Initial impact of premiere hard to understand in modern times

[greg lee]

Have we simply become desensitized over time?:

- All the conditions of modern life--its material plenitude, its sheer
crowdedness--conjoin to dull our sensory faculties.

Susan Sontag

[greg lee]

- A multitude of causes unknown to former times are now acting with a
combined force to blunt the discriminating powers of the mind, and
unfitting it for all voluntary exertion to reduce it to a state of
almost savage torpor.

William Wordsworth

[greg lee]

Or have we become overstimulated over time?:

https://groups.google.com/group/rec.music.classical.recordings/browse_thread/thread/b048bf67c509940c/da99a0e270d1ef31?hl=en&lnk=gst&q=munch+mer+aesthete8#da99a0e270d1ef31

[Dana John Hill]

This sounds right, and probably always will. A good analysis of this
phenomenon can be found in a book called "The Railway Journey" by
historian Wolfgang Schivelbusch.

Dana John Hill
Gainesville, Florida

[O]

In article <ko5bth$327$1...@usenet.osg.ufl.edu>, Dana John Hill

Ever since Ur-Bek invented the wheel, things haven't been the same
around the cave. Now, everyone's talking about "taking the fight to
the Mastodons."

-Owen, Resident Neanderthal

[John Thomas]

Despite her reputation among the literary 1% I've never seen any
reason to take much of anything she wrote seriously. Though I can see
why someone who lived her entire life in New York City might feel that
way.

[J.Martin]

On May 28, 2:57 pm, greg lee <music031...@gmail.com> wrote:

Yes, to some things. But the relevant question is not whether this
desensitization makes it impossible for the experience of a premiere
to be recreated, but rather why it would be desirable to do so in the
first place.

The idea that an experience of any kind can be "recreated" is
dubious. You and I may sit in adjacent seats at the same performance
and have entirely different experiences of it. To some extent we may
say that the generalized experience of an audience at a premier may
have some effect on the perception of a work and its impact, but
surely this becomes less and less important over time--ie, we may be
interested to know that the audience at the Eroica premier found it
interminable and incomprehensible, but this has little to do with our
sense of the piece's place in music history, which is much more likely
to be defined by its influence on generations of composers and the
enthusiasm of generations of audience members.

[greg lee]

Does this apply to your comment?:

- No man ever steps in the same river twice, for it's not the same
river and he's not the same man.

Heraclitus

[J.Martin]

>
> Does this apply to your comment?:
>
> - No man ever steps in the same river twice, for it's not the same
> river and he's not the same man.
>

> Heraclitus- Hide quoted text -
>

I would say it applies to everything. The trouble is, what to do with
such knowledge? We still have to step in rivers now and again
regardless.

[Mort]

Dana John Hill wrote:
> On 5/28/2013 6:01 PM, greg lee wrote:
>> On May 28, 11:57 am, greg lee <music031...@gmail.com> wrote:
>>> Have we simply become desensitized over time?:
>>>
>>> - All the conditions of modern life--its material plenitude, its sheer
>>> crowdedness--conjoin to dull our sensory faculties.
>>>
>>> Susan Sontag
>>
>> - A multitude of causes unknown to former times are now acting with a
>> combined force to blunt the discriminating powers of the mind, and
>> unfitting it for all voluntary exertion to reduce it to a state of
>> almost savage torpor.

Hi,

Is "savage torpor" similar to "noisy quiet", or to "brilliant darkness"?
I guess that my understanding of word definitions is old fashioned.

Mort Linder

[John Thomas]

This "William Wordsworth" guy has obviously been reading too much
Susan Sontag.

[Mort]

Or drinking what she drinks.

Mort Linder