Steve Schwartz wrote:

>Dave Lampson writes, responding to Robert Peters:
>
>>>I think music does not have to be beautiful.
>>
>>I think music must contain an essential core of beauty, or it's not music.
>
>I'd extend that to all art.  The question is, as always, "What is
>beautiful?"

I'd extend it to all art as well.  But though "What is beautiful?"
is indeed a question, it is not the question I was addressing.  What I
was trying to get at in my response to Robert was this idea of desirable
ugliness.  I won't have responded to Achim's original post in this thread
as I understood him to be saying that he found the works to be beautiful,
though he didn't use that word until a later post.  I may not be able to
understand Achim's viewpoint on this music, but I see no point in a
it's-beautiful-no-it's-not-yes-it-is type of discussion.

>>>That is why Lloyd-Webber is so disappointing: because the music is too
>>>smooth and "beautiful" to be true.
>>
>>Millions disagree, including me, though I know that's de rigueur in
>>classical music circles.  His music is exactly what it needs to be for
>>what it is, and that's why it's so successful.
>
>I'm not a huge ALW fan.  I simply don't find most of his stuff interesting
>- pretty or not.

I actually agree to a large degree.  His music is not appealing because
it's basically not terribly interesting, not because it's too beautiful
to be true.

>In the 18th century, theorists divided art into the beautiful and the
>sublime - both of which had two very distinct and definite meanings.  The
>beautiful was symmetrical, "appropriate," and pleasant - like the gardens
>at Versailles.  The sublime was asymmetrical, wild, and powerful - like
>Niagara Falls or Mont Blanc.  What you seem to disagree about really is
>what is sublime and what is merely ugly.

We've disagreed on this in the past, and I suspect we may always disagree.
Where you see asymmetry, I see a lazy lack of proportion.  What you see
wild, I see as undisciplined and unfocussed.  Where you see powerful, I
merely see the bombastic and unsubtle.  That's the problem with all of
these philosophical constructs.  Ultimately they can be used to exalt the
greatness of even the most obvious dreck.

>I'd say that the sublime has taken over much of 20th-century music -
>actually, much of Romantic music as well (since I consider the 20th
>century mainly a continuation of the Romantics in at least the view toward
>the artist and the purpose of art).

I'd say that the ridiculous has taken over much of 20th-century art music.
I also believe there has been a dramatic and fundamental shift in the view
toward the artist and the purpose of art since the Romantics.  Speaking
simplistically, I believe most Romantic artists saw themselves as conduits
to capture, amplify, and transmit the power of man, nature, and God through
their art.  Many 20th-century artists seem uninterested in any of that.
They seem to be more interested in "expressing themselves", almost as if
the artist has become man, nature, and God in one.  "There's no need to
relate to the outside world, dammit, I'm expressing myself and that's what
art is for." Well, I'm sorry but that artist-centric approach generally
does not compel an audience as nearly a century of history has shown us.
I believe it's because it's too self-centered and self-referential, some
would say even self-indulgent.  You can see this attitude in the way
modern composers are discussed.  Often the claim is made that we need to
understand the life of the artist in order to appreciate their art.  This
is a manifestation of that shift to an artist-centered world of art, and
a direct contradiction to the idea that great art is timeless.  Though the
Romantics rightly elevated the place of the artist in the scheme of things,
I think most of them would rail at the extreme to which this idea has been
taken in the past eighty years or so.  I think this is what Nielsen was
getting at in those passages that Steve quoted in his post.  Moderation
in all things I say.:-) Art has to be pushed.  Limits have to be found
and exceeded.  Experiments have to take place.  It's when the whole point
becomes pushing and experimentation I tend to think the core idea is being
lost somewhere along the line.

Dave
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