I honestly think that someone with these sensibilities might think that music since WWII is a wasteland with respect to what they cared about.
I’m pretty sure that the authors of the best theological texts had impressive general intellects and associated with impressive people. They were probably frequently good public speakers too, a costly signal.
I don’t think advanced music might be an intentional hoax. (which could be OK. It always seemed to me that in Andy Warhol’s case hoax was the art). I think it, and advanced math, may not be the heirs to the unquestionably valuable traditions that they claim to be heirs to, but may instead by the emergent properties of certain institutional designs in the absence of outside constraints.
There are other possibilities too. It seems to me that modern art, in the sense of the 1860s-1950s, is basically not the intellectual heir of the old masters. Picasso etc were doing something much cooler than the old masters were, but what they were doing is better thought of as being an heir to certain tribal art-forms, especially from the pacific islands, empowered by industrial civilization, specialization, etc.
I honestly think that someone with these sensibilities might think that music since WWII is a wasteland with respect to what they cared about.
It is conceivable, I’ll admit, that such a person could have ended up like Schenker, who was as much a musical genius as the greatest composers of his day, but thought that music after 1900 was a wasteland. But note this: Schenker essentially wrote no music of his own! For all that he hoped his theories would form the basis of a “rebirth” of the tradition that (in his view) died with Brahms, he never bothered to put them into practice himself and demonstrate whatever he thought it was that the composers of his day should have been doing.
I don’t think this is a coincidence. The literal closest successor to Brahms was Max Reger, whom Schenker despised, and Schoenberg is the next step after Reger. I really don’t think it’s psychologically possible to be a composer of genius and a musical conservative at the same time. Yet, in order for a modern Beethoven to oppose contemporary music, that’s what would have to have happened: at some point in musical history, they would have had to have sided with the conservatives against the radicals. I don’t think someone capable of doing that would have been able to produce the Eroica in 1805; they would have more likely been the guy at the premiere who shouted “I’ll give another kreutzer if this thing will only stop!”.
I’m pretty sure that the authors of the best theological texts had impressive general intellects and associated with impressive people. They were probably frequently good public speakers too, a costly signal.
The main problem with theological ideas isn’t that they aren’t interesting, but that they aren’t true. But art doesn’t have truth-values; interestingness is all there is.
Someone posted a list of questions for Brian Ferneyhough (and other contemporary composers) on the talk page of his Wikipedia article, and Ferneyhough actually responded. For some reason I think you might find it interesting; I suppose it may have to do with the fact that the writing style in some of his answers reminded me of your own.
Andy Warhol’s art was an example of the simplicity on the far side of complexity. Picasso was extremely skilled in representational art before he started doing his cool stuff. Schoenberg did more conventionally listenable music before he went all twelve-tone.
As I note, if it presses people’s buttons in a given cultural context then it works. That’s the bottom line.
I honestly think that someone with these sensibilities might think that music since WWII is a wasteland with respect to what they cared about.
I’m pretty sure that the authors of the best theological texts had impressive general intellects and associated with impressive people. They were probably frequently good public speakers too, a costly signal.
I don’t think advanced music might be an intentional hoax. (which could be OK. It always seemed to me that in Andy Warhol’s case hoax was the art). I think it, and advanced math, may not be the heirs to the unquestionably valuable traditions that they claim to be heirs to, but may instead by the emergent properties of certain institutional designs in the absence of outside constraints.
There are other possibilities too. It seems to me that modern art, in the sense of the 1860s-1950s, is basically not the intellectual heir of the old masters. Picasso etc were doing something much cooler than the old masters were, but what they were doing is better thought of as being an heir to certain tribal art-forms, especially from the pacific islands, empowered by industrial civilization, specialization, etc.
It is conceivable, I’ll admit, that such a person could have ended up like Schenker, who was as much a musical genius as the greatest composers of his day, but thought that music after 1900 was a wasteland. But note this: Schenker essentially wrote no music of his own! For all that he hoped his theories would form the basis of a “rebirth” of the tradition that (in his view) died with Brahms, he never bothered to put them into practice himself and demonstrate whatever he thought it was that the composers of his day should have been doing.
I don’t think this is a coincidence. The literal closest successor to Brahms was Max Reger, whom Schenker despised, and Schoenberg is the next step after Reger. I really don’t think it’s psychologically possible to be a composer of genius and a musical conservative at the same time. Yet, in order for a modern Beethoven to oppose contemporary music, that’s what would have to have happened: at some point in musical history, they would have had to have sided with the conservatives against the radicals. I don’t think someone capable of doing that would have been able to produce the Eroica in 1805; they would have more likely been the guy at the premiere who shouted “I’ll give another kreutzer if this thing will only stop!”.
The main problem with theological ideas isn’t that they aren’t interesting, but that they aren’t true. But art doesn’t have truth-values; interestingness is all there is.
Someone posted a list of questions for Brian Ferneyhough (and other contemporary composers) on the talk page of his Wikipedia article, and Ferneyhough actually responded. For some reason I think you might find it interesting; I suppose it may have to do with the fact that the writing style in some of his answers reminded me of your own.
Andy Warhol’s art was an example of the simplicity on the far side of complexity. Picasso was extremely skilled in representational art before he started doing his cool stuff. Schoenberg did more conventionally listenable music before he went all twelve-tone.
As I note, if it presses people’s buttons in a given cultural context then it works. That’s the bottom line.
(Yes, just about everything is art.)