rdenig_male

Is anyone else finding that tney are having numerous answers reported as violations - answers such as those pointing out a question doesn't make sense, is to wide (eg 'tell me about the history of England'). There appears to be some self important individual trawling through every answer to make these reports. There appears ro be no mechanism for reporting that individial as the reports are anonymous

My PC running Windows 7 connects to my wireless network but not the internet. It continually says ''Identifying' but never does. There is an internet connection available - I am preparing this question on a laptop connected to the router by ethernet cable. Two smartphones are connected to the network wirelessly. I have tried everything I can think of to resolve but to no avail. I was connected until I logged of on Monday night, I booted the computer Tuesday morning and this probl3em arose. Any suggestions please?

I'm sitting watching the Federer/del Potro match and wondering whether Olympic tennis is always on grass?

News reports here in the UK reveal a dramatic fall in the sale of digital cameras over the last 6 years or so:- http://www.bizcommunity.com/Article/223/16/78008.h... Do you foresee the future of photography dividing into the dedicated amateur who will always use a DSLR or similar and the 'person in the street', just interested in shots for the family album using a smartphone, and the compast digital camera as we now know it completely disappearing?

I use i-player for ripping CDs for transfer to my MP3 player etc. It annoys me that it always orders the tracks in some order best known to itself when I would rather they were in the order on the CD. This also happens when I just want to play a CD on my computer. I have looked through preferences to see if there is any way I can alter this, but cannot find anything. Am I missing something, is this an irritation I just have to live with?

I have tried to access my mail several times from my browser (Mozilla) just to be told 'web page not available'. The same thing is happening when I try to access the Yahoo.co.uk home page. Yet I have not trouble accessing Y!A. Is any one else experiencing similar problems? Oh yes, I have, of course, checked my firewall settings,

I recently came across this in a novel I'm reading:-

"Although he was a very great musician, and a wizard composer of symphonies, Beethoven was quite often a dismal failure when it came to ending them. The Fifth was a perfect case in point.

I remembered that the end of the thing, the allegro, was one of those times when Beethoven just couldn't seem to find the 'off' switch

.

Dum ... dum ... dum-dum-dum, it would go, and you would think it was over.

But no----

Dum, dah, dum, dah, dum, dah, dum, dah, dum, dah, dum - DUM dum

You'd go to get up and stretch, sighing with satisfaction at the great work you'd listened to, and suddenly,

DAH dum. DAH dum. DAH dum. And so forth. DAH dum

It was a bit like a bit of flypaper stuck to your finger that you couldn't shake off. The bl**dy thing clung to you like a limpet" (Alan Bradley)

I've had this comment made to me in the past by others and just wondered how many agree with the view expressed?

I have recently dismantled two old computers and kept the hard drives. I want to try to use these as external drives, but they have Windows OS systems installed. Will this cause any problems if I place them in caddies and only start them once my computer has booted? Further, one is marked 'SATA' and the other 'SATA 150'. What sort of caddies should I buy? Thanks in advance for any help

In the nearly three years since I have been a member of Y!A I have been used to questions appearing with the latest to be asked on the opening page of a topic. In recent days this appears to have changed with the earliest questions appearing on the first page with the latest right at the end, perhaps many pages later. Has there been a change? Is there any way to change back to latest first?

Other recent questions on this board have led to answers from myself stating that I find both the Dvorak 7th and the Brahms 3rd symphonies 'dour' and amongst my least favourite of the respective composer's symphonic works. Others have answered stating that in the case of the Dvorak, the 7th is his greatest symphony and that the Brahms 3rd is their favourite. This led me to wonder whether I have a jaundiced view of both works by reason of the first performances of each that I heard. After 50 odd years of listening to classical music I cannot remember what orchestras and conductors were involved - and, perhaps that is significant. I can well remember that the first recording of Brahm's 1st I owned was with the Concertgebouw under Eduard van Beinum. I remember equally well being devastated when the LP fell out of mv hand on the the edge of my equipment and cracked. I could never replace it:( and have been searching, ever since, for a recording to equal it. Do any others have 'blind spots' about acknowledged masterworks and do they attribute that to hearing a bad performance in their younger days?

