The objectivity of Bryce Morrison (chuckle!)

An American cocktail lounge pianist quoted on the Gramophone Forum!  Whatever next?

On reflection, I suppose no-one should any more care what he thought than what you think.

Vic.

The least one can say about Earl Wild is that he was a great virtuoso in his (very long) time. For some, he was a kind of master virtuoso. If we judge by his amazingly difficult and musically demanding transcriptions (lately, Chandos has issued a very interesting CD on his elaborated transcriptions of Gewrshwin works), he was a sort of composer of some serious consideration too.

So, for a "coctail lounge pianist", he was more than...qualified. Perhaps, the difference is that he was an American coctail lounge pianist...

Parla

I can't imagine many cocktail lounge pianists, American or otherwise, trotting out Thalberg's Don Pasquale Fantasy or Herz's variations on a theme from
Rossini's La Cenerentola.

You know, Gottried, there may be more than a grain of true in what you write.  I suppose it was a rather sharp response of mine to your statement, "who cares what he thinks?"  (Was that because he  was American, or what he played, or where he played it, by the way?)

So if you are not the reincarnation of "Dr Brodsky", who has had to change his name four times after being banned for grossly offensive, vitriolic and hate-filled comments about others - I apologise.

Vic.

I think you've put your finger on it - the attitudes of a number of people on this forum who look down upon any type of music other than classical are based entirely on snobbery, elitism and self-importance.

As Parla (our resident philistine) demonstrates, the harder they argue that there is a logical or objective basis for their snobbery, the more blatantly obvious they demonstrate the precise opposite.

I'm afraid you're wide of the mark this time, CraigM. Although I frequently disagree with Parla, whatever else he is, he is no Philistine.

While we are welcoming the new member of this forum, I can hardly see he's trying to "cool" any argumentative tone. In his very first post, he looks he has no reservation to be "facetious", he has no problem whatsoever to be judgemental (remember, Atonal, your suggestion to me in another thread, recently) and his rather concise verbose is fraught with verbal abuse (I don't have to repeat the respective vocabulary).

Immediately, he ignited the relevant responses of some members, so far at a manageable level.

Hoping that our new friend is going to honour the two great Masters his pseudonym and the picture below project, I wish him all the best.

And, by the way, I have a great appreciation of coctail business lounge pianists (particularly the american ones), after I saw the film "1900". The problem is that, very rarely, anyone expects or request them to play what they are actually capable of performing. Unfortunately, as in the case of "1900", they are destined to be always "unsung heroes".

Parla