeton University
Date: Wed, 15 Apr 1992 19:00:24 GMT

In article <lacesso.703358669@slave-lake>
 lacesso@cs.UAlberta.CA (Winslowe Lacesso) writes:
>92-04-15 (mercoledi)

>Buon giorno, folks!

>A q for the musician types, if they'd be so kind:

>Recently ran across some suites (didn't have $ to pcopy, & don't recall
>composer - probably some obscure Baroque dude) of which some mvmts were
>marked "Vivace" but in 3/2 time. Lots of half notes, so I was willing to go
>with half note = 160 or higher. They were nice tunes (jigs/gigues), but I 
>was frustrated & puzzled. I don't really like reading 3/2; if it is to be
>"Vivace" at a jig pace, why wouldn't it be written as 3/4 or 3/8 (or 6/8) or
>something? Real question: how does one interpret a Vivace in 3/2 time? I have
>a suspicion that 1/2 = 160 is unusual enough that I'm interpreting something
>wrongly. No, I don't have a music teacher to ask. (Have asked former music
>teacher via letter & gotten no reply. Perhaps I should've included some $$.)

Note values have shrunk over time.  That is, what we'd notate today in
quarters, used to be in halves or even whole notes.  In fact, the old
name for a whole note is "semibreve," which means "half of a short
note."  Double wholes are breves, and double breves are longs.  (In some
music, substitute "triple" for either or both "doubles" in that
sentence.)

If it's a gigue, play it so it sounds like a gigue.  That's all.

Roger
From: wilcox@vax.oxford.ac.uk
Newsgroups: rec.music.classical
Subject: Re: government and the arts
Date: 14 Apr 92 18:04:29 GMT
Organization: Oxford University VAXcluster


 
> Can you name an opera house on earth that is not government supported?

Actually, Glyndbourne in the UK isn't, but I think it only serves to illustrate
my points. It is a country home, part of the "season", performances have a
two-hour interval to allow the patrons to get pissed on champagne and stuff
themselves with smoked salmon, tickets start at about 100 pounds ($180), there
is a waiting list to get tickets and many have now gone to the burgeoning
corporate entertainment business. Need I go on? Unfortunately, they also
produce some of the best opera in this country. We plebs have to wait until the
touring company visits the regions to see them.

Stephen Wilcox

> Roger
From: dbarker@camins.camosun.bc.ca
Newsgroups: rec.music.classical
Subject: Re: Transcriptions of famous pieces for guitar
Date: 13 Apr 92 19:30:14 GMT
Distribution: na
Organization: Camosun College

In article <1992Apr13.131732.23136@cbnewsl.cb.att.com>, wjh@cbnewsl.cb.att.com (william.j.hery) writes:
>>I once heard the finale from Stravinsky's "Firebird" suite on guitar,
>>but don't know who played it. Can anyone help?
> 

I also recently heard a transcription of the first movement of Beethoven's
Fifth on the guitar, mercifully I cannot remember the culprit. It seemed
to me like a perfect example of how to trivialise a masterpiece. I had
a similar reaction to a two-guitar version of Bach's Goldberg Variations.
Both recordings reminded me of why I gave up playing classical guitar
over 20 years (sigh!) ago.

-- 
Deryk Barker
Computer Science Dept.
Camosun College,
Victoria, BC
Canada
Newsgroups: rec.music.classical
From: warsaw@athena.mit.edu (Daniel Maung)
Subject: Classical CDs forsale
Organization: Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Distribution: usa
Date: Tue, 7 Apr 1992 05:32:02 GMT

I have the following cds for sale.  They are all in mint condition.
Please add $1 for postage and handling.. (i.e. $1 per transaction.. NOT 
per CD!)  Please contact me at warsaw@athena.mit.edu if interested.  Thanks.

Here's the list:


Composer and Work             Performer                   Label


Stravinsky                Lorin Maazel                    Telarc
The Rite of Spring  $8      The Cleveland Orchestra

Chopin                   Ida Czernicka, Piano             Vienna Master Series
Waltzes, Preludes, and 
Mazurka , etc.              $4

Grieg: Holberg Suite      Neville Marriner                   London
Elegiac Melodies
Sibelius: Valse Triste
Nielsen: Little Suite
Wiren: Serenade +  Sibelius : Rakastava      $7

Elgar:Introduction and Allegro       Orpheus Chamber Orchestra     DG
Serenade for String Orchestra 
Elegy for strings
Vaughan Williams: Fantasia on Greensleeves
Fantasia on a Theme by Thomas Tallis   $8

Prokofiev: Peter and the Wolf           Vienna Philharmonic      DG
Saint Saens: Carnival of the Animals      Karl Bohm
$8

Haydn: Symphony 93 & 100               Claudio Abbado          DG
$8                              Chamber Orchestra of Europe

