Text 17240, 76 rader
Skriven 2014-09-21 21:15:00 av NANCY BACKUS (1:123/140)
     Kommentar till en text av MICHAEL LOO
Ärende: Re: women in the arts 985
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-=> Quoting Michael Loo to Nancy Backus on 09-20-14  11:48 <=-

 NB>> Bill McGloughlin had a week-long series on Bach Sleeps In On Sunday...
 NB>> focusing on his output during the years when he didn't have a church
 NB>> job, just a patron...  It didn't seem to have slowed him down much...
 ML> Patrons can be exigent, too, plus most creative people are
 ML> driven by something in addition to money.

In this case it was that the patron's wife was of a different religion,
and religious music wasn't being required of Bach...
 
 NB>> that was when he wrote most of his secular pieces, in fact...
 ML> I bet he sneaked a cantata or three in, maybe the sketches
 ML> of a Magnificat, to be filled in and polished up when church
 ML> time came around again.

Oh, I dunno... might have had ideas about a Magnificat, I suppose... he
did write secular cantatas, like the Coffee Cantata...  so probably
didn't feel the need to do up any for future church services...  :)

 NB>>> Female composers of this day and age probably compete
 NB>>> on a closer to par basis... 
 ML>> As economic equalization proceeds, so it should.
 NB>> One expects, anyway... :)
 ML> One hopes. A side effect of the fact that a woman no longer
 ML> has to depend on a man for her identity or even livelihood.
 ML> There are benefits and drawbacks, as with any phenomenon.

Of course.
 
 NB>> I remember stories told of famous composers that competed for it
 NB>> unsuccessfully multiple times... akin, perhaps to a Fullbright...?
 ML> Prizes are notoriously fickle. Ever heard of Selma Lagerlof?
 NB> Faint bell, but maybe it's because we've had something like this
 ML> Nobelist in literature, minor writer best known as I
 ML> recall for children's books. There were better and more
 ML> important authors going begging.

Ah... might have even seen some of her children's books at some time or
other... but I have a hard enough time remembering the Nobel winners of
any sort from year to year...   :)
 
 NB>> conversation before...?  ;)  Some few people become well known
 NB>> because of winning prizes, like Van Cliburn and the Tchaikovsky
 NB>> Piano competition... but many others having won the same different
 NB>> years aren't remembered... for that, anyway....
 ML> He was in the right place at the right time doing the right
 ML> thing. It was the height of the cold war, and he played the
 ML> Tchaikovsky really, really well (I heard it - blew me away),

Yes I know...  

 ML> and the Russian audiences if not the judges were convinced
 ML> he was Russian. There was a rumor (from his name) that he
 ML> was Dutch as well. It was a terrible thing to give first
 ML> prize to an American - it's said that the committee had to
 ML> call Khrushchev to get permission to do so.

It was pretty hard not to give him the prize after he played so well...
he might as well have been channeling Peter Illyich...

 ML> The guy had a good career after but sank into obscurity after
 ML> a while, some say because his father (a hard taskmaster as
 ML> well as his agent) died and left no mechanism for the business
 ML> to continue, some say because of discrimination against gays.

He sponsors his own competition now... in Texas, IIRC...  My mom always
likes to listen to those competitions... being a pianist...

ttyl       neb

... Becoming a vegetarian is a missed steak.

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