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 [log in to unmask]