I'm prompted at ask this question by one posed recently asking why Beethoven wrote only one violin concerto. In doing this he's not alone amongst composers of the romantic period - the names of Brahms and Tchaikovsky come immediately to mind as two others. Mozart, with 27 piano concertos to his name only wrote 5 for the violin. We have to go back to the Baroque and to the likes of Vivaldi to find a composer (who was not a composer violinist, like Paganini) who wrote large numbers of violin concertos. The only later mainstream composer that I can think of off the top of my head who wrote more than one was Saint Saens with three to his name - until Prokofiev and Shostakovitch with 2 a piece. The Hyperion record label's series 'The Romantic Piano Concerto' which started way back in 1991 (and covers, roughly, the period 1800 - 1920) will soon reach its 50th issue, having mined on the way the works of some pretty obscure composers. However, its companion 'Romantic Violin Concertos' series, which started in 1999 has only reached 6 discs, having apparently ground to a halt in 2004 (The Romantic Cello Series, incidentally, hasn't got beyond the 1st in the series issued in 2005).

So can anyone suggest why, for the last 200 years or so, the piano concerto has apparently been favoured so much more than the violin concerto. Is it that composers generally are responding to public taste? Or is there another, more subtle, reason, that I cannot see?

BBC Radio 3 here in the UK run a regular series each year early on Saturday evenings called 'Live from the Met'. For example, last Saturday (12 December) they broadcast Puccini's Il Tabarro starting here in the UK at 5.30pm. Now, if the performance is really 'live' that would give a starting time of around 12.30 in the afternoon, New York time. So, the question, does The Met have performances on a Saturday afternoon, or is the description 'live' something of a misnomer?

I have seen an answer elsewhere on the history board referring to the fact the the current Prime Minister is 'unelected'. What do they teach in schools today? For a start, under our constitution we do not 'elect' a Prime Minister. By convention, the leader of the majority party in the Houses of Parliament, whoever he/she may be, is asked by the Sovereign to form a Government and hence becomes the Prime Minister.

Further, for there to be a change in mid-term is nothing unusual. In the 20th century there were the following mid-term changes - Asquith/lloyd George, Chamberlain/Churchill. Churchill/Eden, Eden/Macmillan, Macmillan/Home and Thatcher/Major.

OK, gang, a new game. Let's see how it goes with Mozart and I may extend it to other composers.

Your house is on fire. You have been extremely anally retentive(!) and have separated your collection of Mozart CDs into a number of larger boxes, by genre. Symphonies, Piano Concertos, Other Concertos, Serenades and other miscellaneous orchestral music, Chamber Music (to include violin sonatas), Piano Sonatas, Choral Works (masses, Requiem etc) and Operas (including concert arias).

In your rush to escape the fire, you only have time to snatch one of these larger boxes, leaving the rest to be consumed by the flames. Which box would it be and why?

My choice would have to be the operas as I find increasingly that I listen to these more often than the other works.

Over to you.

I'm prompted to ask this question for my wife and I were listening to the radio the other day when we heard a movement of D'Indy's 2nd symphony from a recently issued CD. 'Hmmph', she said when it was finished, 'that's the kind of stuff that gives classical music a bad name' I have to admit that it didn't grab me particularly, although I hated to tell her that I had recently downloaded said CD (legally and paid for). But it did set me wondering. There are few notable symphonies by French composers. I do like that by Dukas (of Sorcerer's Apprentice fame) and those by the virtually unknown 19th century French woman composer, Louise Farrenc (and most of her other music is worth a listen). I know there is a cycle of 4 by the (again, virtually unknown) Albert Magnard (who should be added to my list of composers affected by the two World Wars as he was shot in 1914 defending his estate - see previous question) and one by Chausson. The only other that I can think of is the late 18th-early 19th century Gossec. Beyond these few, and Milhaud, my mind goes blank. None of those mentioned so far are earth shattering and it is only Berlioz's Symphonie Fantastique that has any real toehold in the repertoire. Is there something in the Gallic temperament that militated against symphonic thought? Is the symphony really only a creature of the German/Austrian, British and American minds?

