Why do we call genius anybody?

[Enrique]

This word, by force of use, has come to mean very little. Why, I am not to tell here. Honestly, I do not know. But seemed like a nice title for the post. The human ear is very sensitive to differences in loudness. Not only that. The range of intensities to which the ear responds is extremely wide. A ratio of about one hundred million billion to 1. Now, the ratio between the highest intelligences to the most humble one is even larger. You know some guy one day, and think of him as extraordinarily over you in this and that. You consider it a kind of phenomenon. Then another day you come to know one such that the other is nothing compared to this. And yet, at some point in your later life, you discover an even greater intellect. The process can continue almost indefinitely, for there are many several thousand millions people out there and you've only known a very limited number.

Suppose the matter in which these people you knew excelled was music. Now compare the one you finally get to meet in your old days (I'll transitorily assume you're very old), a real monster for which unbelievable feats were an easy thing, and compare him with Beethoven. Of course, you may have found somebody above him, or about his same creative powers. Nothing opposes the fact the you met Stravinsky (not saying Stravinsky is comparable to Beethoven). But we'll assume there is a tiny probability of this to happen.

Then again, you see all of the bright fellows you had known are less than nothing matched against the Maestro. Why? Because he was a genius. That's why. I'm only trying to convey the idea that we should used the words according to definition. What need to call genius to somebody who is at most a talented people. What need to call genius an interpreter. Only the creator can be a genius, according to my definition, OK, of the word. But I think it's the one given in any dictionary directly or indirectly. A statesman can be a genius, perhaps Bismark was one, perhaps Tony Blair, I do not know. But great things must have been build. But generally, there are born only a very limited number of them in a century. In music, perhaps I'd apply the term, if it's about XIX century music, to no more than five. Lets see: Beethoven, Schubert, Schumann, Brahms, ... Humm, I overestimated the number. To access to the title of genius, you must give mankind some unique product, that is the object of wonder for generations to come. That is my humble opinion.

[Peter]

Similar to your previous post on this topic Enrique - all I can add is that one man's genius is another's idiot! The word is so much abused and misapplied - I mean Tony Blair, come on!!

[Enrique]

Granted, Tony Blair was a silly example.

[Peter]

I've been thinking some more about this. I well remember my grandfather after hearing some of the first movement of Beethoven's 9th proclaiming that 'Beethoven knew nothing about music'. Now to me and I presume everyone here, that is a ridiculous statement - I know in my heart that Beethoven was a genius - yet where does the reality lie? Some people (myself not included) regard John Lennon or Elton John as geniuses placing them above Mozart, so is it really subjective and a personal matter or is it that some people 'get it' and others don't?

[Michael]

A famous conductor (and I can't think of his name) called Beethoven's Fifth "complete rubbish". This was during the composer's lifetime so it may have been the Philharmonic Society of London.
A couple of years later, he stood in front of his orchestra and publicly apologised for his previous judgement and said it was indeed a work of genius.
I couldn't make head nor tail of the first movement of Beethoven's Ninth until I had heard it about ten times.

[Enrique]

I've been thinking some more about this. I well remember my grandfather after hearing some of the first movement of Beethoven's 9th proclaiming that 'Beethoven knew nothing about music'. Now to me and I presume everyone here, that is a ridiculous statement - I know in my heart that Beethoven was a genius - yet where does the reality lie? Some people (myself not included) regard John Lennon or Elton John as geniuses placing them above Mozart, so is it really subjective and a personal matter or is it that some people 'get it' and others don't?

There must be some margin for the subjective but in the main there must exist an objective norm. This norm is called aesthetics. Many great philosophers had an aesthetics and without a pretension for objectiveness their work would have been pointless.

Orthodox Buddhism is composed of two different religions: one, more rigorous and difficult; the other, laxer and more trivial. The Mahayana, "great vehicle" or "great track", and the Himayona, "little vehicle" or "lesser rail". There is a great vehicle in music too. Some of us have adopted it. The others prefer the easy ways of oversimplified formulas.

[Peter]

A famous conductor (and I can't think of his name) called Beethoven's Fifth "complete rubbish". This was during the composer's lifetime so it may have been the Philharmonic Society of London.
A couple of years later, he stood in front of his orchestra and publicly apologised for his previous judgement and said it was indeed a work of genius.
I couldn't make head nor tail of the first movement of Beethoven's Ninth until I had heard it about ten times.

Yes but you must have recognised something great in it to have wanted to hear it 10 or more times! My grandfather like most people pronounced instant judgement and that was the end of the matter for him.

Rubinstein famously reacted to Tchaikovsky's 1st piano concerto with dismissal, only later to become the work's greatest champion.

[Peter]

Interesting posts from Michael and Enrique which suggest that the 'fault' of not recognising true genius lies within us. However as shown from Enrique's previous post, if we were asked to compile a list of indisputable geniuses, we would disagree! I recall Caesar was cited as an example of genius and yet to me this is not so as he does not meet my criteria - destruction, glory and warfare are the opposite of the creativity I regard as an essential element. Yes I can understand how people regard him as a brilliant tactician and military leader as he was those things, but creative genius has to my mind to have an element of mystery, a spiritual quality if you like that takes us ordinary mortals to a new dimension, quite unfathomable.

