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The Record Collector of Bray
Posted by Evan Blackmore on September 29, 2021, 9:29 pm
In good Stravinsky’s golden days, when mimicry might well please, a staunch neoclassicist I was, and so obtained his LPs. Both Bach and Brahms he’d decompose and make both me and you sick, but I admired his every pose and vowed his thefts were music.
When Boulez and the avant-garde said squeaks and squawks were assets, I learned that great art must sound hard, and so obtained their cassettes. Whatever noise might blare and bawl and make both me and you sick, I stood resolved to love it all, and call the rubbish music.
When Pärt discarded every note that wasn’t weak and weedy, on minimalists I chose to dote, and so obtained each CD. Composers may take different pains to make both me and you sick, but this one timeless truth remains: we call the nonsense music.
In good Stravinsky’s golden days, when mimicry might well please, a staunch neoclassicist I was, and so obtained his LPs. Both Bach and Brahms he’d decompose and make both me and you sick, but I admired his every pose and vowed his thefts were music.
When Boulez and the avant-garde said squeaks and squawks were assets, I learned that great art must sound hard, and so obtained their cassettes. Whatever noise might blare and bawl and make both me and you sick, I stood resolved to love it all, and call the rubbish music.
When Pärt discarded every note that wasn’t weak and weedy, on minimalists I chose to dote, and so obtained each CD. Composers may take different pains to make both me and you sick, but this one timeless truth remains: we call the nonsense music.
Very amusing, but does this not shoot itself in the foot in the first verse? Surely Stravinsky has now entered the ranks of the classics so, just as his "thefts" are now indisputably music, the doubt is raised whether Boulez' "rubbish" and Part's "nonsense" might achieve this status for later generations, or even today's younger generations (though in this case I share the rhymester's dislike).
Previous Message
Genius !
Previous Message
In good Stravinsky’s golden days, when mimicry might well please, a staunch neoclassicist I was, and so obtained his LPs. Both Bach and Brahms he’d decompose and make both me and you sick, but I admired his every pose and vowed his thefts were music.
When Boulez and the avant-garde said squeaks and squawks were assets, I learned that great art must sound hard, and so obtained their cassettes. Whatever noise might blare and bawl and make both me and you sick, I stood resolved to love it all, and call the rubbish music.
When Pärt discarded every note that wasn’t weak and weedy, on minimalists I chose to dote, and so obtained each CD. Composers may take different pains to make both me and you sick, but this one timeless truth remains: we call the nonsense music.
Oh, a spoof of this kind is seldom if ever written out of dislike--very much the reverse! (Nobody makes as much fun of Rohmer's films as Rohmerites, or of Wagner's operas as Wagnerians.)
I suspect that I personally have unusually broad tastes, but they remain firmly "on this side idolatry." I hope I will always be able to see the funny side of what I like (and dislike).
My real target is not the composers but myself. Every time truly original composers come along with some previously unheard style of noise, they expect me to learn to admire it... and I do my best to oblige. In my own way, I'm being just as fickle as the Vicar of Bray was!
I enjoyed its wry humour, too. Maybe part of the point is that Stravinsky, Boulez and Pärt represent three successive generations of Twentieth Century composers?
I was puzzled, though, by Chris's use of the saying, "shoot oneself in the foot" in respect of the first verse. I always thought that this phrase meant "to inflict pain on oneself in order to avoid a much greater pain being inflicted on one" - as when Malcolm Arnold literally shot himself in the foot; as he said, "I'd joined up to fight the Germans, not swap the trumpet for the bloody cornet!"
Incidentally, it's less than three weeks to his centenary, but I see no sign of any celebrations of this momentous occasion (the Proms, yet again, amounted to little more than utter ignorance).
Previous Message
Very amusing, but does this not shoot itself in the foot in the first verse? Surely Stravinsky has now entered the ranks of the classics so, just as his "thefts" are now indisputably music, the doubt is raised whether Boulez' "rubbish" and Part's "nonsense" might achieve this status for later generations, or even today's younger generations (though in this case I share the rhymester's dislike).
Previous Message
Genius !
Previous Message
In good Stravinsky’s golden days, when mimicry might well please, a staunch neoclassicist I was, and so obtained his LPs. Both Bach and Brahms he’d decompose and make both me and you sick, but I admired his every pose and vowed his thefts were music.
When Boulez and the avant-garde said squeaks and squawks were assets, I learned that great art must sound hard, and so obtained their cassettes. Whatever noise might blare and bawl and make both me and you sick, I stood resolved to love it all, and call the rubbish music.
When Pärt discarded every note that wasn’t weak and weedy, on minimalists I chose to dote, and so obtained each CD. Composers may take different pains to make both me and you sick, but this one timeless truth remains: we call the nonsense music.
I'd always understood "to shoot oneself in the foot" as meaning to hobble oneself, therefore to damage one's own cause. Wondering if I was wrong, I found this definition in the online Cambridge Dictionary: "to do something without intending that spoils a situation for yourself". And, just in case it means something different on the other side of the Atlantic, Webster has: "To act against one's own interests". To change topic, I find it interesting that the American Webster retains the use of "one's" (as I prefer to do myself) while Cambridge uses "yourself".
