In a typically thoughtful contribution to my post Why not play the premier league composers more often? Richard Bratby - who is professionally involved in classical music - mused "speaking solely from my own experience - there is a very noticeable falling-off in ticket sales when a symphony orchestra programmes pre-Beethoven repertoire, irrespective of the quality of the performance or the music, or the energy with which it is marketed. But why?" Now Kea has answered Richard's question with the following comment: Wagner, Mahler, Shostakovich, etc, all sound more or less like film music (or -- more accurately -- film music sounds more or less like recycled bits of Wagner, Mahler, Shostakovich, etc) and therefore don't require any intellectual involvement or serious effort to listen to. Understanding the music of Bach, Mozart or Haydn, etc (or for that matter Schumann, Brahms, Webern, Cage, etc) actually requires people to listen actively rather than being pulled alo...
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You are of course right - my error entirely.
I've now amended the post.
It is now 11.20pm in Norfolk and we've just returned from a concert. The sky is completely clear of cloud, and we have probably the best view we've ever had of a lunar eclipse.
And an awful lot of people are arriving On An Overgrown Path via Google searches for 'lunar eclipse'. I hope they enjoy the theremin story, and return for more.
Theremin and variations on the moon
There's no lunar eclipse in this entry.
Oops. I guess now there is.
By the way, I'm still not sure that the guy sitting with Varese is James Seawright. Jim is known now more for his kinetic sculpture.
It was 50 years ago, but it doesn't look like him, so it could have been some smartly dressed Phillips engineer. I've seen that photo so many times, but I always assumed it was Jim, whom I met in the mid 60's when I lived in NYC and made some visits to the Columbia-Princeton studio. I'll probably research it further until I've satisfied my curiosity.