To Beethoven on his 240th.

As a former Army bandsman, I am not just a casual observer of Walter Pincus’s column in the Washington Post suggesting that we don’t need military bands.  His argument, if it can be dignified as that, mostly boils down to there being too many of them.

And so this comment on the Post’s site seems particularly appropriate:

Let’s get rid of all of the over-paid, undereducated, and untalented columnists. How many does the Post need anyway? There are bloggers out there with far more talent and insight than this person. Heck, who needs the Post at all? It doesn’t serve any purpose that can’t be replaced by some other entity. Who needs all of these writers and papers? Why would a state need more than one? Ridiculous. We should just cut them and give the saved money to day care!

Excellent idea! 

As much as I might like to write a thorough rebuttal of Pincus, I don’t have to.  Josh DiStefano has done it for me, and it’s worth the read.

Click here to view the embedded video.

Not to take anything away from the more serious issue presented here, but the ending credits say the choral performance is by the Monks of Saint Joseph Abbey.  I can’t imagine why someone decided to mix jungle drums with chant, but the monks take no credit for that.

I confess to being ignorant about a lot of pop music.  There are works of some merit in that broad genre, but the effort to cull them out is not very rewarding.  They will be culled out soon enough as time and ennui overtake the vast majority.  Six months is often sufficient.

But I would rather be ignorant of pop music than ignorant of history.  And I would rather be dismissive of the latest rage than dismissive of everything that preceded it.

When I saw the article by Peter Rothberg, “Top Twelve Most Patriotic Songs Ever,” I failed to grasp just how short “ever” might be.  Until I saw the lede:

Most Americans are unaware that much of our patriotic culture–including many of the leading icons and symbols of American identity–was created by artists and writers of decidedly left-wing and even socialist sympathies.

Francis Scott Key a leftist?  Irving Berlin a subversive?  Okay, “Yankee Doodle” has a certain anti-social ring to it, and Katharine Lee Bates was on the faculty of Wellesley, but I never really thought those quirky references to “pilgrim feet” and “fruited plain” would come back to haunt her.  Did the invocation of “brotherhood” conjure up communist imagery in Rothberg’s mind?

No, if you were concerned about such possibilities, you would be thinking of a list of the top twelve most patriotic songs ever, rather than a tautological list of recent pop songs written by people of “decidedly left-wing and even socialist sympathies.”  Many of the songs on Rothberg’s list are works I have managed to avoid contact with altogether, although Rothberg threw in a little Woody Guthrie and Earl Robinson as a sop to history.

One has to be truly lost in the present to confuse “our patriotic culture” and “leading icons” with Jefferson Airplane and the Dave Matthews Band.

Or perhaps Rothberg, a writer for The Nation (a journal manned by writers of decidedly left-wing and even socialist sympathies) simply mistakes the culture and icons of The Nation for those of America.

But what a great idea for an article!  Perhaps Rothberg could next claim that the greatest religious texts ever written were penned by atheists, and proceed to list his favorite passages from Bill Maher and Christopher Hitchens.  Heck, throw in Nietzsche to demonstrate historic perspective.  Aquinas, St. John Chrysostom . . . who are they?

So when you are tempted to pooh-pooh people who believe everything in the universe was created in the last 6,000 years, pity instead the leftists who believe everything that matters was created in their lifetime.

William Byrd Mass for Three Voices – Sanctus

Click here to view the embedded video.

I stumbled on the question of classical music’s relevance this morning and immediately though, “Relevant to what?” My next thought was that it would be answered by the usual complaints about dead white males and bygone eras.

In fact, the question is posed and answered by our own Professor Carol, who occasionally graces this blog with her writing. Today she took up this issue at a new blog called “Music After 50,” a site worth visiting.

The topic is highly relevant on this blog, despite our tendency to get mired in the ephemeral problems of the day. In the future, when every person holding office in the federal government has been replaced and the political debate has shifted to entirely new topics, people will still ponder the things that express our common culture (or that failed in that regard) and our highest aspirations. Today, unfortunately, the highest aspirations of many involve fracturing the common culture and replacing it with trendy pabulum.

