John Rutter (was: Re: Eb in England--Historical Trust Sites #1

[John Walton]

hamster8 at hotmail.com said:

> Classical music.  I have to agree with you ... there are times when
> it's just more fitting.  If you can, try to get hold of a copy of
> Rutter's Requiem (I *know* it's funeral music, but it's heart-
> rendingly beautiful stuff, and I, shameless freeloader that I am, use
> it to write HP fanfiction to ... tch).  Of course, it's ten to one
> you'll read this before tomorrow, so I'll tell you again then :-).

AAAARRRRRRGGGGHGHGHGHGHGHGH!

::sound of screaming coming from John...well, muso!John::

No! Not Rutter! Noooooooooo! Not the Rutter Requiem!
("Requiem...Aeternam...dona eis...dominum...")

[NOTE: This post contains strong opinions [aka A Rant] about "John Rutter",
a contemporary soi-disant "composer" of "classical" music. Keep your
children away from this post.]

::clasps head in hands and adopts crazed look:: There's so much better
classical music around! Rutter is trailer-trash garbage and has no more
merit (in a classical music sense) than Andrew Lloyd Webber's "Joseph And
The Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat"! Buy anything instead of Rutter! John
Stainer's "Crucifixion"! Faure's Requiem! Vivaldi's Gloria (RV589 not
RV588)! The Soothing Sound Of The Pan Pipes, vol. XXV! Just not Rutter!

And don't even get me started on The Rutter Christmas Collection...

(Aside from rational!John: I have had a severe antipathy to anything Rutter
since I was forced to sing the soprano part as a treble -- while my voice
was breaking. It goes up to a top C. This is *painful*. I also detest the
overwhelmingly vast Rutterian Christmas music, particularly his
bastardisations of *good* tunes, harmonies and lyrics. And don't get me
started on his presque-pop "All Things Bright And Beautiful", the "Hello,
I'm an 80s housewife on Valium/Prozac" Theme Song.

Every single one of his pieces of music (apart from ONE of his own Christmas
pieces, which is "nice". Perhaps "good") is appallingly trite, and leaves me
feeling soiled when I listen to it. It's just so unbelievably soppy and
squishy. No redeeming qualities whatsoever. And what makes it worse is that
so many smaller, less well-populated choirs use pieces which need 122 tenors
for a 15-part harmony ascending to top K sharp. Oh, and a soprano who can
reach top D -- of which there are about three in the UK. Without these, one
cannot perform his music the way it was intended, which is bad enough...
Urgh.)

Sorry if you like Rutter, and if I sound like a pretentious music snob. I'm
afraid that Rutter's music just really gets my goat, and I'm ergo probably
prejudiced against anything that he writes. However, I honestly believe that
there's SO much good "contemporary classical" music being written -- and
that there's SO much REAL classical music that's been forgotten -- that
Rutter doesn't merit the publicity he gets.

--John
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John Walton -- john at walton.to

"Prick us. Do we not bleed?
Tickle us. Do we not laugh?
Poison us. Do we not die?"

"Nope. That's what *immortal* means."
-John
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