On Oct 11, 3:18 pm, O <ow...@denofinequityx.com> wrote:

Since when were writers paid according to the quality of their ideas?

--Jeff

Le jeudi 11 octobre 2012 22:44:13 UTC+2, Kip Williams a écrit :

"bigoted, constipated German / Austrians" ?

Herman wrote, On 10/11/12 9:39 PM:

Yes. Though it's a heaping helping of content-free sneering, it's still
noticeably more restrained and germane than:

'Yeah, a "kind of ensemble culture" uber alles... Perhaps they should
draw up a list of composers whose 'cultures' and works represent
degenerate music, and should be banned.'

Kip W

On Oct 9, 12:37 pm, "Norman Schwartz" <n...@optonline.net> wrote:

What a bizarre idea. Russian orchestras have great ensemble culture,
too. I heard the St.Petersburg Philharmonic just a few months ago - no
American orchestra is even in the same league, especially when it
comes to the string sound and playing culture.

Yes, that's why I said I was impressed by his conducting, even if not
all of it registered with the orchestra. I kept thinking what an even
better performance he could have achieved with a more responsive and
engaged orchestra.

Another completely bizarre outburst. I wasn't even talking about
German orchestras in particular. European orchestras in general, no
matter if they are from Russia, the Czech Republic, Italy, France,
Scandinavia, the Netherlands, England etcetcetc all have that ensemble
culture which is so sadly lacking in American orchestras.

On Oct 11, 2:03 pm, "Norman Schwartz" <n...@optonline.net> wrote:

Obviously you have no clue what I am actually talking about. You are
carrying a lot of xenophobic baggage and at least borderline racist
baggage with you. That it provokes you to see people from a foreign
country carry on their own cultural heritage is deeply saddening. And
there is nothing "constipated" about the way those orchestras play.
But "constipated" does describe what I witnessed in those two
concerts, people just sitting there stiff like broomsticks and poking
their way through the music. They didn't seem to enjoy playing and
having fun that much, and correspondignly what they produced was just
a routine rendering of the music, with some nuances added by Gilbert
who however had to work very hard to get them there.. That was my
criticism.

I am not as fixated on race and all that as you are, but now that you
mention it, it occurred to me just how very little black people there
are in American orchestras - and black people are after all 12% or so
of the overall population. The people in American orchestras are
almost exclusively white and Asian. They don't have a really diverse
cultural heritage either. Most Americans don't even speak the
languages of their ancestors even when their parents were first
generation immigrants.

Speaking of German orchestras, you must never have heard of the
Berliner Philharmoniker. Now that is a truly diverse and very
international orchestra - and at the same time one which carries on a
very long and deep tradition. Music does transcend cultural boundaries
- except in America where there is no real culture, just a homogenized
and cheapened down sauce of the lowest common denominators.

Well, gee, it could have something to do with the fact that most African-Americans would rather be out there setting one global trend after the next in their own style rather than _sit_ in an orchestra surrounded by a bunch of whiteys playing old music by a bunch of dead whiteys. That said, there are some notable classically-trained black American musicians out there. Quincy Jones comes to mind — golly, he even married a German!

Really, is that so? Again, I would like to invite you Boyle Heights to speak with some 'personal friends' of mine. Please let me know when to expect you.

Yes, the Berlin Philharmonic. And the Vienna Philharmonic? I saw them last year, twice. Great orchestra. All white, almost all male, and very 'exclusive'. Good ol' boys could pick them fiddles!

<< In response to international protests and wide-spread, negative
media coverage, the Vienna Philharmonic nominally ended its policy of
excluding women in 1997.  The orchestra allowed its harpist, Anna
Lelkes, who had performed with them for 26 years in an associate
position, to become an official member.  Unfortunately, the changes
stopped there.  For the next ten years (1997-2006), no further women
were given membership, except for Ms. Lelkes’ replacement, the harpist
Charlotte Balzereit.

By 2007, the Vienna Philharmonic once again faced protest and negative
media because it had reneged on its promise to hire women.   To
counter these problems, the orchestra allowed five women to become
members between 2007 and 2011.

• Charlotte Balzereit (harp, 2004)
• Ursula Plaichinger (viola, 2007)
• Isabelle Ballot (first violin, 2008)
• Daniela Ivanova (viola, 2010)
• Olesya Kurylak (first violin, 2011)
• Albena Danailova (concertmaster, 2011)

Even with these additions, the Vienna Philharmonic still has the
lowest ratio of women members in the world – 121 to 6.  And not
surprisingly, during the 14 years since it agreed to admit women, it
has hired them at a lower rate than any other orchestra.

