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Posted by Larry Friedman on September 8, 2006, 6:13 pm Christopher Howell is the only one of your three reviewers to get the correct gist of this disk (Women at the Piano, vol. 1, by Naxos). This disk is truly offensive. Does this mean that we have not progressed beyond this silly, puerile stage of dividing our artists into small, self-exlusive groups? Do we still have to talk about women pianists, black pianists, Jewish pianists, gay pianists, left-handed pianists, pianists who walk with a cane, etc. ? If this is so, we truly have not progressed very far. It is, I suppose, someone's idea of "liberality" to showcase a group of people who are ostensibly put down and maligned, but, as Mr Howell pointed out, can it be honestly said that women are a much maligned minority in music? When was the last time a male singer got an equal amount of adulation and attention as a soprano, for example? Your two other reviewers seem to be loath to say a single negative thing about the disk lest they be considered chauvinistic. This enterprise, however, has nothing to do with left-right, women's liberation-chauvinism. It has to do with unthought silliness. I am far to the left of most people I know, but I do not jump on bandwagons to try to prove this to others. It is not important to me what others think. Would that the Ledins and Mr Heymann felt the same. Their enterprise is, as mentioned, offensive, and it as deep as a puddle. As it is, the listener can form no opinion whatsoever about the pianists contained in this CD because they are presented in the worst possible way: each one gets one track that, in two wrong-headed people's opinion, "represents" the pianist well. The disk does no such thing, of course. I am thinking of producing a disk of left-handed, female, black, handicapped, Lichtensteiner, green-eyed, multi-digital, black-haired pianists all from within five miles of Vaduz. Any suggestions?
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Posted by Don Satz on September 12, 2006, 9:58 pm, in reply to "Women pianists" |
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