Compliment from the Grave

Please pardon my self-indulgence in mentioning this, but musicologist Dragana Stojanovic-Novicic sends me an excerpt from a letter she found in the Paul Sacher Stiftung from Nancarrow to Charles Amirkhanian, and she insists that I blog it. It says,

I forgot to tell you, Kyle Gann is going to do my biography. Before I went to Germany he was here for a few days and we had a very pleasant visit. I had never heard of him before, but he brought a cassette of his music, and apart from being very simpatico he is a very good composer.

It's especially gratifying because, when I visited him for the second time in 1989, he had on his coffee table a copy of the Ear magazine in which a Downtown composer who deserves to remain nameless excoriated me viciously for two full pages as a lousy, irredeemably conservative critic. (Conlon didn't subscribe to Ear, they sent him a complimentary subscription.) This heals that wound. It's good to learn, so many years later, that I earned Conlon's respect as a musician after all.

I've always had contempt for the practice of those composers who, getting a compliment in a private letter from a famous composer, trumpet it in their press releases as though it was a public recommendation. So you'll never see this quote anywhere again. But in my blog, I can say what I want.

GannNancarrow.jpg


September 10, 2008 9:42 PM | | Comments (1) |

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1 Comments

By john on September 11, 2008 1:48 AM

Masculine reticence is so terrible and moving! So sad that Mr. Nancarrow couldn't compliment you directly; so sweet that you received the compliment after all.

Parallel examples from my life -- in which I served as conduit of compliments otherwise not received -- come to mind, but discretion prevents me from saying more.

KG replies: What a nice take on it. Someday you'll have to tell me the details.

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Sites To See

Postclassic Radio! - Kyle Gann's internet radio station that accompanies the blog; see the playlist at kylegann.com

American Mavericks - the Minnesota Public radio program about American music (scripted by Kyle Gann with Tom Voegeli)

Kalvos & Damian's New Music Bazaar - a cornucopia of music, interviews, information by, with, and on hundreds of intriguing composers who are not the Usual Suspects

Iridian Radio - an intelligently mellow new-music station

New Music Box - the premiere site for keeping up with what American composers are doing and thinking

The Rest Is Noise - The fine blog of critic Alex Ross

William Duckworth's Cathedral - the first interactive web composition and home page of a great postminimalist composer

Mikel Rouse's Home Page - the greatest opera composer of my generation

Eve Beglarian's Home Page - great Downtown composer

Just Intonation Network - a meeting place for people interested in alternative tunings

Erling Wold's Web Site - a fine San Francisco composer of deceptively simple-seeming music, and a model web site

The Dane Rudhyar Archive - the complete site for the music, poetry, painting, and ideas of a greatly underrated composer who became America's greatest astrologer

Utopian Turtletop, John Shaw's thoughtful blog about new music and other issues

About this Entry

This page contains a single entry by PostClassic published on September 10, 2008 9:42 PM.

The Right to Steal Shall Not Be Abridged was the previous entry in this blog.

Up to Date in KC, No. 2 is the next entry in this blog.

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