Jan Swafford

Message text written by INTERNET:tuning@onelist.com
><

I note the even Joe Monzo is quoting Jan Swafford now... but in regard to
Brahms, not Ives.

I think we have to take Swafford's scholarship seriously... If he is wrong
about the Ives Universe Symphony it is going to take mighty proof ---
Right Johnny R??

Joseph Pehrson

> [Joseph Pehrson, TD 436.8]
>
> I note the even Joe Monzo is quoting Jan Swafford now... but
> in regard to Brahms, not Ives.
>
> I think we have to take Swafford's scholarship seriously...
> If he is wrong about the Ives Universe Symphony it is going
> to take mighty proof ---
> Right Johnny R??

I mentioned Swafford's book about Brahms here a couple of
months ago, and there was some criticism of his scholarship
then.

IMO, at least regarding the Brahms book, he's good at digging
up facts, but he does make errors here and there. Two that
jumped out at me (naturally) concerned mention of Mahler's
symphonies in the footnotes.

Even more intriguing was Swafford's statement that Brahms
had looked at Schoenberg's _Quartet in D-major_, which was
supposedly written summer 1897 - a couple of months *after*
Brahms died! Swafford got it from McDonald, who quoted it
from Hanns Eisler, who studied with Schoenberg himself,
so there... Apparently the quartet was written a bit earlier,
and *all* the references to it are incorrect about the date!

So overall, I'd agree with Joe that Swafford should be taken
seriously. The sheer volume of data in his books shows that
at least he's uncovering and/or assembling lots of info.
Altho in the case of Ives, Johnny may well know more than
Swafford.

-monz

Joseph L. Monzo Philadelphia monz@juno.com
http://www.ixpres.com/interval/monzo/homepage.html
|"...I had broken thru the lattice barrier..."|
| - Erv Wilson |
--------------------------------------------------

___________________________________________________________________
Why pay more to get Web access?
Try Juno for FREE -- then it's just $9.95/month if you act NOW!
Get your free software today: http://dl.www.juno.com/dynoget/tagj.