[Quijote]

Didn't Euan once try to help us arrive at some sort of consensus about this?

[Peter]

Didn't Euan once try to help us arrive at some sort of consensus about this?

Yes I think so, but I don't recall we arrived there! Enrique also tried in another thread - perhaps we'd all agree here about Beethoven at least!

[Quijote]

Oh, alright then! Do you think he ever considered himself to be one? Accepting for the moment that we all "know" what a "genius" is, have any of them ever considered themselves so?

[Peter]

Oh, alright then! Do you think he ever considered himself to be one? Accepting for the moment that we all "know" what a "genius" is, have any of them ever considered themselves so?

Beethoven's famous letter to Lichnowsky reveals he knew he was exceptional - 'of Princes there will be many, but there is only one Beethoven'. I can't imagine Wagner having any doubts either!

[Megan]

I am very interested in the phenomenon of how people react in the presence of people of great ability and particularly how fellow professionals in that area react.
Let me give an example.
To me it seems to be an example of professional jealousy, which one come across in the arts field generally, not just in music but literature.
In writing, I can think of the examples of Anthony Burgess, a true writer's writer and in my opinion, one of the greatest writers of the 20th century, who was consistently refused any recognition in terms of awards in Britain, whereas someone like Graham Greene was loaded down with honours. I am not criticizing Greene, whose novels ar tightly constructed and tell a good story.But for many, including myself, Burgess is simply a much greater writer. He was also quite a considerable classical composer in his own right.
No, the example I want to give is of Art Tatum.
I was reading about this guy recently. Apparently he was a total prodigy in the jazz world, in that he had incredible skills in playing the piano.
He was so good and so brilliant that the other professionals around him , like Baise and Elington, refused to work with him because his talents overawed them.
They had written into their contracts that if ever Tatum was chosen to accompany them on some film or recording that they would have just cause to simply walk out and recind their own contract.
I wonder about this issue of professional jealousy and how it operates. Certainly Beethoven would have experienced it. But how do you get around it and what issues does it raise?

.

[Peter]

I'm not sure we can single out the arts Megan, surely this applies in every capacity of human activity? Beethoven not only encountered it, but was unfortunately rather guilty of it himself on several occasions - then we shouldn't always expect our heroes to be saints!

[Enrique]

Interesting posts from Michael and Enrique which suggest that the 'fault' of not recognising true genius lies within us. However as shown from Enrique's previous post, if we were asked to compile a list of indisputable geniuses, we would disagree! I recall Caesar was cited as an example of genius and yet to me this is not so as he does not meet my criteria - destruction, glory and warfare are the opposite of the creativity I regard as an essential element. Yes I can understand how people regard him as a brilliant tactician and military leader as he was those things, but creative genius has to my mind to have an element of mystery, a spiritual quality if you like that takes us ordinary mortals to a new dimension, quite unfathomable.

No one will justly appreciate the figure of Caesar who does not love the history of Rome. Those epithets --destrucction, glory, warfare-- are the more commonly given to Ancient Rome nowadays, in the same way as Germans and Englishmen put her in a shrine and adored her. Now we are in the other extreme. Rome gave us its Law, for Romans had the genius of law as no other people had. This is its greatest legacy. Rome gave us its literature, he taught Europe to write. Not the abc, but to write with style. On the other hand, English grammar was until the turn of the last century an appendix to Latin grammar, to pick just an example.

Now, I went through the words you used in your post, and have found that 39 of them come from Latin. If we let aside prepositions and pronouns, which belong to the Germanic core of the language, the words of Latin ancestry make nearly 80% of the total. The tongue you speak is thoroughly penetrated by the language of the Romans. "So?", somebody would ask. So, by despising Rome, you despise not only your cultural heritage but the very language you speak.

This is not addressed to you in special. But to those who associate Rome with force and conquering. As a fourth item I could enumerate, among so many things, the transmission of the Greek heritage. Nothing less.

Is war just destruction? Think in the independence war in US. Was it a war. Yes, it was. Did it create anything? It certainly destroyed the old order. But the US constitution would never exist without it. So it was a prerequisite for the emergence of a great nation. France is another great country. A modern french historian, Jacques Madaule, said: "If we [french men] are what we are, for good or for evil, we owe it to Caesar's sword". He certainly made possible the Merovingians and Carolingians. Do you think a Gaul in the 2nd century cried about he's lost liberty? Certainly not. He enjoyed the thousand material commodities brought by the Romans. The prestige of the Roman Empire was enormous. Barbarian peoples wanted to belong to it. In the 3rd century Caracalla extended Roman citizenship to all the provinces. True, in order to vote they had to travel to the capital, an almost impossible trip for the majority. But this was more a technical fault than anything else. Antiquity did not envision the representative system.

EDIT: the last statements are more properly applied to the late Republic. During the Empire, I do not know if there still were electoral government offices. Were the aediles in Rome, for example, appointed by the emperor?