So what does Professor Carol say about music?

It’s more than relevant. We can discard outmoded technology without discarding the science behind it. But our cultural heritage is a different matter.

Culture is defined by what gets passed from generation to generation. Symphonies, operas, oratorios, sonatas, and other “old” types of music retain their powerful, even life-altering message for us today. Deprived of that message, we are weakened as a society.

The problem is not that classical music no longer speaks to us. Rather, we have become too distracted to listen.

If you have not visited Professor Carol’s “Circle of Scholars,” you should. There you will find the focus on things more enduring than politics.  Think about it.  Kings used music as a symbol of their power, and now the music remains long after the monarchies have crumbled.

On the other hand, the Church uses music as a reminder of things transcendant, and now unto us a child is born.

This Christmas Eve I commend Professor Carol’s elaboration on “O Holy Night.”

What is the most famous four-note melody in the world? One where three of the four pitches repeat the same note?

Now that’s a toss-up: either the opening of Beethoven’s 5^th Symphony, a.k.a. “Fate Knocking at the Door” (dah-dah-dah dum) or . . . ready?. . . “Happy Birthday!” (dah-dah-de-dah).

But today, December 16^th, you don’t have to choose. It’s Beethoven’s birthday! He’d be 239 years old today, not an anniversary that sparks commemorative festivals, but still a date to note.

Beethoven lived a tumultuous life of 57 years (1770-1827), a reasonable lifespan for his day. Subsequent generations took this restless, reclusive composer and turned him into the standard-bearer for Romanticism. And those portraits of his, the ones with rushes of hair and dark eyes piercing your soul [Joseph Carl Stieler]—well, they serve today as icons of “Artistic Genius.”

Beethoven would find all of this astonishing.

As it turns out, Beethoven’s music outlasted 200+ plus years of stylistic change. It still speaks to vast numbers of people. And although we consider Beethoven the quintessential “genius-rebel” today, he had little choice but to bow and scrape continually. It was customary, then, to write in self-deprecating prose to achieve every objective. Trying to learn in 1823 how King George IV responded to his gift of a score of Battle of Vittoria, Beethoven couldn’t simply ask. He had to write:

In thus presuming, herewith, to submit my most obedient prayer to Your Majesty, I venture at the same time to supplement it with a second [letter]. . . . For many years the undersigned cherished the sweet wish that Your Majesty would graciously make known the receipt of his work to him; but he has not been able to boast of this happiness. . . .

In other words “Hey, King George, what about that piece I sent you?”

Beethoven might have preferred our modern age, where celebrities’ personalities rise up flamboyantly and, if there’s enough media attention, give them leave for seemingly any action. But it’s highly unlikely our present age would inspire the depth, intensity, and originality found in those impassioned note he scribbled on paper.

Happy Birthday Beethoven!

For the record, I opposed the New York Philharmonic’s trip to North Korea in 2008, and I think it’s fair to say that many of those in the music world thought it was a splendid idea (Terry Teachout and Norman Lebrecht being notable exceptions). My reasoning included the fact that, although Lorin Maazel mouthed some platitudes about music remaining apolitical, Maazel himself politicized the event before embarking, equating North Korea’s human-rights record with our own:

“People who live in glass houses shouldn’t throw bricks, should they?” Mr. Maazel demanded. “Is our standing as a country — the United States — is our reputation all that clean when it comes to prisoners and the way they are treated? Have we set an example that should be emulated all over the world? If we can answer that question honestly, I think we can then stop being judgmental about the errors made by others.”

Now comes this report on Clare College Choir’s planned trip to Israel.

The College Choir plans to visit Bethlehem, Jerusalem, Tel Aviv, Haifa and Karmiel, performing J.S. Bach’s Christmas Oratorio, during their tour, which will last from December 23rd to 29th. On Christmas Eve they will be singing in the Church of the Nativity, Bethlehem, followed by Midnight Mass in Jerusalem.

