User talk:John Dunlop

Walden: not a Scholar
Dear John Dunlop It is suggested (see Talk:Immortal Beloved) to remove most of what you altered/added, mainly due to NPOV considerations: That "the Introduction to Walden's book written by William Meredith, who has reviewed the debate over the major candidates and takes the position that Walden's theory be given unbiased consideration" is not exactly an endorsement (in fact if one reads the few comments Meredith makes about Walden's hypothesis, his support is rather lukewarm and, if anything, based on his obvious desire to counter Solomon's theory and its long overdue refutation within American scholarship - witness his many remarks in the main part of his Introduction (very readable indeed, accessible via Amazon's "Search Inside"): Meredith (2011, p. xix f.) mentions a “Beethoven mafia”, asking "whether the world of American Beethoven scholarship was indeed controlled by a relatively self–contained circle of scholars who were the go–to choices for vetting Beethoven articles and books ... arranged Beethoven conferences for each other … and supported each other's work in very significant ways such as writing supportive letters for grants and promotions… One possible example of the control of the field in journals intended primarily for musicologists is the absence of a single article about the Immortal Beloved in the ... prestigious journal Beethoven Forum ... from 1992 to 2006 ... [as] if there was ... an informal agreement in place to 'embargo' any Immortal Beloved article… It may also be true that something parallel to the 'informational cascade effect' ... played a role in the belief that Maynard Solomon had solved the Immortal Beloved question once and for all." (Meredith 2011, p. xx.) This very interesting "informational cascade effect" means that "it is optimal for an individual, having observed the actions of those ahead of him, to follow the behavior of the preceding individual without regard to his own information… Four primary mechanisms have been suggested for uniformsocial behavior: (1) sanctions of deviants, (2) positive payoff externalities, (3) conformity preference, and (4) communication… These effects tend to bring about a rigid conformity that cannot be broken with small shocks. Indeed, the longer the bandwagon continues, the more robust it becomes (Bikhchandani, Hirshleifer & Welch 1992, p. 992 f.; quoted in Meredith 2011, p. xx f.). Now we may be able to comprehend more fully: "The endorsement of Solomon's solution in the Beethoven entry by Joseph Kerman and Alan Tyson in the 20th edition of The New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians in 1980 did much to solidify support: 'Of recent conjectures as to her identity the most plausible (by Maynard Solomon) is that she was Antonie Brentano... Whether the psychological requirements are fulfilled depends on one's reading of her personality and of the letter's intended meaning.' ... Solomon's theory as the 'most plausible' became a point of fact in the ... Grove Music Online ...: 'Solomon showed ... that she was Antonie Brentano... (As there are no explicit letters from Antonie Brentano to Beethoven, some do not accept that the case is closed; but no plausible alternative has been presented.)' With the transformation of Solomon’s 'conjecture' … into statement of fact and the denial of the existence of at least one if not two plausible alternatives, Solomon’s theory might seem confirmed. Recently, a major American Beethoven scholar commented to me privately that those who refuse to accept the Antonie theory are 'impervious' to the facts of the case." (Meredith 2011, p. xxi.) No wonder that Bill's "ears pricked up at the assertion that Solomon’s case was indeed built of facts, even though the argument is masterfully constructed."(Meredith 2011, p. xxi.) It is factually incorrect that Walden makes "the assumption that one of the three published letters from Beethoven to her is true": In fact he claims two are true, and they are - for good reason - not published in the Complete Letters edited by Brandenburg (1996); they were only published by herself. And for this and many other reasons they are considered self-serving forgeries by all scholars. (In fact there is not one serious scholar, to my knowledge, who assumes any of these two letters that Bettina claimed Beethoven wrote her are genuine.) Walden's arguments in this regard are at best tautological. But how much space should we give in an encyclopedic Main Article of Wikipedia to the discussion of minor details of a certain (disputed) publication? How many of the other authors (true scholars in particular, i.e., those who do not fantasize in an armchair, but conduct real archival research) had forewords, reviews, comments and evaluations all over the place that could be mentioned here, only to inflate this article beyond recognition? (Also the review in the Beethoven Journal is of little importance, given that Meredith is its editor, and he had already allowed Walden in 2002 to publish his ideas.) John E Klapproth (talk) 04:39, 22 January 2012 (UTC)