Asian hegemony.

[Enrique]

I am listening to Mendelssohn's violin concerto, played by Hilary Hahn and the Frankfurt Radio Symphony Orchestra. She plays it with perfection.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o1dBg__wsuo

I know, she is American. But "American" is only a name for a person with dozens of Asiatic generations behind her. They, these people from the Far East, have already prevailed in the world of industry and commerce. And they are on the way to prevail in the world of music. What would you do, mastering a perfect mechanism, if you wanted to play Mendelssohn's concert to perfection? There is a way, I think. Study and imitate a known excellent performance. And is not this what Asian (Far East) peoples specialize in doing? They (Japanese) once took German optics and imitated it almost to perfection. Then they set their eyes on the Silicon Valley, and as a result have invaded the word with their electronics.

All this is no wonder. Once people used to put Japan in a shrine and inclined before them. Oh Japan. They bought their products and saw they were good. But think a little. What is that they have really done? Well, they took a finished good and bought it. This finished good is European science. What is the marvel then? What took to Europeans centuries and centuries to develop, generation after generation, was given, in an instant, to these people, who now merely enjoy it. Of course, there is, in our times, no industry without science. Indeed, they are very able when put to imitate. And this is also the secret of their excellence in music. Well, when coming to Art, things are perhaps a little more complex. I don't know. All I am saying is that we cannot develop a complex in the sight of the West. They lived in the Middle Ages a little time ago. Now, it seems to be the time of Oriental hegemony. I am not so easily deceived. This unnatural state of things cannot last very long.

[Peter]

You forget to mention that a lot of 'European science' was based on that of the Arab world - Copernicus for example, used the mathematical models of the Islamic astronomers, so there has always been a sharing of knowledge - just look at Spain to see how much was inherited from the Moors. The sciences of astronomy, physics, chemistry, meteorology, seismology, technology, engineering, and mathematics can trace their early origins to China. From 600 AD until 1500 AD, China was the world's most technologically advanced society. Beginning in the 14th Century BC, the Chinese developed a decimal, or base ten system of recording numbers. This is one of the earliest such systems known.

When it comes to classical music, it does seem that there is far greater enthusiasm now for learning western musical instruments amongst oriental peoples - this reflects more on us in the west and we need to value our cultural heritage far more.

[Enrique]

You forget to mention that a lot of 'European science' was based on that of the Arab world - Copernicus for example, used the mathematical models of the Islamic astronomers, so there has always been a sharing of knowledge - just look at Spain to see how much was inherited from the Moors. The sciences of astronomy, physics, chemistry, meteorology, seismology, technology, engineering, and mathematics can trace their early origins to China. From 600 AD until 1500 AD, China was the world's most technologically advanced society. Beginning in the 14th Century BC, the Chinese developed a decimal, or base ten system of recording numbers. This is one of the earliest such systems known.

When it comes to classical music, it does seem that there is far greater enthusiasm now for learning western musical instruments amongst oriental peoples - this reflects more on us in the west and we need to value our cultural heritage far more.

Mathematics as a science has its beginnings in the ancient Greek world. Greek geometry for example, starts from a set of axioms, truths that are not to be demonstrated. Everything else is rigorously proved using the axioms and previously proved propositions. Nobody before had done anything like this. The Arabs are credited with the transmission of the Greek culture and science by way of Spain, but we forget what we owe to Constantinople. When the Turks took this city, lots of byzantine scholars fled to the west, bringing with them their libraries. Science flourished in a small region of the planet in a small window of time, say from Galileo to Einstein and Planck. Here I'm using 'science' = 'physics'. The ideas of the Greeks about physics were laughable. On the other hand, once the first decades of the 20th century elapsed, what Europe or the world has been doing does not deserve the name of science. So, I think it is a very improbable product, a sort of miracle.

Coming to music, Europe is the only place in the world that developed a polyphony. Other civilizations may have tried the simultaneous sounding of several instruments in a rather independent way, but only with an effort of the imagination this can be called polyphony. I would say, music, science and philosophy are a gift of Europe.

[Peter]

Coming to music, Europe is the only place in the world that developed a polyphony. Other civilizations may have tried the simultaneous sounding of several instruments in a rather independent way, but only with an effort of the imagination this can be called polyphony. I would say, music, science and philosophy are a gift of Europe.

I would say that Europe was the melting pot for many different ideas and cultures - certainly the heights of achievement were reached there in the areas you describe, but we musn't overlook the contributions of other ancient civilisations such as China, Sumaria, Babylon, Mesopotamia and India. The ancient silk route would have helped the spreading of these idea around the globe (as well as the black death!).

Regarding polyphony there is the Hurrian hymn found in Ugarit, Syria dating from around 1400 BC that could suggest use of the diatonic scale and polyphony.