{"id":986,"date":"2008-05-23T09:59:06","date_gmt":"2008-05-23T16:59:06","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.nobleviola.com\/wordpress\/?p=986"},"modified":"2013-02-07T18:57:14","modified_gmt":"2013-02-08T02:57:14","slug":"snobbery-for-dummies","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.nobleviola.com\/wordpress\/2008\/05\/23\/snobbery-for-dummies\/","title":{"rendered":"snobbery for dummies"},"content":{"rendered":"

Columnist Joel Stein of the Los Angeles Times has written a great column<\/a> on how to become an annoying, insufferable, classical music snob.\u00c2\u00a0 It’s quite a funny read, and oh so true.\u00c2\u00a0 My favorite bit is his concert experience with Mahler’s Sixth Symphony:<\/p>\n

I downloaded Leonard Bernstein’s version of Mahler’s Sixth and read the Wikipedia entry about the symphony. This turned out to be really smart because I found out the symphony not only requires a triangle, a glockenspiel and, awesomely, cowbells, but, according to Mahler, a hammer that was to be pounded “brief and mighty, but dull in resonance and with a nonmetallic character (like the fall of an ax).” Somewhere, a child-prodigy percussionist is being yelled at for not pounding a wooden hammer dully enough.<\/p>\n

That night, I did a lot of staring at the hammer guy, who, to my delight, was also the triangle and cowbell guy. And his hammer was this gigantic, Wile E. Coyote-sized mallet that he slammed maybe five times onto this enormous wood chopping block on wheels. I couldn’t decide if I was more delighted by the notion of Eschenbach, who conducts this symphony all over the world, trying to persuade airport security to let him board with his carry-on giant hammer, or the idea that the Philharmonic keeps a giant hammer and table in storage just for Mahler’s Sixth. Or that, for the rest of my life, I can talk about the sublime dullness of the hammer, which gets lost on recordings, as soon as Mahler’s Sixth comes up in conversation. Which it will. Because I will bring it up.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Read the entire column here<\/a>.
\nVia ArtsJournal.com<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Columnist Joel Stein of the Los Angeles Times has written a great column on how to become an annoying, insufferable, classical music snob.\u00c2\u00a0 It’s quite a funny read, and oh so true.\u00c2\u00a0 My favorite bit is his concert experience with Mahler’s Sixth Symphony: I downloaded Leonard Bernstein’s version of Mahler’s Sixth and read the Wikipedia […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":303,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[148,115,2],"tags":[313,169],"class_list":["post-986","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-appreciations","category-music","category-the-orchestra-world","tag-los-angeles-philharmonic","tag-mahler"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/pa8kC-fU","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":7791,"url":"https:\/\/www.nobleviola.com\/wordpress\/2012\/08\/23\/hammer-blows-of-fate\/","url_meta":{"origin":986,"position":0},"title":"hammer blows of fate","author":"Charles Noble","date":"August 23, 2012","format":false,"excerpt":"I'm working on notes for the Oregon Symphony's November 3-5, 2012 performances of Mahler's Sixth Symphony, sometimes referred to as the \"Tragic\". Here's a remarkable performance by the Chicago Symphony Orchestra and Bernard Haitink from a 2008 performance at Royal Albert Hall in London, England.","rel":"","context":"In "the orchestra world"","block_context":{"text":"the orchestra world","link":"https:\/\/www.nobleviola.com\/wordpress\/category\/music\/the-orchestra-world\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":934,"url":"https:\/\/www.nobleviola.com\/wordpress\/2008\/04\/19\/a-few-old-school-mahlers-9th-recordings\/","url_meta":{"origin":986,"position":1},"title":"A few old-school Mahler’s 9th recordings","author":"Jeffrey Work","date":"April 19, 2008","format":false,"excerpt":"I'm pleased to welcome as my first guest blogger Jeffrey Work, principal trumpet of the Oregon Symphony. He, among other things, is an enthusiastic collector of old recordings, and as such, I thought that he might like to delve into his massive collection and give us some nuggets that relate\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "appreciation"","block_context":{"text":"appreciation","link":"https:\/\/www.nobleviola.com\/wordpress\/category\/music\/appreciations\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":8006,"url":"https:\/\/www.nobleviola.com\/wordpress\/2012\/11\/03\/program-notes-for-this-weekend\/","url_meta":{"origin":986,"position":2},"title":"program