yurshta

You referenced something about Classical music which I find deplorable but it is good that you brought it up in your Who Listens post.

That is the snob element. I myself am a Neo-Classical composer who eats, drinks, breathes and defecates Classical music (broad sense Baroque, Classical, Romantic, Modernist) or art music of any type including a few select operas like La Wally by Catalini, La Cinerentola by Rossini, but primarily I listen to the keyboard music on CDs of Chopin and Liszt (two of my all time favorites) Beethoven, Mozart, Bach, you name it. I specialize in the study of Piano Concerti like the five of Beethoven ending with his great Emperor Concerto, the many of Mozart (I love his D minor Concerto), the two concerti of another American composer who was unfortunately eclipsed by George Gershwin's blending of "negro" harmonies and rhythms tacked onto a strong classical foundation and that is Edward MacDowell who lived in New England. All-American, a woodsman, hunter, hiker and burly outdoors type, who also trained under Franz Liszt and was known as possessing the most demonic speed of almost any pianist of his time. His music has a modern flair that is not seen in many other composers who lived in the same time (late 1800s overlapping the 1900s) but now Edward MacDowell whose Sea Pieces and New England Idylls are trademark piano shorts and often played publicly and privately by myself in my performing days--now over due to severe injury to my left arm that occurred during a fight for my life against two armed attackers who wanted to take me out for good!

I guess some critics are worse than others! I didn't think the performance was that bad! [Actually, the attack which occurred when I was 19 was an impromptu "*** bashing" and "Jew bashing" which was all the rage at that time and the strange thing was that I was not even ***, in fact was not sexually active at all, as I spent all my time working towards my goal (never reached thanks to injury and neuropathy) of being a recognized concert pianist of high rank. I admired greats like Arrau, Horowitz, Ashkenazy, Anda, Slobodyanik, Barenbaum (another Jew like myself and Ashkenazy) and the greatest female virtuoso of the 20th century Martha Argerich from Argentina.

So what the heck, having no money, no career and living in the South, I decided to bail and joined the Army! Heck, I needed the money. Years later after leaving service I acquired my third high ranking blackbelt in the martial arts and occassionally teach defensive classes to women and children. I have my own martial art style known as combat wrestling but that is another ballgame!

But the injury to my left arm--broken elbow, broken wrist, crushed fingers, and rotator cuff damage which a botched surgery made worse and resulted in permanent and lifelong injury (which made ordinary activities possible) but piano performance at the highest levels impossible now as my left hand (my former best hand) would crap out and it would feel like a knife had been heated in an open fire and driven straight through the hand.

It has never healed and so be it. I seldom play in public any more despite quite a few offers, but then in the Classical business the toughest music business of all genres of music, the most cut-throat, difficult, thankless field of all, if you can't hang with the big boys, might as well bail.

So you ask about do I listen to Classical. I've thousands upon thousands of hours of listening to Classical music, but the point you were referencing was the SNOB APPEAL of Classical music like some stupid person saying "Oh, I just love Beethoven and bought the latest version of his 9th on CD from Sony Classical" or the snob opera fans who dress up to the Nth degree in suit and tie and designer gowns and show up at all the operas that stage in the big cities like New York just to see and be seen as an opera fan, despite detesting the music!

You see this at concerts of major pianists like Ashkenazy or Argerich as well. Half the audience is there because they truly love the artist or the music, the rest are just a bunch of retarded snobs praying to God the performance doesn't last overlong, and often forgetting to turn their cellphones off (which should be banned from all Classical performances and recitals).

It's a deplorable fact that so many dillweeds prefer to attend these concerts or purchase a few select CDs of say Liszt's Symphonic poems or Chopin's two Concerti just to say "Hey, I'm like a smart person, I listen to the GOOD music" I'm hip to culture. BS BS BS blah blah blah. A total crock, but then in America now it's all appearance and superficiality. You gotta walk the walk and talk the talk and have the look and you'll go far. Without it, the publishers and recording studios will tell you to go F*#& yourself fast.
How can such a truly great performer like Martha Argerich compete with Britney Spears (another stupid female pop artist who has the look, a tolerable voice and is promoted largely for her IMAGE than her content or ability.)

Then compare salaries. A top rank concert pianist with a gruelling performance makes six figures (comparable to a doctor) with a few recording contracts might make $500,000 a year, and a handful have become millionaires, but that is the exception not the rule.

Then some retarded pop artist comes along and makes 25 million a year! with endorsements and all that jazz.

It's been quite awhile since a concert pianist or composer was treated like a celebrity (Last time was Van Cliburn's ticker tape parade in New York after being the first American to defeat the Russians at the Tchaikovsky Piano Competition) I don't know, Van Cliburn was truly an outstanding performer of the most demanding pieces, but I detect a bit of a Cold War BS going on here as well. Besides any competition like Ice Skating, Gymnatistics that involve judges flip flop and the winner is usually determinable from the start.

Well, enough said.
For those who love Classical music, may they have my eternal blessings. For those who love my own Neo-Classical music---think musicofthegods.com may they live long and prosper. For those who don't, who cares!

But for the Classical music snobs who attend concerts and operas just to appear like some artsy smart type or "cultured" the entire web is not large enough to fill with my venomous curses and invectives. I spit on the Classical music snob, and the retards with their token Mozart CD which they never listen to, just own so they can say "Hey, I'm cultured"

BS. If you love the music, listen to it. If you prefer Britney Spears listen to her. If you don't, stop the pretense. Nothing is more disgusting than a shallow superficial culture wannabe pretentious obsequious lame-ass art snob!

Except critics, those retards who failed in their respective field for incompetence and make a living blasting every other artist good or bad that comes their way!

Sincerely JR Moore, another American Composer...