Chris Bonds writes:

>I...suggest that the notion of shared importance is vital to a
>robust community of art lovers.  If all art is personal (in the way that
>I think Polanyi argued for knowledge in general), then it's not really
>possible to sustain community through art.  I believe this has been the
>prevailing state of affairs in much of the 20th century.

In the late 17th, early 18th Century, readers were beginning to pop
up everywhere, even among women and laboring classes.  For the first
time people were given the tools to see beyond their own backyard.  The
problem was that most of the great writers, Dante, Chaucer, etc.; were
eloquent of national personalities--they spoke of the differences among
peoples.  As artists reminded reminded Europeans of their peculiar hopes
and idiosyncrasies, (while the American and French Revolutions played
out in the background), people were alerted to their right to govern
themselves.  But how would the Western European spirit as a whole remain
intact?

Another art was needed to affirm Community. (Boorstin)

Before Beethoven, the music of instruments was merely and ambient art,
providing atmosphere for ritual or ceremony.  Haydn and Mozart wrote for
a specialized concert-going audience who paid to listen.  Beethoven, by
pioneering Program music, reassured the unprofessional audience that
they were not listening to "mere" music, but something significant in
experience.  Program music became a vehicle and messenger to the whole
community, not to just lovers of sonatas and concertos, not just to
concertgoers, but to all who enjoyed nature, who loved, who felt sorrow,
defeat, and victory.  Beethoven transformed instrumental music from that
of a Document, to that of the Monument.  (Clay)

So Chris, I totally agree with you, music's power is in its shared
experience--totalitarian governments were fully aware of this, as they
used program music to enslave artists to politics in an effort to unite
their communities.  (Shirer)

John Smyth