(Suggested category - Society & Culture > Languages )

I have to prepare for two presentations over the coming few months relating to composers affected in one way or another by the two World Wars.

I have a number of names, some obvious, some less so:-

UK, Butterworth, Coles (both killed on the Somme), Ernest Farrar (killed less than two months before the end of WWI), Ivor Gurney (shell shocked and descended into mental illness as a result, Walter Leigh (killed at Tobruk in WW2), Vaughan Williams (served throughout WWI as an artillery officer)

France, Jehan Alain (brother of Marie-Claire Alain, the organist) killed 5 days before France surrendered in 1940)

Germany, Rudi Stephan (killed in the trenches of Galicia, 1915)

Russia, Shostakovitch (lived through the siege of Leningrad)

Australia, F.S Kelly (a friend of Rupert Brooke, killed on the Somme after surviving Gallipoli)

In addition there are the Jewish composers, such as Pavel Haas, who were interned in the 'model' concentration camp of Theresienstadt.

Can anyone assist by adding any names to the above list? In particular, does anyone know of any American composers? Or can add to my meagre list of Germans?

From time to time, there are complaints that questions are incorrectly posted to the Classical Music section of the music board. I see, for example, that just before I started to type this question, that one about Elton John appears on the first page. This lead me to consider that at least 'classical music' should be moved out of the 'Entertainment and Music' section and be placed in 'Arts and Humanities' along with books, theatre, dance, poetry etc. What do others think and, if you agree, how do we persuade Y!A to move it?

This question is prompted by my listening yesterday to Dvorak's 6th symphony, an utterly delightful work which we don't hear often enough other than on CD. Much the same could be said about his 8th. Yet we hear The New World ad nauseam. Similarly we hear Rachmaninov's 2nd piano concerto over and over, but rarely his 2nd symphony. Are there any other pieces by famous composers that you think are unjustly neglected in favour of am overplayed 'warhorse'? (I'm tempted also to say anything by Pachelbel apart from that canon...)

I'm prompted to post this question having seen an answer (in response to a question about a 'Shostakovitch song') which suggests answerers should stop picking up on questioners who refer to each and every piece of classical music as 'a song' Do you think that to do so is being unnecessarily pedantic? Or is it only right that we should continue to suggest that a distinction should be made between 'songs' (i.e lieder, melodie etc) and other forms of music? It is arguable that the very name of this board 'classical' is incorrect as it is designed to deal with all 'art' or 'concert' music, whether written in the Classical period or not. Should we just bow to the inevitable and accept that language is changing (due, probably, to itunes) and that 'song' is going to be a generic term just as 'classical' has become (or, indeed, 'biro' for a ball point pen or 'hoover' for a vacuum cleaner)

Yesterday, my wife and I were listening to a CD of the MacDowell piano concertos. Hardly earth-shattering works, but definitely a very pleasant change to the usual warhorses. And that made me think. If MacDowell is mentioned on this board (where, I guess, the majority are American), it is for one piece, 'To a Wild Rose'. Which made me think more. American composers generally get a poor showing here. Of course, we hear mention of Aaron Copland and less often Samuel Barber.. I've also seen one or two references to Charles Griffes ('The White Peacock') and Ferde Grofe, and occasionally Howard Hanson and Charles Ives. But what about the lady, Amy Beach? Where are David Diamond, Alan Hovhaness, William Schuman, Walter Piston, Virgil Thompson, John Alden Carpenter (with his 'Adventures in a Perambulator'), William Grant Still (thought to be the first black composer of note). Or (and getting a little more obscure) the 19th century's George Templeton Strong, Elie Siegmeister (with Copland, a Nadia Boulanger pupil) or the 'Dean' of West Coast composers, George Frederick McKay. I'm not saying these composers are amongst the greatest, but they have all written some pieces worth a hearing. Do Americans know of them, do they listen to them?