Takes a Real Man to Admit he Loves Opera

Notes on arguing about accounting for taste:

Our taste can be argued about because it does mean something -- though not nessecarily what it pleases us to think it means. And of course it can be "accounted for," though some people would rather not.

Apart from the ones that take place in the depths of Schoenberg Hall, very few arguments about music are really, primarily about music. Back in the day, for example, we all knew that the pop quiz opposition "Beatles or Stones?" was about what sort of person you were. Or rather (since how could you possibly have known at that age?) what sort of anxious pose you'd decided to strike.

I've already done way more, in terms of accounting, for my taste, than people here who are way more categorical in their pronouncements. One theme that has emerged is: where does one come down in terms of expressions that are direct and naked and those that are indirect, oblique, ironic, elusive. One either admires the former and wants to have more of it in one's own life, or not.

But it's not always a simple distinction to draw.

It could be argued that "Dalla Sua Pace" is a direct musical expression of emotion -- though not icky because the emotion expressed is complex and "grown up." Complicated by the fact that DSP is dramatic music, so that, whatever is being expressed by the lyricist or composer, it's been filtered through a character. Also it's in an antique musical idiom that many people find alien, so appreciating it has a degree of difficulty that's good for the ego while also removing some of the stigma of emotional accessibility.

Because it is "fiction music," DSP was written "arm's length," as Laura Marling says above. In what sense does Mozart "mean" the music of DSP? First thought is that he means it to the extent that it's true; it's true about DO if not about himself. a pose, on the other hand, is fraudulent by definition.

Don Ottavio, BTW, is pretty close to the definition of "lame" -- "weak and ineffectual." The music therefore expresses lameness but is not itself lame.

Being effectual (as opposed to in) is related to the notion of having legs that reach all the way to the ground.

(more to come)