Previous Message
I enjoyed its wry humour, too. Maybe part of the point is that Stravinsky, Boulez and Pärt represent three successive generations of Twentieth Century composers?
I was puzzled, though, by Chris's use of the saying, "shoot oneself in the foot" in respect of the first verse. I always thought that this phrase meant "to inflict pain on oneself in order to avoid a much greater pain being inflicted on one" - as when Malcolm Arnold literally shot himself in the foot; as he said, "I'd joined up to fight the Germans, not swap the trumpet for the bloody cornet!"
Incidentally, it's less than three weeks to his centenary, but I see no sign of any celebrations of this momentous occasion (the Proms, yet again, amounted to little more than utter ignorance).
Previous Message
Very amusing, but does this not shoot itself in the foot in the first verse? Surely Stravinsky has now entered the ranks of the classics so, just as his "thefts" are now indisputably music, the doubt is raised whether Boulez' "rubbish" and Part's "nonsense" might achieve this status for later generations, or even today's younger generations (though in this case I share the rhymester's dislike).
Previous Message
Genius !
Previous Message
In good Stravinsky’s golden days, when mimicry might well please, a staunch neoclassicist I was, and so obtained his LPs. Both Bach and Brahms he’d decompose and make both me and you sick, but I admired his every pose and vowed his thefts were music.
When Boulez and the avant-garde said squeaks and squawks were assets, I learned that great art must sound hard, and so obtained their cassettes. Whatever noise might blare and bawl and make both me and you sick, I stood resolved to love it all, and call the rubbish music.
When Pärt discarded every note that wasn’t weak and weedy, on minimalists I chose to dote, and so obtained each CD. Composers may take different pains to make both me and you sick, but this one timeless truth remains: we call the nonsense music.
Chris - I'll bet that you are younger than (or not as old as) I am! The reason for the discrepancy is at least in part that dictionaries nowadays see themselves merely as reporters of current usage. Another reason for the divergence is that "your" meaning really refers to an accident, whereas "mine" relates to a deliberate act. It doesn't help (the language) that there are umpteen compact alternatives to the former, but (as far as I can make out) none at all for the latter.
I'd always understood "to shoot oneself in the foot" as meaning to hobble oneself, therefore to damage one's own cause. Wondering if I was wrong, I found this definition in the online Cambridge Dictionary: "to do something without intending that spoils a situation for yourself". And, just in case it means something different on the other side of the Atlantic, Webster has: "To act against one's own interests". To change topic, I find it interesting that the American Webster retains the use of "one's" (as I prefer to do myself) while Cambridge uses "yourself".
Previous Message
I enjoyed its wry humour, too. Maybe part of the point is that Stravinsky, Boulez and Pärt represent three successive generations of Twentieth Century composers?
I was puzzled, though, by Chris's use of the saying, "shoot oneself in the foot" in respect of the first verse. I always thought that this phrase meant "to inflict pain on oneself in order to avoid a much greater pain being inflicted on one" - as when Malcolm Arnold literally shot himself in the foot; as he said, "I'd joined up to fight the Germans, not swap the trumpet for the bloody cornet!"
Incidentally, it's less than three weeks to his centenary, but I see no sign of any celebrations of this momentous occasion (the Proms, yet again, amounted to little more than utter ignorance).
Previous Message
Very amusing, but does this not shoot itself in the foot in the first verse? Surely Stravinsky has now entered the ranks of the classics so, just as his "thefts" are now indisputably music, the doubt is raised whether Boulez' "rubbish" and Part's "nonsense" might achieve this status for later generations, or even today's younger generations (though in this case I share the rhymester's dislike).
Previous Message
Genius !
Previous Message
In good Stravinsky’s golden days, when mimicry might well please, a staunch neoclassicist I was, and so obtained his LPs. Both Bach and Brahms he’d decompose and make both me and you sick, but I admired his every pose and vowed his thefts were music.
When Boulez and the avant-garde said squeaks and squawks were assets, I learned that great art must sound hard, and so obtained their cassettes. Whatever noise might blare and bawl and make both me and you sick, I stood resolved to love it all, and call the rubbish music.
When Pärt discarded every note that wasn’t weak and weedy, on minimalists I chose to dote, and so obtained each CD. Composers may take different pains to make both me and you sick, but this one timeless truth remains: we call the nonsense music.
Evidently the phrase "to shoot oneself in the foot" has two meanings, one now widely understood to mean accidentally hobbling oneself, as in a shooting accident, and the other, of specific WW1 origin, meaning Paul's definition of deliberately inflicting a lesser wound to prevent a worse outcome - but this must now surely be accounted archaic.
The same has happened with phrases like "begs the question", especially when a word has mutated or gone out of currency, as in the solecisms "to be on tenderhooks", "wreck havoc" and "wet your appetite". Unfortunately , we are hostages to "usage is the supreme arbiter" and must sometimes just roll over.