Spinach: Fifty Helpings, Please
So I guess I have something to add after all to the discussion of Richard Taruskin's article in The New Republic.
I agree with his critique of the claim that "classical" music embodies a moral superiority. Like Terry Teachout, I don't buy the eat-your-spinach approach to promoting the avant garde.
And yet....
I can understand how the idea persists. Consider a comment left on this blog by Fred Wickham:
On my 22nd birthday (over 43 years ago), my mother gave me the Stravinsky Violin Concerto. She knew only that I liked classical music, and the name "Stravinsky" sounded classical.This kind of experience is far from unique. Why shouldn't it give snobs the hope that if only we could lock the rubes in a cage for a few days and force them to listen to Berio and Boulez over and over and over, eventually they would get it. It's their laziness, not any inherent limitation in the music, that prevents their appreciation of it.
I listened to it and hated it. Actually, the music I liked was from the 18th and 19th century -- Beethoven, Schumann, Brahms. But I dutifully listened to it until -- I don't know, maybe the tenth hearing -- I began to like it.
Labels: Culture
Umie the Umlaut says, "ask your doctor about the Fredösphere!"
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