Re: ICT comments

• From: castrioti <no_reply_at_yahoogroups.com>
• Date: Thu, 10 Apr 2003 18:27:04 -0000
• Message-ID: <b74d1o+785t_at_...>

--- In quizbowl_at_yahoogroups.com, Dan Blim <sonatanator_at_y...> wrote:
> 
> Well, yeah, I can only think of a couple Finnish composers (Esa-
Pekka Salonen, Magnus Lindberg, Tuukkanen), but Rautavaara is one of 
the more prominent contemporary composers, and draws heavily on 
Sibelius's legacy.  Not tossup worthy, but for a bonus, sure, why not.

Thank you, voice of reason. 

> "This Finnish composer..."
 
 I assume that in 
> fact many other Finns have at some point composed music, probably 
> perfectly good music, but they don't happen to be anywhere near as 
> famous as Sibelius, and since in the grand scheme of things 
Sibelius 
> isn't actually that godawfully famous, they probably shouldn't be 
> coming up in quiz bowl. Such questions are simply not legitimate, 
and 
> 90 percent of the time the only reason anyone ever wrote them is 
> because they said "there must be some other Finnish composer worth 
> writing about..." when in fact there isn't. 

For the future, let's not blanket-nix all Finnish composers 
who are not Sibelius on the assumption they are too obscure for 
QB. For one, there are plenty of good, hard tournaments where bonus 
parts that ask for Lindberg and Rautavaara would be welcomed. I'd 
also like to point out that people have, in the distant past, said 
the same or similar things about Polish music, when "This Polish 
composer" inevitably led to a buzz race to Chopin. Because some 
good soul dug deeper, we now have Ignace Paderewski, Karol 
Szymanowski, and Krzysztof Penderecki, all of which are definitely 
tossup-worthy at the right tournament. Ditto Hungarian stuff. 

Karol Szymanowski = 17,300 google hits
Einojuhani Rautavaara = 17,900 google hits
Magnus Lindberg = 57,800 google hits
Ferenc (Franz) Lehar = 21,800 google hits (tossup came up at ACF Nats 
2002)
Zoltan Kodaly = 30,200 google hits
and just for fun, Arvo Part = 35,400 google hits

Adam, I respectfully disagree with you here. Quizbowl should reflect 
the world, not only what has before come up, as clue or answer (and 
maybe it should even ask about composers who have no websites). 
Limiting countries like Finland to one composer does horrible, 
horrible things to the fluidity of this game.

--Wesley (who, if he had to ask about a freaking obscure composer, 
would somehow write a bonus part about the great Cesk Zadeja)