Dave Lampson wrote:

>I think music must contain an essential core of beauty, or it's not music.

For me the pursuit of beauty, like the pursuit of happiness, is a limited
ambition.  These are secondary desiderata.  Beauty in music and happiness
in life are very pleasant and agreeable, but they are not all there is.
It is sometimes necessary to discard or ignore the possibilities of beauty
and happiness in favour of something higher - something like love or
fulfilment.

The truly creative musician brings into existence something new because
he loves it so much and wants it so much that he will go through whatever
he has to go through to achieve that creation.  Whether it is beautiful or
not is not just a mere matter of opinion:  it is actually beside the point.

I remember like yesterday the very first time I heard the Jupiter symphony.
It was the slow movement playing on the radio (except that in those days
we called it the wireless), and it was incredibly beautiful.  But I also
remember, as a kid brought up on 'classical' music, hearing for the first
time 'The Rite of Spring'.  Beautiful, to my young ears it most certainly
was not.  But it was arresting, intriguing, scary, seemingly impenetrable
- and utterly fascinating.  I now also find it beautiful, but didn't then
- yet I have never forgotten that experience and treasure it greatly.

Some of the successful films these days contain much violence, depravity
and ugliness, and little if anything that could be called beautiful without
stretching that term to breaking-point.  Yet people flock to watch them,
and Tarantino as well as Disney has now become part of the culture.

Dave does not attempt a definition of beauty in his post, except to say
that there are many types, and I suppose it's possible to define beauty
in such a way as to include everything that is finest and highest in the
arts, but to my mind that would be to make the word virtually meaningless.

I don't know if it is still current, but some time ago there was a vogue
of "significance".  Great art is that which is significant, which does
something to you, which leads you forward (possibly kicking and screaming,
though that is not essential!), which puts you in a different relationship
with the universe, which expands your consciousness, which enhances your
sensitivity and sensibilities, which re-defines and re-orientates.  Das
ewig-Kunstliche zieht uns hinan!  Beauty we enjoy and are grateful for
when it comes our way, but it just isn't the ne plus ultra.

Alan Moss
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