Mussorgsky: Pictures at an        Giuseppe Sinopoli              DG
Exhibition                          New York Philharmonic
Night on a Bald Mountain
Ravel: Valses nobles et sentimentales   $8
                         
Ravel: Bolero                       Riccardo Muti              EMI/Angel
Liszt: Les Preludes                The Philadelphia Orchestra
Tchaikovsky: 1812 Overture   $8

Italian Opera Arias               Kiri Te Kanawa               EMI/Angel
$8

Beethoven                         Wilhelm Kempff, Piano        DG/Time-Life
Piano Sonatas 
Pathetique, Moonlight, Pastoral, NO. 24     $6

Music of the Night             John Williams                    Sony Classical
(Pops on Broadway)  $8        Boston Pops

Jesse Norman Live             Geoffrey Parsons                  Philips
$8

Mahler: Symphony No. 2         Bruno Walter                   CBS Masterworks
2 cd set   $17          Columbia Symphony Orchestra

Mahler: Symphony No. 1        Bruno Walter                  CBS Masterworks
$8                       Columbia Symphony Orchestra

Mahler:  Symphony NO. 8      Robert Shaw                      Telarc
$8                       Atlanta Symphony and Chorus
From: roger@phoenix.Princeton.EDU (Roger Lustig)
Newsgroups: rec.music.classical
Subject: Re: government and the arts
Date: 9 Apr 92 03:14:28 GMT
Organization: Princeton University
Originator: news@ernie.Princeton.EDU

In article <ku7cgiINNk2h@calvin.usc.edu> alves@calvin.usc.edu (William Alves) writes:
>To once again bring up an argument I used in another newsgroup: If Mozart
>were alive today and able to collect retroactive royalties, he would
>likely be richer than Paul McCartney. As it is, thank goodness he had
>government support when he did or we might not have much of his music
>today.

Oddly enough, he had less than most, and was looking for more.  

>The point is, I would be willing to concede letting "the market" being
>the final arbiter of what art is worthy of support IF the market included
>not just the current market, but the market for the future also. Letting
>the free market of consumers as it is dictate the market tends to support
>only what is of huge immediate interest, no matter how fleeting. Thus
>knee-jerk short-term exploitive commercialism is tremendously rewarded,
>even though no one will remember it next year.

More to the point, our culture is so obviously AGAINST that attitude
that it's hardly worth discussing.  After all, look at the state-funded
conservatories and music departments?  Are we to get rid of those, too?
Are we to let the market drive all curricula?  

Nobody''s eve ncome close to proposing this.

>Meanwhile, works which will potentially provide more enjoyment to more
>people are not supported because its audience may accumulate over years
>or decades. Worse yet, many of those works are never written at all
>because potential Mozarts are out there driving cabs.

I'm not so sure they are.  For one thing, many composers DO have jobs.
For another, hardly any "serious" composers have EVER supported
themselves by composing.  In the 19th century, I can think of one:
Beethoven.  Chopin taught piano.  Mendelssohn was a conservatory
director.  Berlioz conducted and wrote.  Brahms conducted and edited and
performed.  Wagner got a government subsidy 8-) and conducted.  

Well, I suppose Verdi and some of the opera composers made their money
off of opera, but until about 1850, none of them saw their own works,
even, as something for posterity.  They were writing pop music...

Before the 19thC, ALL musicians had other jobs than composing.  Look at
Bach -- music director of an entire town.  Handel produced his own
operas, and had a governmnet subsidy...  Haydn ran a court orchestra.
Others had church or court jobs that involved much more than composing.

The "potential Mozarts" have decided that they SHOULD be making their
money by composing, as opposed to other forms of musical activity.  I
find this disturbing.

Roger
Newsgroups: rec.music.classical
From: dbarker@camins.camosun.bc.ca
Subject: Classical trivia - was _The Love for Three Oranges_
Organization: Camosun College
Date: Wed, 15 Apr 1992 21:13:47 GMT

While we're into trivial connections: what's the connection between "Hogan's
Heros" and one of Gustav Mahler's best know proteges?

-- 
Deryk Barker
Computer Science Dept.
Camosun College,
Victoria, BC
Canada
From: parson_r@cubldr.colorado.edu (Robert Parson)
Newsgroups: rec.music.classical
Subject: Janacek "Glagolitic Mass"
Date: 11 Apr 92 21:45:13 GMT
Organization: University of Colorado, Boulder


 Is anyone here familiar with recordings of Janacek's "Glagolitic Mass"?
 I have heard two, one conducted by Mackerras (I don't have the
rest of the information) and a Galleria CD conducted by Kubelik. I much
preferred the Mackerras, but I've seen a couple of new CD's appear in the
last year or two.

Robert