The Vienna Philharmonic also functions as the Vienna State Opera
Orchestra.  To enter the Philharmonic, musicians must first be hired
by the Vienna State Opera and complete a tenure period which is
usually about three years.  Only one member of the Opera Orchestra has
not been given membership in the Philharmonic after completing a
tenure period, the cellist Ursula Wex, who was hired in 2003.  For the
last eight years, she has been denied membership in the Vienna
Philharmonic because she took maternity leave while a member of the
State Opera Orchestra.

The Vienna State Opera Orchestra has not hired any new women members
in the last four years, so aside from Ms.Wex whose situation is
unlikely to change, there are currently no further women in the
orchestra who can be tenured into the Philharmonic. (Exceptions might
exist if the Opera Orchesrtra has hired women with contracts beginning
in this season, i.e. September 2011.  The State Opera is often a few
months behind in updating its website, which is what I use to monitor
the new hires.)   Even if a woman is hired in 2012, she will not be
eligible for membership in the Philharmonic until at least 2015.  This
means that for at least the next three years, the rate of increase for
women in the Vienna Philharmonic will be 0%.  (And if any women have
been engaged for the beginning of the current season, they would
probably also not be tenured into the Philharmonic until 2015.)

This also means that in the 18 years between 1997 and 2015, the
Philharmonic will have given only six women membership, even though
over half of the orchestra’s personnel will have been replaced during
this period.  The Vienna Philharmonic thus lags far behind
international norms.  Below is a table showing the total percentages
of women in seven comparable major orchestras, and the increase in the
membership of women during the four years from 2005 to 2009:

Orchestra
% of women
% increase 2005-09

• Gürzenich Orchester (orchestra of the Cologne Opera) 37.50% 9.27%
• New York Philharmonic 48.91% 8.32%
• Philharmonisches Staatsorchester Hamburg 37.21% 7.21%
• Orchester der Deutschen Oper Berlin 27.50% 6.53%
• Chicago Symphony 34.34% 6.46%
• Opera Orchestra of Zurich 45.22% 6.43%
• Concertgebouworkest 35.04% 6.09%

In only four years, the ratio of women in these major orchestras
increased by up to 9%, while the Vienna Philharmonic will have only
increased its membership of women to 4.7% in the 18 years from 1997 to
2015.

In major orchestras, musicians work on average about 30 years before
retirement.  In an average sized orchestra, this creates about a 4.3%
yearly turnover for their personnel.  (There is a variable margin of
error in this number, since some musicians work longer than 30 years,
and some leave sooner due to deaths or jobs such as professorships.)
The Vienna Philharmonic averages about 130 members, so this comes to
about 5.2 musicians per year that need to be hired as replacements for
retirees.  This allows us to reasonably estimate the m/f ratios for
new hires in the Vienna Philharmonic as shown in the table below:

VPO By Year

Est. number of new men hired
New women hired
% of women among new hires

1997-2006         52         1         1.96%
2007-2011         21         5         19.23%
2012-2015         15         0         0%

Even accounting for a large margin of error in the estimates for men
hired, we see radical variations in the ratio of women among new hires
during these three periods.  After the Philharmonic agreed to admit
women in 1997, the intense media scrutiny of the orchestra and the
protests against it dropped off considerably.  The Vienna Philharmonic
was thus allowed to continue its discrimination and not hire any women
aside from one woman harpist for the next ten years.

In 2007, scrutiny of the Philharmonic increased after I published a
widely read article documenting the continued exclusion of women, and
combined it with a case study about the orchestra’s abuse and firing
of a recently hired woman violinist.  To counter the renewed
controversy, the Philharmonic gave membership to five women in the
next five years (2007-2011), including a woman concertmaster.  This
raised the ratio of women among new hires during this five year period
to about 19.23% — which approaches international standards for major
orchestras in the German-speaking world.  It also raised the overall
membership of women in the Vienna Philharmonic during this five year
period by 0.78% per year which is slightly above the international
standard of 0.71% per year.

The State Opera’s employment of a woman concertmaster, Albena
Danailova, was a media sensation and improved the orchestra’s image.
This is consistent with sociological models which suggest that
isocratic organizations resist change by placing outsiders in key
positions to justify and rationalize the same group’s exclusion in the
rank and file.  As expected, protests and media scrutiny were once
again greatly reduced, which allowed the State Opera Orchestra to not
hire any additional women for the next four years (2008-2011).

