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Comment by tkgally | Hacker News Reader

Interesting article, but I wonder if the author has gotten carried away with his conclusions: that “classical music ennobles bullshit, encasing turds in gold that glitters without masking the stench” and about “the rot at the heart of the classical music industry, where name-dropping passes as a substitute for ability;... and where a résumé is grounds for utter suspension of disbelief.”

My own contact with classical music these days is limited to listening to recordings I enjoy and occasionally watching concerts on YouTube. From this distance, it doesn’t seem to be bullshit or name-dropping; the performers seem talented and dedicated (and almost certainly underpaid), and the contemporary compositions seem thoughtful, creative, and ambitious. Does anybody here closer to the creation and performance of classical music than I am have any thoughts about this article?

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I came away with the exact same conclusion as you. The article describes a rather commonplace career of fraud; more or less every industry has them. There’s nothing unique to classical music here; it’s human nature to generally take people at their word about their past accomplishments, to be impressed by famous names, and to allow their critical judgment to be influenced by what they think they know.

I think the author did quite well at explaining how Classical music's industry engenders this though: Foision was literally being given awards and prizes based solely on his made-up CV rather than his actual music. Sure that's not inherently unique, but it was convincing enough to me that there are structural problems inherent to how credential-and-"fame" focused the classical industry is, based on the articles arguments.

That said, I think the fraud itself is small, so perhaps the conclusion is too grand; but it's not out of nowhere either, I'm somewhat sympathetic to the arguments made.

These sweeping conclusions are extreme. As a regular listener (and occasional, amateur, performer) of classical music, I find it dismissive and ignorant that the author chooses to paint so many talented musicians with the same brush.

But isnt the authors point the exact opposite?

He is instead critizicing that so many talented musicians go unheard because of the name dropping culture of those credentialed enough to be at the top.

Or worded differently, there's no innate talent at the top unless it has been "certified" by insiders.

>the performers seem talented and dedicated

Indeed. Yuja Wang is such a talent on piano that she makes some old things like Prok 2's cadenza sound new just because she plays every note perfectly with wonderful musicality and doesn't just pedal and slam her way through it like everyone else does. Many such generational talents are giving performances at an orchestra near you!

Hum, from the conclusions of the somewhat parallel case of Hans Franke (which is about a catalog of ca. 800 "lost" works and 87 "preserved" works, and a fraudulent CV, as well), already referred to by @dfan in this very thread,

> All in all, the impression one gets is of a complacent, incurious German musical establishment which was not interested at all in Franke or his music but was happy to help Franke's daughter establish her foundation and secure funding from it.

https://www.unsungcomposers.com/forum/index.php/topic,6910.m...

Also my conclusion. Not from personal experience, but the article itself doesn’t seem to justify that classical music ecosystem enables such bullshit. It seemed the fraud had a pretty small impact, which the fraudster being caught pretty quickly.

I feel that any industry or community are vulnerable to some small scale fraud like this.

The fraud investigation and story were pretty interesting and well written though

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