notes for this weekend","author":"Charles Noble","date":"November 3, 2012","format":false,"excerpt":"Here's a link to my notes for this weekend's concerts of the Oregon Symphony - Schubert's Incidental Music to Rosamunde and Mahler's Sixth Symphony. Though they are credited to Elizabeth Schwartz (the orchestra's excellent full-time annotator), I wrote them. Enjoy, and let me know what you think of them -\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "appreciation"","block_context":{"text":"appreciation","link":"https:\/\/www.nobleviola.com\/wordpress\/category\/music\/appreciations\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":7575,"url":"https:\/\/www.nobleviola.com\/wordpress\/2012\/05\/09\/sibelius-an-mahler\/","url_meta":{"origin":986,"position":3},"title":"sibelius & mahler","author":"Charles Noble","date":"May 9, 2012","format":false,"excerpt":"[In October 1907] Sibelius met the composer Gustav Mahler, who was visiting Helsinki. The two colleagues noticed that they had experienced the same phenomenon: with each new symphony both of them always lost listeners who had been captivated by the previous symphony. But they disagreed about the essence of the\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "appreciation"","block_context":{"text":"appreciation","link":"https:\/\/www.nobleviola.com\/wordpress\/category\/music\/appreciations\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.nobleviola.com\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/05\/JS_Goteborg_1915-200x306.gif?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":4358,"url":"https:\/\/www.nobleviola.com\/wordpress\/2010\/04\/07\/itching-for-mahler\/","url_meta":{"origin":986,"position":4},"title":"itching for mahler","author":"Charles Noble","date":"April 7, 2010","format":false,"excerpt":"This week our music director is in Boston filling in for an ailing James Levine, and he's conducting Mahler's mighty Seventh Symphony. (Which will be streamed live on the internet at 7:00 p.m. EDT on April 10, 2010 - look for the \"Listen Live\" box on the left side of\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "programming"","block_context":{"text":"programming","link":"https:\/\/www.nobleviola.com\/wordpress\/category\/music\/programming-music\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.nobleviola.com\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/2009\/05\/gustav_mahler.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.nobleviola.com\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/2009\/05\/gustav_mahler.jpg?resize=350%2C200 1x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.nobleviola.com\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/2009\/05\/gustav_mahler.jpg?resize=525%2C300 1.5x"},"classes":[]},{"id":7998,"url":"https:\/\/www.nobleviola.com\/wordpress\/2012\/10\/31\/angry-symphony-guy-strikes-again\/","url_meta":{"origin":986,"position":5},"title":"angry symphony guy strikes again","author":"Charles Noble","date":"October 31, 2012","format":false,"excerpt":"From the Portland Mercury arts listings: OREGON SYMPHONY: MAHLER'S SIXTH (Arlene Schnitzer Concert Hall, 1037 SW Broadway) Gustav Mahler was a much better human than I'll ever be. Case in point: If someone gave me a sledgehammer, my first impulse would be to enter Ned Lannamann's pathetic cubicle at the\u00a0Mercury\u00a0offices\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "the orchestra world"","block_context":{"text":"the orchestra world","link":"https:\/\/www.nobleviola.com\/wordpress\/category\/music\/the-orchestra-world\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nobleviola.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/986","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nobleviola.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nobleviola.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nobleviola.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/303"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nobleviola.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=986"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.nobleviola.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/986\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nobleviola.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=986"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nobleviola.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=986"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nobleviola.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=986"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}