On the significance of "Rollo"

Obscure references can be unhelpful, so in the general interest, and in the hope that MMM maintains an attitude that fosters a wide range of musics and perceptions of music...

"Rollo emerged as one of the most popular children's book characters in the decades preceding the American Civil War, a creation of author Jacob Abbott (1803-1879) in 1835. The American composer Charles Ives (1874-1954) used "Rollo" as a short-hand for musical complacency. Rollo was, according to John Kirkpatrick, "a good little boy with an inquiring nature, and the more he has to have everthing explained to him in great detail, the more information could be packed into each Rollo book. For Ives he became a symbol of the literal mind unable to imagine anything beyond what he'd been taught." Or, as Henry and Sidney Cowell put it, Rollo was for Ives "one of those white-livered weaklings who cannot stand up and receive the full force of a dissonance like a man."

Ives used Rollo, in particular, to stand for those music critics unable or unwilling to comprehend his music. For example, he states in his Memos: "Every so often, an article or a clipping or a 'verbal massage' is sent to a man (see name on dotted line), which shows that Rollo has a job, writing his opinion about things the facts of which he doesn't know and doesn't try to know. If he can't hear and doesn't know it, he's a mental-musico-defective (from the neck up) - if he doesn't try to hear and knows he doesn't know, then he is getting money under false pretenses! In other words, these commercial pansies are either stupid or they are liars.""

Yours in a pluralistic musical universe,
Jon

Charles Ives - my classical music hero!

On Sun, Sep 19, 2010 at 12:51 PM, jonszanto <jszanto@...> wrote:
>
: "Every so often, an article or a clipping or a 'verbal massage' is
sent to a man (see name on dotted line), which shows that Rollo has a
job, writing his opinion about things the facts of which he doesn't
know and doesn't try to know. If he can't hear and doesn't know it,
he's a mental-musico-defective (from the neck up) - if he doesn't try
to hear and knows he doesn't know, then he is getting money under
false pretenses! In other words, these commercial pansies are either
stupid or they are liars.""

> Obscure references can be unhelpful, so in the general interest, and in the
> hope that MMM maintains an attitude that fosters a wide range of musics and
> perceptions of music...
>

Wide range of perceptions of music would logically include a person beeing
allowed to also speak out about music he/she doesn't like it seems to me..

>
> "Rollo emerged as one of the most popular children's book characters in the
> decades preceding the American Civil War, a creation of author Jacob Abbott
> (1803-1879) in 1835. The American composer Charles Ives (1874-1954) used
> "Rollo" as a short-hand for musical complacency. Rollo was, according to
> John Kirkpatrick, "a good little boy with an inquiring nature, and the more
> he has to have everthing explained to him in great detail, the more
> information could be packed into each Rollo book. For Ives he became a
> symbol of the literal mind unable to imagine anything beyond what he'd been
> taught." Or, as Henry and Sidney Cowell put it, Rollo was for Ives "one of
> those white-livered weaklings who cannot stand up and receive the full force
> of a dissonance like a man."
>
> Ives used Rollo, in particular, to stand for those music critics unable or
> unwilling to comprehend his music. For example, he states in his Memos:
> "Every so often, an article or a clipping or a 'verbal massage' is sent to a
> man (see name on dotted line), which shows that Rollo has a job, writing his
> opinion about things the facts of which he doesn't know and doesn't try to
> know. If he can't hear and doesn't know it, he's a mental-musico-defective
> (from the neck up) - if he doesn't try to hear and knows he doesn't know,
> then he is getting money under false pretenses! In other words, these
> commercial pansies are either stupid or they are liars.""
>

Nice..
So I am to take you calling me a Rollo, as you calling me "someone unable to
image anything beyond what he'd been taught" etc etc, or more simply put
"commercial pasie that's either stupid or a liar"??
Simply because I don't find the modern western approach to 24tet musically
interesting.

Please tell me I'm misinterpreting your words.
Because I really didn't expect you to join the name calling game here on
MMM.

Marcel

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