On Jun 1, 2009, at 9:49 AM, Roman Turovsky wrote: > before you really set out to position yourself as a shallow critic: > you should at least try to acquaint yourself with Reger's music (a > lot of it is rather grand, FYI...).
If I set out to position myself as any kind of critic, I'll do it by writing about something that more than 100 people on the planet care about. Nobody, with the possible exception of Rudolf Louis, ever got positioned anywhere by writing about Reger. I suppose I could make a stab at being the first if I wrote in Rolling Stone that he composed the "first fascist sinfonietta," but it's a longshot. BTW, aside from implying that it wasn't pithy, something Roman doesn't voice disagreement with, I expressed no opinion about Reger's music. Nor did I say I was unacquainted with it, though I suppose he inferred as much by first inferring that I didn't like any of it and then assuming that dislike stemmed from ignorance. And there's no question that he's better known that one non-substantive scatological snipe than for the Sinfonietta that occasioned it. Roman is undoubtedly defensive because Reger has been unduly dumped on, with a lot of published regurgitators (like Wallechinsky and Wallace in The Book of Lists) picking up on Stravinsky's distate for Reger and calling him the worst composer ever. Talk about memorable critiques: Stravinsky once remarked when he was young he met Reger, and "He and his music repulsed me in about equal measure." Stravinsky would use the description "dull as Reger." And if you're a big fan of outraged pan reviews, try this excerpt from Felton and Fowler's list-book, "Best, Worst and Most Unusual," under the entries "worst composer," worst piano concerto," and "worst string quartet": http://books.google.com/books?id=tpu2du-miikC&pg=PA56&lpg=PA56&dq=% 22dull+as+reger% 22&source=bl&ots=j_CM8T07mw&sig=GwyfdAFuizSyAoEI1mxxjWYRNq8&hl=en&ei=JDA kSvj1NJ6utAO998ShBA&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=1#PPA56,M1 Of course, if one critic's nasty notice could define the world's worst composer, concerto or quartet, Beethoven could just as easily have won those titles. So some listeners are surprised to find they actually like Reger. -- To get on or off this list see list information at http://www.cs.dartmouth.edu/~wbc/lute-admin/index.html
