Re: Beethoven's 5th Symphony

From: Peter H.M. Brooks (peter_at_new.co.za)
Date: 02/05/05 

Date: Sat, 05 Feb 2005 20:28:44 +0200

Uncle Al wrote:
> "Peter H.M. Brooks" wrote:
>
>>I'm working on a little personal project. I'd like to get a better
>>understanding of Beethoven's 5th Symphony.
>
> [snip]
>
>
>>This may seem a silly question, but I'll ask it anyway. What is the best
>>way to come to a musical understanding of a work of this magnitude, both
>>musically and historically - given that it is probably my favourite work
>>of classical music already?
>
> [snip]
>
> Since your enquiry is not into objective reality, any answer is both
> correct and incorrect. It is only a matter of how loud you shout, how
> well you seduce, or who can hook on and gain advantage. Any system
> that admits John Cage and Jackson "Jack the Dripper" Pollock is
> corrupt and meaningless.
>
To call meaning, no matter how corrupt, 'meaningless' is to corrupt the
meaning of meaning.

I know that answers will differ. It is, I hope, fairly obvious that I'm
not looking for any post-modernist bull*** as an answer. However, to
claim that simply because post-modernist bull*** exists the whole of
meaning and aesthetics have gone for a ball of *** is nonsense.

Sensible and clever people still exist. Post-modernism is only there for
lazy proles - and lazy proles have always had something to bolster their
fragile egos, if only gin.

Aesthetics is still an important study carried out by clever, erudite
and well informed people.

Mc$hite didn't destroy haute cuisine - even if most proles don't know that. 

--
  A society should be judged not by how it treats its outstanding 
citizens but by how it treats its criminals. -- Fydor Dostoevsky
* TagZilla 0.057 * http://tagzilla.mozdev.org
Quantcast