Since no new women have been hired by the State Opera Orchestra in
four years, there are currently none waiting to be tenured into the
Philharmonic (except Ms. Wex whose status is unlikely to change).
Even if a woman is hired in 2012, she will have to wait at least three
years before becoming a member.  The ratio for women among new members
in the Philharmonic will thus reflect the Staatsoper's reduction and
drop to 0% for at least the next three years. >>

I'll take the liberty of providing the URL-credit for Oscar's lengthy quote.

http://www.osborne-conant.org/vpo2011.htm

It's interesting to see that Oscar's quote stops at the point the article moves on the the VPO hiring a new trombone player. The new trombone player comes from Texas.

One could call that a pretty conspicuous break with the VPO's ethnocentric hiring tradition, but the writer manages to frame this in negative terms of prejudice again. The lower brass is supposed to have inferior status in the VPO thinking, because of its associations with oompa folk tunes. Which is how an American manages to sneak in.

This is obviously made up by the writer. You can't build and maintain a world class orchestra while relegating entire sections to an inferior status. Besides, internationally, the VPO brand is to a large degree built on the New Year's Day concert, which is about taking the oompa thing to a sublime level of sophistication.

That being said there's no contest the VPO's hiring so few female members is really absurd, in an age that's overflowing with excellent young female instrumentalists.

Still, as the article shows, the VPO keeps making very expensive American tours, visiting (as noted) campuses of supposedly liberal universities, because Americans are hung up on seeing the orchestra that plays the New Year's Day concert.

Sorry guys. You get what you pay for. You want olde worlde tradition? This is what you get.

Plus it provides a welcome opportunity for protest groups.

There are at least a dozen orchestras in the German - Austrian tradition that could provide an equally thrilling concert experience, but these are not invited. They don't do the televised New Year's Day concert.

OMG, a straw-chewing Texan talking like Paul Newman in Hud? Perish the thought. Fricsay hated Houston. I reckon they brought him in for the jokes is all, a bone-blowin' Texan in a ten gallon hat.

I found this one of the most compelling passages in the article:

<< Only one member of the Vienna State Opera Orchestra has not been given membership in the Philharmonic after completing a tenure period, the cellist Ursula Wex, who was hired in 2003. For the last eight years, she has been denied membership in the Vienna Philharmonic because she took maternity leave while a member of the State Opera Orchestra. >>

Hang-up announcement courtesy of Mr. Yuja Wang-Dresses-Like-A-Hooker.

Vienna Philharmonic — I'm Lovin' It ™

Yeah, that's the ticket!

Le vendredi 12 octobre 2012 10:47:35 UTC+2, Oscar a écrit :

Well, that's only logical, isn't it? If they're not eager for women to join the boys' club, that's what the boys are going to say.

A primary axiom of National Socialist thinking was that all Western Cultural innovation was the product of the German race — described alternately as German, Germanic, Aryan, or Nordic; only creators of this background could produce genuinely innovative thought and art. Drawing from a German ideological tradition that had evolved over the nineteenth century, Hitler endorsed this view in Mein Kampf:

'All human culture, all results of art, science, and technology that we see before us today, are almost exclusively the creative product of the Aryan...If we were to divide mankind into three groups, the founders of culture, the bearers of culture, the destroyers of culture, only the Aryan could be considered as representative of the first group.'

Dennis, David B. Inhumanties: Nazi Interpretations of Western Culture. New York: Cambridge University Press, 2012. http://tiny.cc/k5g2lw

On Oct 12, 9:02 am, Oscar <oscaredwardwilliam...@gmail.com> wrote:

Yes, we know that, and I think we all agree that that was completely
bizarre nonsense. Of course, many "white" people subscribed to those
or very similar views back then, British and French colonialists just
as much as German nationalists - or Americans like Henry Ford whose
writings were among the most important influences on Hitler (according
to Hitler himself).

But - what does any of that have to do with any of what I said here?
The part about how international the BP is and how that demonstrates
that music does transcend cultural boundaries? The part in which I
pointed out that the orchestra which may not be the single best one in
Germany but which is no doubt the best known one and which is one of
the main flag bearers of German orchestral tradition actually has
many, many foreign members who have absorbed that playing culture and
who are carrying it on. Nothing could demonstrate more impressively
how musical values do indeed transcend cultural boundaries.

Except for in America where everything is cheapened down and
homogenized, but that has nothing to do with any of the racist
nonsense you babbled about. It is the opposite of cultural
development. America has received a vast and diverse cultural heritage
from its many immigrant populations but most of that diversity and
cultural heritage has disappeared and been replaced by the lowest
common denominator. That is probably also reflected in the sterile and
mechanical way American orchestras play most of the time.

On Oct 5, 2:48 am, aesthete8 <art...@gmail.com> wrote:

Lebrecht's interview with Muti ( Muti does most of the talking ) :
http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b01m5kwm