Carl Heinrich Graun, and the Arrogant, Pitiless Reviewers in RALPH

RE: Carl Heinrich Graun
RALPH:

BVDs or not, there are indeed two relatively known composers Graun. I copy and paste the entry for C. H. Graun from www.operissimo.com. This basic site is only available in German and French and for opera. Therefore only the opera-composer brother gets a listing. I am reasonably sure that I have some religious thing by one of the brothers on LP somewhere.

Deutscher Komponist und Kapellmeister; Bruder von Johann Gottlieb Graun; 1713-20 Kruzianer in Dresden; Diskantist in der Ratskapelle Dresden; Kompositionsschüler in J. Chr. Schmidt; frühzeitig Kirchenkomponist; 1725 Operntenor in Braunschweig; Opernkomponist; 1727-35 Vizekapellmeister in Braunschweig; 1735 in Rheinsberg bei Friedrich II.; ab 1740 Küniglich preuţischer Kapellmeister; organisierte im Auftrag des Hofes die Einrichtung der Berliner Oper (Erüffnung 1742)

Works:

Artaserse
Montezuma
Pharao Tubaetes
Polydorus

Go to the review in question

Dear RALPH:

In a recent review in your magazine --- concerning A Stubborn Light --- your reviewer wrote, "Readers occasionally accuse it of wallowing in masochism and pain to the exclusion of the joys and wonders of life. This is ridiculous. The Sun is an important resource for those of us who want to study up on woe."

This is typical of your arrogant one might say pitiless school of reviewing.

Are we to assume that there is no grief in life? Are we to believe that life is nothing but bacon and eggs, peaches and cream, torts not tarts? Maybe your reviewer is so above it all that he has no knowledge of pain.

If that is so, why don't you fire him? Maybe if he's on the dole for a change, instead of feeding at the literary trough, he will be able to go out in life, learn what it is all about, learn what it is like to suffer.