Reading is not always easy, and understanding entirely dependent upon the receptive framework of the reader. For instance, in the review as linked underneath, of 'The Classical Revolution', the reader thought that I was claiming that classical music 'would save Western civilisation', while it should be clear from the text that of course was meant: when classical music erodes in the West, this would be a sign that Western civilisation itself is eroding, since classical music is an expression of its civilisational values.
Misreading such obvious observation is in itself a sign of erosion, while the countless confusions and misunderstandings in this review show what happens when there is not enough background to fall back upon. Nonetheless, it is good to notice that the book sets some minds in motion:
About Me
- The Subterranean Review
- Education: Rotterdam Conservatory, Cambridge University // Activities: composition, writing
Tuesday, 26 March 2019
Tuesday, 19 February 2019
Investing in recovery
The notion of 'progress' is not an easy way out of complex considerations. The only real progress is improvement, but then the question arises: improvement according to which parameters? Comparing advantages and disadvantages of different options may be a start, but outcomes are not 'safe' conclusions.
"Many of the great ruins that grace the deserts and jungles of the earth are monuments to progress traps, the headstones of civilisations which fell victim to their own success. The twentieth-century´s runaway growth has placed a murderous burden on the planet."
And: how do civilisations collapse? Interesting article on the website of the BBC:
"Many of the great ruins that grace the deserts and jungles of the earth are monuments to progress traps, the headstones of civilisations which fell victim to their own success. The twentieth-century´s runaway growth has placed a murderous burden on the planet."
And: how do civilisations collapse? Interesting article on the website of the BBC:
Why are these explorations relevant for culture? Because they paint the background for a future in which the arts can take-on a new relevance.
Saturday, 2 February 2019
The blind leading the deaf
Again and again, when new music is concerned, is modernism (in all its forms, including its watery progeny) seen as the symbol of a free, pluralist cultural field, the only available alternative to a totalitarian society where music had to follow party lines and could only operate within narrowly-defined limits, laid-down by the state, as in Soviet Russia and Franco Spain. Obviously, this politization of culture avoids the question of artistic quality and invites for considering only the wrapping paper of any work and not its contents or qualities. Hence, composers with flawed abilities and naive ideas about the art form, sport their illusions as reprentative of the true nature of music, without the need to have their works be compaired by existing artistic achievement, shielded by the ideological and political contradiction of 'freedom' versus 'suppression', and the implied historicist idea that there exists something like progress in the arts, and thus also in music. Thus doubly shielded, they produce self-congratulating gestures for a gullible elite of organizers, fulfilling the needs of equally gullible audiences fearing the return of rightwing, extremist forces in politics which would deprive them of the idea that they are living in a free, pluralist society where all forms of culture have the right to exist.
A recent concert in Germany proves the point, and it is interesting that in the following review no less composer as Beethoven is invoked to underline the symbolic interpretation of a type of new music which is the opposite of everything that Beethoven's work represents. It is the conventional idea that Beethoven stood at the beginning of a line of innovation and transgression of boundaries of which the composers of this concert represent, so to speak, the result:
A recent concert in Germany proves the point, and it is interesting that in the following review no less composer as Beethoven is invoked to underline the symbolic interpretation of a type of new music which is the opposite of everything that Beethoven's work represents. It is the conventional idea that Beethoven stood at the beginning of a line of innovation and transgression of boundaries of which the composers of this concert represent, so to speak, the result:
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