Music Victims

"Music appreciation" gone astray: what are your worst horror stories?

Aka, has a person or incident ever come close to ruining classical music for you? If that's possible haha. Sorry if this is a little long, but it's really funny. I go to a liberal arts college, a supposedly very good school (but this made me wonder!) We have only five teachers in our music department, we're more of a science school. Two are exceptional (Yale Conservatory and Julliard for eight years, tons of competitions won, both funny and *modest,* you get the idea). One is new. The two others, though... Where to begin? They have medioocre prizes all over their walls, very full of themselves in general. Both went to Carnegie Mellon, which isn't a bad school by any means!, but why would you brag about Carnegie Mellon when you have a Julliard alum and a Yale alum in your midst? They are married, both in their 50's and a little pudgy. He literally walks like he has a stick in his you-know-what. I mean, literally. He writes all these pompous editorials to our mediocre local newspaper and brags about himself instead of teaching, but he still knows a lot. She is awful- she missed *six* classes out of about 28, half of them with no explanation. She wears clunky shoes and dowdy black dresses, and always patronizes us: "I believe in treating you like adults..." At the same time, she occasionally tries to act "hip" by pretending she likes some ten-year-old pop song. So that's the context. Well one day, when we were listening to Girl with the Flaxen Hair in music history class, her eyes glossed over; she then looked at us with that I'm-just-like-you look and said: "I just love Debussy... he's such great make-out music, don't you think?... Sometimes when Lowell and I are on the couch, and this is playing, we well, you know..." (girly laugh and fluttering eyelashes) (look of trauma) I'm sorry, but I still can't take this piece seriously! I laugh every time. Another time she talked about having an "orgy"- thank God I can't remember the composer associated with that one! I'd never have recovered. After she missed all those classes they removed her from music history and put her in- you guessed it- music appreciation. What are your worst stories? No, it doesn't have to be from a class, sorry! Just anyone who almost "ruined" music for you, or even just a particular composer Haha rdenig- that reminds me of a scene from the Dead Poets' Society. In one part Robin Williams' forward-thinking character tells them to rip out the introduction to poetry in their books because it is terrible (aka stilted and pretentious). When he is removed for unjust reasons and a stuffy teacher comes in to replace him, he wants them to read the "excellent" introduction and none of them have it. It's a funny scene... I've loved almost every radio commentator I've ever heard- they're always knowledgeable but still down-to-earth. I'm glad they rescued Bartok for you!

