Friday, July 29, 2005
Am I a Snob? Are You a Snob?
Intellectually, we all know that one kind of music cannot be considered superior to another: people need music for different reasons, and different musics have emerged to meet those needs. Someone doesn’t care for one kind of music not because that music is "bad," but because one is simply not needy for what that music has to give.
Intuitively, however, I sometimes find it hard to keep all this in mind. I had such a moment a week ago while listening to Clifford Curzon’s recording of Beethoven’s Fifth Piano Concerto with Hans Knappertsbusch and the Vienna Philharmonic. So rich and colorful was the music, so flawless the performance, that I said aloud to the friend I was with that, damn it, there was some fine pop music out there, but nothing – nothing – like this. How pale even the Beatles were next to such magnificence!
Do you have moments like this, too? Or am I just a hopelessly elitist Germanophilic snob who’s out of touch with . . . everything?
posted by David Salvage
9:57 AM
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