From: [email protected] (Matanya Ophee)
Subject: Re: Parkening
Date: 1999/11/04
Message-ID: <[email protected]>#1/1
X-Deja-AN: 544507690
References: <[email protected]> <[email protected]> <[email protected]> <[email protected]> <Pine.GSO.3.95.iB1.0.991104141936.28107C-100000@halifax.chebucto.ns.ca>
X-Trace: typ11.nn.bcandid.com 941743684 209.190.33.107 (Thu, 04 Nov 1999 14:28:04 EST)
Organization: Editions Orphée, Inc.
NNTP-Posting-Date: Thu, 04 Nov 1999 14:28:04 EST
Newsgroups: rec.music.classical.guitar


Bob Ashley <[email protected]> wrote:

>On Thu, 4 Nov 1999, Steve wrote:
>
>> So he isn't the one we hear in the recordings?  I've never seen him in
>> concert, but many of his recordings are superb.  But then I rarely agree
>> with Matanya. 


OK Steve. Explain to me how it is possible for Parkening to have
recorded the Bach Sinfonia on his Simple Gifts recording at 3:22, when
most other guitarists are doing it at an average of 4:30 to 5 minutes?
He is a better and faster guitarist than them. Right? why then his
recording sounds in F Major when the original is a half tone lower?

All it takes is a slight twist of the speed button by the recording
engineer. A good recording is no indication of anyone's capabilities.
With the right software and a competent sound engineer, any monkey off
the street can record the Bach Chaconne.

What happens next is the Sherry Brenner edition of the same piece in
which Parkening recommends a capo on the first fret, without
explaining why this is needed or why it is even a good idea. As best
as I can make it, this was a feeble attempt to cover his tracks. The
true nature of the duplicity comes out in the Parkening recording of
his arrangement of the same piece for guitar and orchestra. he did not
use the original Bach parts which are in D Major, but rearranged it in
E Major, and surely that's the pitch _this_ recording sound in. On the
cover there is a picture of Parkening with a guitar in hand, with a
capo on the first fret. Now if the recodring is in E Major, what was
the need for placing a capo on the first fret _this_ time?

One would have to tune the guitar down a semitone in order to use a
capo on the first fret to make it sound in E. Can anyone explain this
one to me? Sharon D.? or telling the truth is not part of your job
description?

>Maybe something pathological is going on. It is sad to think that a man's
>whole life, his career, his commitment to his craft, balances on the head
>of a pin. I mean, what is the pathology wherein whatsoever you've
>done, what accomplishments, what you've pioneered or rebuilt or solidified
>in your field, all depends for its worth on your most recent performance. 

No Rib. You obviously have not read anything I said. It isn't the most
recent performance by itself. Anybody can have a bad day. Except
Baruecco of course who never had a bad day in his life. It is the bad
performance _in the context_ of a crass commercial exploitation of a
dead hero's name. It is also the fact that I have heard this man 25
years ago, and it was just as bad then as it was now. It is also the
fact that every serious reviewer who is not a born-again Christian
follower of the one true faith, had given the same thumbs down to this
man. What is indeed pathological, is that he still continues to
disseminate this crap. Someone else with lesser connections would have
been forgotten a long time ago.

>Thus, the man, pious for lifetime,

Not for a life time. This born-again piety was not there when he first
started with the guitar. Segovia, one of the greatest sinners who ever
walked the earth, would have kicked him out of his courses in Santiago
de Compostella on the first preaching.

>engaged in daily prayer, lets slip a
>single profanity in the space of twitter, and forever thereafter he is a
>blasphemer. Not an ordinary blasphemer, but one of Satanic proportions.

Again, what was blasphemous was not the profanity itself, but the
false pretensions under which it was given. 




Matanya Ophee
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