While I fully expected the Robert King posting (I had never heard of
him, BTW) to generate much discussion, I was absolutely astounded at
the form that discussion has taken, with nose-in-the-air sniffing about
"gossip" and "inappropriateness."
I thought we'd gotten rid of this kind of attitude decades ago, and the
most inappropriate thing on this thread is to imagine that the woes of
a prominent musician have no relevance or application to other
musicians' lives and ought not to be mentioned because they are sexual
in nature. How Victorian!
Let's get a quote out here and chew on it:
On Jul 14, 2006, at 9:01 AM, dhbailey wrote:
I take no pleasure in reading of the legal problems of others.
As to the other tangential discussions, yes, some of them disappointed
me, and I took no part in them. But none were posted for purely
prurient reasons.
How does knowing of his arrest help any of us be better musicians,
better engravers, better scholars of copyright issues, better
conductors, better people, better anything?
There is absolutely no connection between those charges and the
performance of classical music or to anything musical at all.
We can first dispose of the entirely unjustified charge that the
original message was posted "for purely prurient reasons." There is
absolutely no evidence to suggest that such was the case, and to imply
otherwise says more about the objector than about the original poster.
As for the rest, let me remind all of you (since you seem,
unaccountably, to have forgotten) that what has happened to Mr. King is
exactly what happened to Henry Cowell. The experience of being
convicted and imprisoned on a morals charge had a most definite effect
on his career, his private life, and his musical style--and if you
really don't know this already, check his Wikipedia article, which lays
it all out. I would think that the stylistic evolution of a major
composer is of, well, just a teeny bit of relevance to anyone
interested in American classical music.
Oh, I forgot, that's all just prurient. No possible connection to us
*honest* musicians.
Well here's a shock: just about every country on earth has "sex crimes"
on the books that should not be crimes at all. Now, I may be wrong, but
it looks very much to me as if Mr. King has been set up to take a fall
on exactly this sort of charge. *That* is what I thought this thread
was going to be about. Silly me.
But see, what happened to King, or something similar, could happen to
*you* tomorrow. All you have to do is wander into some DA's radar, and
if they want you, for whatever reason, they gotcha. Happens every few
months here in Philadelphia, the cradle of liberty. Happens everywhere.
Andrew Stiller
Kallisti Music Press
http://home.netcom.com/~kallisti/
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