I have been looking at this thread, thinking that I heard so much about Godowsky transcriptions. It was not known in Soviet time because he left. I don't know whether I should order music to satisfy my curiousity. If one takes in account how much I don't know should I inverst into this?
I don't think I will play it publically. I don't think I am good enough.

There was always big interest in Russia in oriental music (meaning persian I suppose). In any case it was usually stylized and never sounded authentic.
He was very conservative musician (I mean in his musical taste). Also he was very condescending person towards women (may be it only applies to bad pianists). I would not want to take a piano lesson with him. I know people like that with very sarcastic mind. They can make me stop playing completely.

What with that and orientalising stuff like the Java Suite I guess the only thing stopping him from being a Nazi as well was the fact that he was Jewish.  

I should of make it clear that I read description of piano lesson that Godowsky would give to a bad pianist. He would just put a few fingers in and dismiss him (or her).
I suppose a few fingers is enough for somebody who can understand and not enough who is not on the level.
I should not be critical of him because he did not want to bother with beginners and wanted to teach advanced pianists.
It is interesting to look into mind of exceptional pianists. From this point of view it is good to look at his fingering.
How is he different from say Liszt?

I don't know if there is enough material to discuss oriental motives in Russian music on separate thread. I don't have much to say.
Russia was in contact with muslim (is it correct to say) world because of its proximity to it and because of conflict with them. Sometimes there was no distinction between Mongols (they are eastern too) who invaded Russia and more mid Easter people. They all kind of sound the same.
Who were people who captured Prince Igor in Borodin's opera?
There were conflict with chechen people interrupted by Soviet era. Poet Lermontov were send there like many who Zar did not want close by. Perhaps these people are reflected more often.
To Russian ears there is a big difference in Russian melos and Oriental. Priminively speaking Russian songs are not very chromatic and chromatic scale is reserved for Oriental.
I could never understand if say Uzbek people are represented as well (they are more asian).
Russians did not bother to see difference in them as they considered them barbaric.

I hope you are right, truly.


I am certainly not 'very posh' by any standards. How you get from a deep-rooted suspicion of nationalism, and its sporting manifestations, to despising the working class, is beyond me. I wouldn't be surprised to learn that many of the worst violent football hooligans are drawn as much from the lower middle as working classes.

Ian - I had a listen to Arrau's Fledermaus and I reckon it's pretty good ! He messes round with the tempo quite a bit - rather too much tenuto and rubato at the beginning - but it's well delineated, colourful, quite steely in places, doesn't hang around too much and generally speaking no prisoners are taken. I suspect his approach may be of interest - there's nothing of the "delectable pot-pourris" or "wonderful nostalgia trip" . I laughed out loud three times.

I was looking at this site and dreaming to buy it.
http://www.sheetmusicplus.com/store/smp_fastresults.html?cart=33850378444196610 . I started to doubt because the way it is written. I have Paderewsky edition and some Russian edition of Chopin Studies that I am happy with.

I agree with you 100% that local national culture should not be in conflict with other national cultures. Also healthy competition between nations in culture (national composers, performers) is ok. I had many problems with competition and also globalization. I still do I think. Despite leaving Russia as a protest etc I retain some communist ideals. However, my life shows that one has to accept competition and it has posetive side to it. The same is about nationalism as long as it is not taken too far. Different nationalities can laugh at each other too as long as it is tastefully done not maliciously.

Though would you allow for the possibility that the politics are part and parcel of the attempt to understand/appreciate it better?


Certainly not an insult - if you had found such qualities, I would have been rather worried. Not that they and their musical analogues can't be found in abundance in the music world, however.

The politics I start from, most of the time, are those I glean from the music itself. Obviously when there is text or other sorts of concrete allusions involved, those will colour things (though it may be possible to salvage the music from them - that's what I was trying to imply in the case of Nono).


No-one is forced to read them, let alone respond to them. I do think that if one makes what some might see as contentious or at least unusual points, one should try and justify them. There's so much lazy talk and lazy thinking in the process of delivering pronouncements on music, which deserves further scrutiny. And the very blatant fact that classical music is to a large extent both produced and consumed by a very narrow sub-section of the world's population (or even of that in the West), with strong biases in terms of class, race and gender, has to be taken into account if trying to defend it from those that would pull the plug on the whole thing. As far as the crowd of public-school aesthetes that make up a significant sub-section of the British musical world (especially the new music world) are concerned, those issues are essentially irrelevant to their supposedly disinterested appreciation. They simply 'know better' because of superior breeding and education and so on. Music whose worth can only be defended on those grounds is not worth defending at all. I expect such views from people from those quarters; I'm somewhat more perturbed to encounter not dissimilar positions (in terms of how music should be approached/appreciated) from some professing allegiance to the far left.