Public Comments

1. Lol! Interesting question. The oddest person I've met over the years was actually a guest conductor of an honor orchestra. (Sorry, I realize you were talking about classes). She was very...passionate. She shouted. A lot. And, I don't mean passionate shouting. I mean almost screaming. All of us are just sitting frozen in our seats, thinking "What the heck?" Finally, at the end of one piece: Her: Okay, HOLD! HOLD! HOLLLLLLLD!!!!!! *deep breath, puts hands down, we put our instruments in rest position* Okay, what do you think? Us: ... Her: (smiling) That I'm crazy?..........Okay, let's move on to the next piece, turn to... I thought I was going to die trying not to crack up. Edit: Lol that's fine! I thought of another one...Twilight in general. Or whoever decided to associate Clair de Lune with it. That piece is now ruined for me. Now when ever I hear it, all I can think about is Twilight, and trust me, that's not a happy thought. It's a serious problem :(
2. I can't even begin to compete with your or your first responders anecdotes: hilarious. Can relate two experiences involving the same person, which didn't affect my appreciation for classical music, but did cause considerable embarrassment to everyone involved, even we of the audience. The "star" of both was Vladimir Golschmann, who was the music director of the St.Louis Symphony for 27 years; and therein I guess was the crux of the problem: he had become senile, or dementia had developed(there's a difference?). He was at one time a well-known(renowned-?)conductor; having been a protege of Arturo Toscanini - one couldn't ask for a better resume. The first instance occurred during a concert where a piano professor from Washington U. in St.Louis - a very fine school - was appearing as soloist in the Khachaturian piano concerto. Everything was alright until about midways of the performance; and Golschmann must have began daydreaming about the nice dinner he was anticipating after the concert, for he just seemed to have forgot where he was, and stopped conducting. The pianist I think became aware of this immediately, because he began a very noticeable erratic change in tempos. But it was the members of the orchestra who brought the situation to everyone's attention. They sort of section by section just simply stopped playing; and finally so did the soloist. Golschmann suddenly snapped out of it, turned to the soloist and directed him to resume at a certain point in the score, whispering the same to the orchestra members. And within a minute or two, everything was back on track. The last occurred when he retired(I think it was-?), or received a recognition award of some kind. He came out on stage from the wings, and began to ramble on, seemingly not to realize that he had already said more than enough about 10 mins. ago. Some gentlemen finally came on stage, wrapped one arm around Golschmann's shoulders, and began gingerly to ease him off stage. Needless to say, we of the audience were most thankful for being relieved of our unendurable burden, spared from having to politely sit thru any more the old man's interminable drivel. Alberich
3. My story is one of almost ruin and then salvation. Back in the early 1960s Karajan made a recording on EMI, much praised, of Bartok's Music fro Strings, Percussion and Celeste coupled, I believe, with the Divertimento. I managed to get a cheap copy - never having had any contact with Bartok before I tried to make some sense of this, then difficult, modern music. The sleeve note was written in the most pretentious analytical style and to me, totally meaningless so that was no help. By chance, just a few days later I listened, as was my habit, to a long running BBC Radio programme, 'Talking about Music' where a great communicator about music, Anthony Hopkins, would analyse a piece in the most approachable and understandable way. He started on this particular day by saying 'I'm going to tell you a ghost story accompanied by some music you may not know'. he began, and the music was the Bartok (MforSP&C). At once I began to understand. When he finished, he then said 'doesn't that make the music much easier to understand than all this nonsense' and read part of the sleeve note from the EMI recording. I fell in love with the music at that moment, and have loved it ever since
4. Well, this wasn't embarassing for me, but it was fpr the conductor. We were playing Tchaikovsky's fifth symphony, the last movement, and we weren't counting very well. So he attempted to stand on a table, I guess the thought was that it would be easier to see him. Anyways, the table was not steady, and he fell off and landed flat on his face. It was hilarious
5. Now please excuse me for actually writing this, but in my score reading/listening lesson at school, we had to listen to the song "La Donna E Mobile." A boy in my class decided to make up new lyrics to it, they were "a*ss holes are cheap today, cheaper than yesterday," Now half my class goes around singing that, and it really disgusts me! One of my music teachers announced that everytime she heard Beethovens ninth, she felt like singing the beetles (When another teacher played the 9th, she heard it and DID start singing some Beetles song...) A (male) teacher at school announced that he could sing Der Holle Rache, and he did, two octaves down. I nearly died, he was awful...
6. Well this is a little different than every body else's stories, but it is horrifying. I was in an organ workshop and we had a guest speaker come in about the history of the organ. I was excited! oops... It turns out he gave a SIX (6? Are you serious SIX?!?!?!) hour presentation! Six hours! With one break in between! Ahhh! It was terrible. Rather than giving us the history of the organ, he merely went through EVERY organ that has been made before the year 1800 and told us about ALL of the stops on all of those organs. Every single stop and every single mixture and every single EVERYTHING!!! Whats worse, he described how each of those stops fit with the organ such as "Oh, that crummhorn was very unusual for that organ." Or "this mixture was common for this German made organ." Every single stop! That's what the entire class was about. I was completely in awe at how he kept going, listing off the stops for all these organs!!! It was incredible! Music appreciation? More like music OBSESSION! Ahhh! It was the worst six hours of my life! Thats my horror story...
7. Oh dear - there are so many hair-raising things that have happened to me...but I'll share a handful of the very worst: 1. When I was at University, I was playing second bassoon in a performance of Haydn's Trumpet Concerto...we were all naughty and using photocopied parts...I realised too late that I was missing all of the final movement! I never fancied myself as an improviser, but - well, sometimes there's no option... 2. I was performing in Symphonie Fantastique (Berlioz) and realised when I was playing during a quiet, exposed bit that there was a HUGE blowfly crawling along my bassoon crook, towards my reed! All I could do was keep playing, with one horrified eye glued to this fat maggot-filled blowie! Luckily it decided it didn't like bassoons, and flew off to hassle the brass section! 3. And one night I was performing in Bach's B minor Mass. Just before we started, I accidentally jabbed my lip with my reed, which continued to bleed pretty heavily for the entire performance. Very messy - and embarrassing... Horrible experiences, all of which made me question my career choice whilst they were happening! Hafwen x