Originally posted by The Dude
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Got it in one, as they say in golf. The people in charge of composition in conservatories are talentless however much technical proficiency they may possess. The most talented (and lucky) may go into film music though that is going to go the way of electronic music production due to this being cheaper. (Still, they can write the programs.) It is institutionally impossible to create and sustain a living musical culture of serious music. I think it died after the second world war.
Furthermore, Beethoven was a very boisterous man, and at other times a very angry man, and at other times very depressed....he would almost certainly have been psychiatrised by some imbecile dispensing pills. Social workers would have said 'Put that manuscript down and empty your chamber pot'.
As to the wonderful stories of Beethoven frightening the cows in a farmer's field by bellowing his music on long walks - they would have filed a report with the police, complained of property trespassing, ridden their pathetic little sense of 'entitlement' to make sure that it didn't happen again or, indeed, ever.
No - we are in a world where most everyone is terrified to stand out as different because if you cannot cope with the world, or are seen to be unable to do so, you either lose your work and property, or you become the prey of the professionals (and sometimes worse the 'well wishers') who are supposed to 'make you better'.
Such is life! Perhaps someday the world will say no to Prozac, people will be able to accept that life is fluctuation rather than some illusion of perpetual stability (ending in death! rather a bummer that) and who knows creativity will flourish.
Where it has flourished in the past century is in the popular arts - where, as you state, the critics have much less influence. I don't think 'Sympathy for the Devil' is the equal of a Beethoven symphony (!), however, I think the song is superior to almost all of the avant garde music produced in the 1960s. They caught something there - mood, emotion, what have you - and created a musical means to express it. Same applies to 'American Pie' or 'Stairway to Heaven' - magnificent within their sphere, and far superior to the sterile conservatory crap that (until recently) was the staple of Arts Council commissions.
Furthermore, Beethoven was a very boisterous man, and at other times a very angry man, and at other times very depressed....he would almost certainly have been psychiatrised by some imbecile dispensing pills. Social workers would have said 'Put that manuscript down and empty your chamber pot'.
As to the wonderful stories of Beethoven frightening the cows in a farmer's field by bellowing his music on long walks - they would have filed a report with the police, complained of property trespassing, ridden their pathetic little sense of 'entitlement' to make sure that it didn't happen again or, indeed, ever.
No - we are in a world where most everyone is terrified to stand out as different because if you cannot cope with the world, or are seen to be unable to do so, you either lose your work and property, or you become the prey of the professionals (and sometimes worse the 'well wishers') who are supposed to 'make you better'.
Such is life! Perhaps someday the world will say no to Prozac, people will be able to accept that life is fluctuation rather than some illusion of perpetual stability (ending in death! rather a bummer that) and who knows creativity will flourish.
Where it has flourished in the past century is in the popular arts - where, as you state, the critics have much less influence. I don't think 'Sympathy for the Devil' is the equal of a Beethoven symphony (!), however, I think the song is superior to almost all of the avant garde music produced in the 1960s. They caught something there - mood, emotion, what have you - and created a musical means to express it. Same applies to 'American Pie' or 'Stairway to Heaven' - magnificent within their sphere, and far superior to the sterile conservatory crap that (until recently) was the staple of Arts Council commissions.
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