Re: Beethoven's 5th Symphony

From: Uncle Al (UncleAl0_at_hate.spam.net)
Date: 02/05/05 

Date: Sat, 05 Feb 2005 14:33:50 -0800

"Peter H.M. Brooks" wrote:
>
> 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.

If it doesn't reduce to a predictive mathematical model falsifiable by
observation, it is arbitrary. If it is arbitrary it has no intrinsic
meaning. Aesthetics are meaningless. They are a peer vote amongst
posseurs.

I like my women smooth. That would not be a commensalist aesthetic in
any Mediterranean country France through Italy to Greece. If I
disliked shrill dissonances I would loathe Orientalist music starting
in Eastern Europe (abused clarinets) and throughout Asia. If redheads
were my thing I would be confined to Irish, Scottish, Dutch, and some
Northern Italians. Whether a huge-butted peppercorn-headed stout
African is prettier than a slim tall fair Englishwoman is without any
meaning at all. If you want surviving kids when the food supply is
chancey, you definitely want the porker over the empty larder.

> 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.

Nope. It is an aesthetic call. It has no basis in reality. People
eat - by choice - Brussels sprouts, pickled beets, tofu, natto,
bran... De gustibus non est disputandum. Walking through an Oriental
market is a tummy tosser. Yet an East Indian would not feast on a
fine ribeye steak, a Jew would eschew a pork roast, Orientals do not
tolerate dairy products, and both Chinese and Koreans fancy eating dog
(possibly the only thing they agree upon other than hating Japanese).
 
> 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.

When you have no uniform system of weights and measures any number is
correct. Was Picasso a great artist? His Blue Period (courtesy of A
French industrialist who synthesized ultramarine, thus also kicking
off Impressionism) shows he could put it on canvas. Jackson Polack
was a failed housepainter with a quick mouth who filled a need for
product.
 
> Aesthetics is still an important study carried out by clever, erudite
> and well informed people.

Nonsense. It is nothing deeper than cultural bias. The standard of
aesthetic excellence is something that can be acquired by not too many
and not without great cost. Frank Gehry's museum in Bilbao, Spain is
OK once. His Disney Hall is within driving distance of me. Two of
those buildings constitute one too many. He has erected that visual
horror all over the Earth. One Sidney, Australia opera House is OK.
Two would be excessive. The Liberal and Fine Arts are at best
personal bias and usually manipulated value for tax avoidance. 90% of
either's accumulated content is generally crap by any objective
standard.

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

Table with small hole at center. Monkey's head protrudes. Guests
whang monkey's head with small mallets, reflect the scalp, then dip
past the fractured skull into the still living brain with small-bowled
long-handled spoons. Yum. How much haute can you stand? I find bleu
cheese to be utterly disgusting, yet I enjoy picked herring in cream
sauce with raw onions.

Do what you want. If it attracts a mob - in black tie or in sneakers
- you're in.

For all that, classicism and romantism disgorged great music and
*** noise does not. 

-- 
Uncle Al
http://www.mazepath.com/uncleal/
 (Toxic URL! Unsafe for children and most mammals)
http://www.mazepath.com/uncleal/qz.pdf