There is no reason why, in art and thus, in music, timeless principles should not inform new creation. This simple, but often forgotten common sense idea is at the heart of the work and theories of architect Léon Krier, the father of new urbanism and a famous critic of modernism in contemporary architecture, and by extension of certain destructive aspects of modernity - or rather, an entirely twisted and perverse idea of what modernity as a concept is. He is also someone with a sharp mind for philosophical implications.
From Krier's pioneering theories one of the most important conclusions drawn by the reader, is that the concept of 'tradition' has been seriously misunderstood in the 20th century. and this has led, in architecture but also and especially in the arts, to a suicidal poverty, emptying the arts of any meaning for the community, for civilization as a whole.
Here follow a number of quotes from his book 'The Architecture of Community' which are also of interest for music:
“Authentic architecture is not the incarnation of the spirit of the age but of the spirit, full stop."
“Cities and landscapes are illustrations of our spiritual and material worth. They not only express our values but give them a tangible reality. They determine the way in which we use or squander our energy, time, and land resources.”
“Human intelligence is a limited resource. It cannot solve problems caused by ignoring fundamentals of existence.”
“The rigidity of a bottle's form does not affect the fluidity of the liquid it contains.”
"As is the case with all goods things in life - love, good manners, language, cooking - leaps of genius are required only rarely. The poet does not excel by inventing new words or languages but when, by subtle arrangements of otherwise familiar terms, he reveals human predicaments in new and poetic ways."
“Excessive hunger will in the end kill the body . . . we have to ask ourselves what beauty-depletion kills in us.”
“In traditional cultures, invention, innovation and discovery are the means to modernise proven and practical systems of thinking, planning, building, representing, communicating in the arts, philosophy, architecture, language, the sciences, industry and agriculture. They are the means to an end, they aim to conceive, realise and conserve a solid, durable, practical, beautiful, humane world.”
“For traditional cultures imitation is a way of producing objects that are similar but unique.”
https://www.amazon.nl/Architecture-Community-Leon-Krier/dp/1597265799
So basically nothing Jaroslav Pelikan didn't cover in The Vindication of Tradition in his 1983 Jefferson lectures back in 1983.
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