From: Platt Holden (pholden@sc.rr.com)
Date: Tue Feb 10 2004 - 20:47:52 GMT
Hi Steve,
> If Mozart were alive today, what kind of music do you think he'd be
> making? I doubt he'd be composing in the classical style. There will
> never be another Beethoven because Beethoven has been done.
Disagree. Great art transcends societies. The only standard for great art
is, "Does it reflect Spirit?," i.e., the ineffable beauty of the
conceptually unknown. "Style" is irrelevant.
> The standard for static classical musical quality has long ago been set and
> need not be rehashed by modern musicians. The modern great's greatness may
> be measured by their dynamic contributions to the art of making music and
> also making popular culture, since modern popular composer's music cannot
> be separated from their larger cultural impact.
Disagree. Making music for cultural impact is simply money grubbing or
political propaganda. Making music to reflect the goodness of ultimate
beauty has always been every artist's challenge, today more than ever.
What passes for music in today's "culture" was best described by Al Capp:
"A product of the untalented sold by the unprincipled to the utterly
bewildered." Case in point: the Superbowl half time show.
> (I don't think we are seeing anything new in Britney Spears, but we did
> in Madonna in the 80's though Madonna's influence was cultural rather than
> musical.)
Madonna's influence was sexual and thus anti-social.
> The importance of an understanding of context in modern music is a part of
> the postmodern movement which is a logical progression if you can see how
> static quality goes stale. I think you may be selling short the dynamism
> of modern music. Despite the beauty of the mathematical sophistication of
> Bach, that mode ran its course. It lost its dynamism.
To you, perhaps. To others Bach remains forever dynamic in revealing ever
deeper subtleties with each performance.
> It was followed by the innovations of the likes of Mozart. Mozart can be
> viewed in the context of the evolution of music that Bach participated in,
> and Mozart's music can be seen as "better" than Bach if you understand
> Mozart as including Bach without necessarily rehashing Bach. There was no
> need for Mozart to rehash it since we still have Bach. Perhaps Mozart even
> helped people appreciate Bach in new ways.
Disagree. You seem to believe there is "progress" in art. I do not. There
has never been, nor possibly ever be, a more profound depiction of animals
than on the caves of Lascaux. Beauty doesn't improve with time.
> Likewise, Radiohead (my favorite modern band) doesn't make rock music that
> sounds anything like Chuck Berry, but it is understood by those that
> appreciate their music as coming out of a broader context that runs from
> Chuck Berry to the Rolling Stones, to the Velvet Underground, to Pink
> Floyd. I think that the most innovative musicians today can't be
> appreciated without a sense of that broader context since the old forms
> have lost their dynamic impact and cannot be continually quoted without
> boring us (which also applies to modern art and explains why I have little
> appreciation for it. I just don't know enough about it and it sure doesn't
> try to explain itself.) Modern (postmodern) artists must cut right to the
> chase and be as dynamic as possible while providing only the fewest
> contextual clues (static quality) as possible to be understood while
> presupposing most of the necessary contextual understanding.
Disagree. Beauty transcends contexts. Art critic Clement Greenberg had it
right when he wrote: "Esthetic enjoyments are immediate, intuitive,
undeliberate and involuntary and leave no room for conscious application
of standards, criteria, rules or precepts."
Finally, to suggest that Radiohead or any other rock band is creatively on
a par with Beethoven or Mozart is to me ludicrous, like comparing jelly
glasses to fine crystal stemware. Even a child can see the difference.
Regards,
Platt
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