"Felix Mendelssohn I think was very great, but simply on a second tier. I mean you have top level Bach Mozart Beethoven. Then the second tier where there are a lot more people Brahms, Mendelssohn, Sibelius etc. Then there are people that are somewhere between those two levels Handel, Hayden Vivaldi etc. and lots of Renaissance.
As for literature --it is hard to tell who is really great. The reason is that takes a lot longer to tell what is of lasting worth. Shakespeare for example has withstood the test of time and even so I am not sure that he is as great as people claim [Not that I read all of his work. After around the play that slandered Joan of Arc I gave upon him.]. In terms of plays and stories on the top level I think Sophocles is a lot better.
{Besides that I think the Rambam would have forbid reading "literature". I doubt if he would have thought there is any intrinsic worth in it. But for that matter he would have also forbid music of any kind. He did not have the same opinion as the Gra about the "seven wisdoms." This basic idea of spending my time learning Torah I would be doing except that I did not get along very well in the religious kinds of places where books of Torah are to be found. So just from simple self preservation I do not go to such places so as not to give them a chance to hurt me any more than they already have.
But if I could I would get my own set of books of Torah and do them at home.--Torah is valid and important but the Sitra Achra has taken over the entire religious world from head to toe.]
I was once playing on the violin on the street in Geula, and a grandson of Rav Israel Abuchatzaira came by and asked me to play something from Felix Mendelssohn. [I think he might have asked specifically for the violin concerto.]
His mother [Avigail Buso] is very much into listening to classical music--i.e. the daughter of Rav Israel Abuchatzeira.
She however did not approve of my playing violin on the street. She offered me this offer: If I would sit and learn Torah she would pay all my expenses. I did not accept at the time because of my grievances against the religious world.They had already done enough damage to me to the degree I did not see this offer as a good thing.
As for literature --it is hard to tell who is really great. The reason is that takes a lot longer to tell what is of lasting worth. Shakespeare for example has withstood the test of time and even so I am not sure that he is as great as people claim [Not that I read all of his work. After around the play that slandered Joan of Arc I gave upon him.]. In terms of plays and stories on the top level I think Sophocles is a lot better.
{Besides that I think the Rambam would have forbid reading "literature". I doubt if he would have thought there is any intrinsic worth in it. But for that matter he would have also forbid music of any kind. He did not have the same opinion as the Gra about the "seven wisdoms." This basic idea of spending my time learning Torah I would be doing except that I did not get along very well in the religious kinds of places where books of Torah are to be found. So just from simple self preservation I do not go to such places so as not to give them a chance to hurt me any more than they already have.
But if I could I would get my own set of books of Torah and do them at home.--Torah is valid and important but the Sitra Achra has taken over the entire religious world from head to toe.]
I was once playing on the violin on the street in Geula, and a grandson of Rav Israel Abuchatzaira came by and asked me to play something from Felix Mendelssohn. [I think he might have asked specifically for the violin concerto.]
His mother [Avigail Buso] is very much into listening to classical music--i.e. the daughter of Rav Israel Abuchatzeira.
She however did not approve of my playing violin on the street. She offered me this offer: If I would sit and learn Torah she would pay all my expenses. I did not accept at the time because of my grievances against the religious world.They had already done enough damage to me to the degree I did not see this offer as a good thing.
