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Views from the Choir Loft

A Culture Obsessed With Sensationalism

Jeff Ostrowski · October 28, 2013

The one who tells the story can matter more than the story itself. Suppose I wrote the following:

ITH SWEAT on my brow, I began the final piece on my jury program: a Concerto by Ludwig Van Beethoven. Approaching the recapitulation, I saw one judge raise a hand, saying simply: “Enough.” I stopped playing and knew my career was over.

Pretty dramatic, huh? And every word is true … but there’s one problem: it’s false. But if it’s false, how can every word be true? The author (in this case, myself) is guilty of sensationalism. For example, it’s true they stopped me before the Recap … but they always stop students before the Recap. (In a Classical Concerto, the Recap is the same basic music, transposed to a different key.) It’s true my “career” was over, but that’s because I’d made a decision to switch majors, so this was my last piano jury. And, yes, I was sweating like crazy, mainly because (Uh oh!) I hadn’t memorized the Recap of the Beethoven, since the judges normally stop you before the Recap. Still, just knowing they might ask for the Recap made me nervous. If they did, I was in big trouble.

SENSATIONALISM IS THE SCOURGE of our age. Just look at the reporting on Pope Francis, which has been inaccurate to the point of absurdity. The unqualified journalists who try to “make sense” of what’s happening are totally clueless about even the most basic facts. I’ve been taking a lot of screenshots of the nonsense so I’ll have a record of it forever.

I recently came across an article where Damian Thompson relates an event the same way the piccoluomini might. That is, his account is silly and uninformed to the point of absurdity. A famous concert pianist, Stephen Hough, tears apart the account here. Hough does a good job, so I won’t repeat everything he says. To make a long story short, it’s bizarre that both conductor and pianist were too lazy to discuss things like tempi beforehand, and it was not a “miracle” that Maria João Pires could play a piece she’d performed every year for the past eight years.

If you want to read about a real “miracle” of pianism, read this:

      * *  Story about the Pianist Ignaz Friedman • Story by conductor Georg Schneevoigt

Notice the story is told by a witness who was himself a professional musician. There are similar stories about Hofmann, Gieseking, Rachmaninov, Horowitz, Gould, and many other great pianists. These are real pianistic “miracles,” not the nonsense related by Damian Thompson. [Please notice I am not saying Mr. Thompson is a bad person; but in this particular case, he got it wrong.]

SPEAKING OF SENSATIONALISTIC NONSENSE, the other day I mentioned The Monk’s Tale, which is a biography of Godfrey Diekmann. Perhaps I shouldn’t call it a biography; it’s more of a “hagiography.” Even though it’s written by a Catholic sister, I couldn’t find anything in the book which condemns or criticizes Diekmann’s troubling beliefs, such as his support for women’s ordination to the priesthood or his fanatical promotion of the “hootenanny Mass.” Reading The Monk’s Tale, one also gets the impression that the 1970s ICEL translation (with which Diekmann was quite involved) was the greatest, most wonderful thing of all time. However, folks like Godfrey Diekmann never anticipated the internet, which allows honest Catholics to see for themselves the truth. After all, in the 1970s, the official Latin texts were incredibly expensive and hard to come by, so many Catholics had no idea how inaccurate that first translation was.

Opinions by blog authors do not necessarily represent the views of Corpus Christi Watershed.

Filed Under: Articles Tagged With: Ignacy Friedman Pianist, Ignaz Friedman, Pope Francis Last Updated: January 12, 2021

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About Jeff Ostrowski

Jeff Ostrowski holds his B.M. in Music Theory from the University of Kansas (2004). He resides with his wife and children in Los Angeles.—(Read full biography).

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Corpus Christi Watershed

Quick Thoughts

    “Slander!” • (Response to an Accusation)
    A reader sent us an email which was both thoughtful and articulate. Feeling it deserved a response, I published this article a few days ago. I included the full letter sent to us by the reader, but that's not all. Indeed, the article became rather lengthy and touched upon a number of different themes. I hope you enjoy it!
    —Jeff Ostrowski
    Interesting story about Sergei Rachmaninoff
    It's very brief, but I think you would enjoy hearing Benno Moiseiwitsch (d. 1963) tell this really cool story about Sergei Rachmaninoff (d. 1943). Moiseiwitsch, whose playing was admired by Josef Hofmann, had studied with Theodor Leschetizky (d. 1915). I opened my recent article by speaking of a powerful quote Rachmaninoff gave to Robert Croan, music critic for the Post Gazette and professor of voice at Duquesne University.
    —Jeff Ostrowski
    [Quiz] • “Do You Know Your Hymns?”
    In case you missed it, many readers have enjoyed taking this little Quiz On Hymns. In the context of that article, I included a sensational quote about the Holy Mass by Monsignor Ronald Knox. Moreover, I talk about how Abraham Lincoln's mother died, as well as a fabulous Eucharistic hymn by the Archbishop of Canterbury.
    —Jeff Ostrowski

Random Quote

“Chants closely related to the readings should, of course, be appropriately transferred for use with these readings. For pastoral reasons also there is an option regarding the chants for the Proper of Seasons: namely, as circumstances suggest, to replace the text proper to a day with another text belonging to the same season.”

— Ordo Cantus Missae (1971)

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