It seems like this week is all gray skies, Schilling's Opening Day, and tax season. Well, when I need something to pick me up I turn to Nicolas Slonimsky's delightful Lexicon of Musical Invective, Critical Assaults on Composers Since Beethoven's Time and give myself a dose of the ridiculous. Today, the book fell open to Franz Liszt. Here's a double-barreled blast of a quote aimed at the famed pianist, composer and lady's man. It's virtually guaranteed to raise a smile:
"The worst of all, and positively devilish, was the Mephisto Waltz. . . .Such music is simply diabolical, and shuts out every ray of light or heaven from whence music sprang."
- from Dwight's Journal of Music, Boston, Mass., November 5, 1870
Want more? Here you go:
"Liszt's orchestral music is an insult to art. It is gaudy musical harlotry, savage and incoherent bellowings."
- from Boston Gazette, quoted in Dexter Smith's Paper, April 1872
Nice, eh? And both from Boston, no less.
There should be a band called Gaudy Musical Harlotry. OK, maybe not, but it should at least be a section in your local record store (well, back when there were record stores).
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