Some are condemning the tour:

Concerns revolve around the tour’s potential political implications. Signatory Dr Raymond Deane, an Irish composer and political activist, told Varsity, “Those of us involved in culture can’t stand back and pretend that we inhabit some ethereal realm remote from the real world. Tours by artists such as the Choir of Clare College will be exploited by the lavishly funded Israeli propaganda machine as proof of the ‘normality’ and ‘acceptability’ of the Israeli rogue state – which is neither normal nor acceptable.”

What’s the difference between this trip and the New York Philharmonic’s trip to North Korea? Just to name a few: (a) performing a Christmas concert in the Holy Land has a bit more cultural grounding than performing Beethoven in Pyongyang; (b) Israel, a democracy with a free press, can express varying views on the visit whereas only one account of the Philharmonic’s visit would emerge from North Korea; (c) the Israeli government fosters a free exchange of cultural offerings.

But this is likely to be one of those instances in which people who opposed the New York Philharmonic trip to North Korea will support the Clare College Choir trip to Israel, and vice versa. And some will note that I am one of those people.

Quite right. While I generally support artistic exchanges, I think there is a fundamental difference between touring a democratic state with which the free world has diplomatic relations and touring a slave state with no diplomatic ties. I am happy to part company with the nihilists who can’t see that distinction, and to part company with those who would deny Israel a right to defend its citizens from the never-ceasing terrorist campaign aimed against it.

I might even change my mind about North Korea, if it were to host a performance of Bach’s Christmas Oratorio in a Christian Church at which its citizens were free to worship. But unlike Israel . . .

In the ongoing effort to normalize the public display of everything sexual, Adam Lambert has caused people to pause (probably only briefly) to consider whether this is a necessary or even good thing.

Lambert argues that he is subject to a double standard since same-sex kisses and other displays of intimacy among female entertainers have been broadcast by the TV networks.

Reuters reports that ABC received 1,500 complaints from Lambert’s recent antics – a pitifully small number. That may reflect the size of the audience, but it probably says more about the nature of the audience. A vast swath of normal people from almost every demographic has surely tired of the increasingly feckless efforts of the entertainment industry to shock us.

Long ago broadcasters stopped giving us any reason to tune in, and they are now running out of ways to convince their dwindling audience to tune out.

Lambert says he didn’t mean to offend anyone by sticking his co-performers’ heads in his crotch. And his protestation rings true to an extent. He wants his own peculiar amusements to be perceived not as offensive, but as normal.

On the other hand, when the public display of such things becomes truly normal, entertainers may have to rediscover art as a means of attracting and holding an audience. And therein lies Lambert’s problem. Is he an artist or just a queer? Can he offer his audience something they value, or is it all about him?

In short, do Lambert’s talents extend to music? People who happened to be homosexual have made tremendous contributions to the arts. Their art is widely celebrated; their homosexuality is celebrated only in college classrooms.

On a somewhat related topic, I was intrigued by the ironic title of Mary Eberstadt’s recent article in First Things: “How Pedophilia Lost its Cool.” The article demonstrates, however, that the title is not ironic at all. In fact, pedophilia was recently making a play for mainstream acceptance among self-appointed sophisticates. For example:

In 1998 the prestigious Psychological Bulletin, published by the American Psychological Association, printed a subsequently notorious study called “A Meta-Analytic Examination of Assumed Properties of Child Sexual Abuse Using College Samples.” In it, three researchers took issue with “the common belief that child sexual abuse causes intense harm, regardless of gender.” The authors further criticized the use of conventional terms such as victim and perpetrator and recommended that “a willing encounter with positive reactions” be labeled “simply adult–child sex.”

Roman Polanski’s arrest pushed this issue to the forefront and highlighted the isolation of those who jumped to Polanski’s defense. Only Hollywood, it seems, failed to understand that art is not a defense to child abuse.

So there is something to be thankful for on this Thanksgiving Day. We can hope that the world took a look a pedophilia and indeed decided that it was not cool. We can hope that the entertainment industry, despite having an enormous megaphone for its opinions, truly is out of touch with society.

We can hope that Adam Lambert will either discover aesthetics and find an audience, or be largely forgotten – merely a social commentator with nothing much to say.