he was an Abbe
He was not so for all of his life!
Thomas Szasz has done much writing on the subject of "mental illness", and the discussion within this dialogue is an excellent demonstration of Szasz' conclusion that "mental illness" is a culturally defined construct.
That doesn't make him right about that in all particulars and all cases, though, does it?!
My communion with Liszt is no more or less miraculous than Jesus' return from death - yet, except for certain hardcore "skeptics", Christians are not attacked en masse as being mentally unwell. Most members of any dominant faith have very normal and productive lives, with nothing that to a professional psychologist would necessarily appear as amiss.
Not all Christians believe that Jesus Christ "returned from death" and, frankly, although I'm not a Christian myself, I see no reason to decry or undermine that doubt on the part of some Christians because what mattered then and still does today is what Jesus Christ achieved during what's known of his lifetime and the legacy that he left for humanity. That said, I did write that I've made no refeences to religion or religious faith here and I make this one exception solely as a response to you reference here.
The portion of our discussions here, Alistair, which are not music or musicology related, seem to hinge on issues of philosophy and religion. I just don't think that this is the forum for that type of discussion, and even though I am of the same religion as Liszt, and even though I know as a result of years of analysis and contemplation that what I know is true rather than myself having any utility or need of faith, I am not a proselytizer and I respect the right of every person to reach his or her own conclusions on such matters.
Au contraire, "philosophy and religion" are phenomena that can be drawn in to such a discussion by whoever might choose to do so but which are not necessarily of themselves behind that discussion or the conclusions (if any) that it might reach; what IS at issue here is a matter of individual personal belief and that does not necessarily have to centre on religion or even philosophy.
A person can post a composition here and say it was given to him by a unicorn. I don't believe in unicorns, and yet why would I want to petition that member for proof of the composition's origins? I would be much more interested in the music and its observable and possible merits (or demerits) than in harassing that member about the composition's origination and about the processes of the creation of the composition.
If the music is being claimed to have come from some great figure of the past such as Liszt, as in this instance you have vociferously done for yours (and as, for example, Rosemary Brown once did in a more modest and self-effacing way) and yet the music itself is something that most people versed in what Liszt actually did write would find unrecognisable as such, it is perhaps unsurprising (especially given that in posting the video you have sought responses from listeners) the those origins have been challenged, although even this is not the same as petitioning for proof of origin!
I am interested in composers' process of composition, of course, and if the process does not involve actually "composing" the music, or to the extent or in the way most professional composers do it, this is of interest.
I'm not sure what you mean when you write "the process [of composition] does not involve actually "composing" the music", so the background to and reason for your "interest" here is unclear; could you please explain? How can a composer's "process of composition" not "involve actually composing the music"? (and why do you place "" around the word "composing" here)? The two are surely synonymous! I say this as a composer but I'm sure that what you write here would likewise puzzle most people with an interest in the processes of musical composition!
And hence, I brought Arthur M. Abell's book Talks With Great Composers into the discussion. Being the lifelong and reliable music journalist he was, and also on intimate terms with many of the greatest composers and performers of the late 19th century, I think the most plausible scenarios are:
1) Brahms, Grieg - and the others - are liars and were lying to Abell
2) Brahms, Grieg - and the others - are sincere though mistaken
3) Brahms, Grieg - and the others - are sincere and not mistaken
I think, given the detail of the narrative and such details and structures as it contains, that the composers were not mistaken - it isn't like the "white and gold, or black and blue" dress challenge in recent weeks, where one would reasonably be expected to make a mistake.
Your three possibilities refer only to the composers themselves and, by so doing, notably exclude the other possibility that Abell might have been gilding the lily with fanciful writing! A collection of his papers are in NYPL (see
https://archives.nypl.org/mus/20021 for overview and
https://archives.nypl.org/uploads/collection/pdf_finding_aid/musjob88-4.pdf for more detail) as you may know and this at least demonstrates the wide range of his correspondents.
Here's an extract from a 1965 review in
Music & Letters -
https://www.jstor.org/discover/10.2307/732640?uid=3738032&uid=2129&uid=2&uid=70&uid=4&sid=21106197474371; I'm unable to post the item in full but the end of the extract might give some idea of the reservations that i had expressed about the book.
The discussion at
https://groups.google.com/forum/#!topic/rec.music.classical/K64OY_sPIVY might do the same.
You might also care to read the article
Did Johannes Brahms Contemplate A Ragtime Project? at
https://www.edwardaberlin.com/disc.htm.
Here, in a "letter to the editor", you will find more of substance; Malcolm MacDonald, a brilliant and painstaking music scholar whom I knew, was a leading authority on Brahms (he died in his 60s of cencer last year) whose view can undoubtedly be trusted - see
https://www.haverford.edu/musc/choral/papers/CJ%20letter%20to%20the%20editor%20-%20Brahms%20and%20Religion.pdf.
In noting, as you presumably will, that I am by no means in the minority as a sceptic of this work's contents, you will find two matters of significance; the first is that all of what was supposedly dictated to him in the interviews was apparently lost in Europe during WWI and that he accordingly had to reconstruct them all from memory for the book and the second is that publication of that book was withheld by the author until after the last of the composers concerned, Richard Strauss, had died.
One would therefore have to take a great deal upon trust in order to accept unquestioningly the veracity of the book's contents, given the examples of doubts expressed upon it in print and the reconstructive efforts that appear to have gone into it.
I will, however, refrain from further comment of my own on it right now because, as I mentioned previously, I no longer have a copy, otherwise I could be more specific.
That you are automatically dismissive of the words of great composers is concerning, yet it is your right to dismiss them.
There's nothing "automatic" about it and I do not dismiss words of composes but cast doubt upon whether what's in that book are actually that.
Nonetheless, there should be some informative value there related to how to compose great music, even if one thinks the composers were mistaken in their descriptions of their compositional processes. Humility of the composer seems to be a significant factor in the ability to compose great and beautiful music - this, I think, is the essential take away from Arthur M. Abell's Talks With Great Composers.
The essential take away from this book is one of profound distrust of the author's integrity; that's not something which I either take delight in saying or which I wish to feel, but it is clear, as I wrote earlier, that I am far from alone in this.
I hope that we can, at least for know, set these issues aside as we both know with some degree of clarity where each of us stands.
I think that indeed we do know that but, where Abell's book is concerned, it would not come amiss for you to consider the widespread doubts expressed about it rather than simply berate what you call my "dismissal" of it.
In life one needs to pick and choose one's battles
I don't; I'm a pacifist!
And today I have many hours of music composition and piano practice to do!
Then go and get on with it; I hope that it goes well!
Best,
Alistair
Topic: VIDEO: Prelude in E-flat Major BWV 852 by J.S. Bach