Yesterday I listened to a Shostakovich string quartet which I appreciated but couldn't really say I enjoyed. Then, to cleanse my musical palate, I put on some consort music by the Elizabethan composer John Dowland. What a relief! Whilst I do admire Shostakovich, listening to the string quartet was something of an effort because of its gritty angularity and feelings of threat and disorder. On the other hand, the Dowland was pure pleasure. Everything was right and breathed cosmic harmony. This reminded me once again of the damage Beethoven did to Western music with his introduction of psychologically unsettling states, jarring emotions, rage and sometimes near despair. Yes, I know he brought in profounder ideas of the human psyche taken simply as the human psyche but his music, notwithstanding its splendours, was much less wholesome and spiritually clean than what had gone before. For all his revolutionary impact he didn't come out of nowhere as first baroque and then classical music introduced much more of an earthly human element. But Beethoven took music, and hence art and even human consciousness, to the next level, shifting the focus entirely from God to Man.
This was necessary and intended. To be actively spiritual we had to become more aware of ourselves, and the Romantic movement, of which Beethoven was an extremely significant part, was crucial in bringing this about. We cannot blame Beethoven for the fact that music and art eventually descended into an obsession with (fake) originality and the celebration of ugliness or that second-rate artists decided that, not being particularly creative themselves, their purpose was to shock, épater les bourgeois being their guiding motivation. But his was the seed that grew into a poisonous weed because it was fertilised by corrupted ideology and thought. Moreover, his music already contained elements of the spiritual decadence that would follow after him in a more explicit and developed form.
What should have happened? Having become more aware of self and its creative potential, human consciousness and art (each feeding into the other) should have turned back to God, now seeing him as immanent as well as transcendent. This began to happen to a partial degree but not enough and instead the whole process was thrown off track by the growing atheism and materialism, the consequences of which are still ongoing and developing.
All contemporary art and music is, to a greater or lesser extent, corrupt. If we want to breathe a purer air our best bet is to refresh ourselves, as I did with the Dowland, with music of a previous era. This will not be perfect but it will be spiritually healthy because it will come from a time when the truth of divine being was recognised and not just recognised but primary. Here's a piece to start you off. It comes from a polyphonic mass by the 16th century Italian composer Palestrina. It's the final Agnus Dei of his Missa Brevis in a particularly heartfelt performance. There is still great beauty in the world.
Palestrina has rather a noble face too.
7 comments:
I think you are probably correct about Beethoven - which may also be the reason why he is often regarded as the greatest composer; in the sense of the single most important (to the history of music) of the composers of genius - although I regard him as less versatile and musically talented than Mozart, and less technically skilled/ deeply musical than Bach (his main rivals).
I love Dowland's lute pieces. Interestingly, some of the best of these (IMO) are Flow my tears, and the Melancholy Galliard - in which he is working in the 'fashionable' genre of self-consciously melancholy emanations - parodied by Jaques in As You Like It; and which led to so many 'grueling' Jacobean Tragedies full of moping and murder. So, even Dowland is a bit 'modernist' (in a bad way) if you like!
Nonetheless, I also take your point about seeking 'refreshment' and consolation from those old composers. I do too.
I know what you mean about Dowland's melancholy. He was, after all, a Renaissance composer and the Renaissance is when humanism came into play. But, in his defence, I think there is a contemplative quality to Elizabethan melancholy which means it is not purely self-conscious but has a spiritual aspect too.
This is what has been doing it for me lately: The sweet sound of medieval England:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lumKkSk2A3s So beautiful. And as one commenter said "Anon was a great composer.."
There's not much English medieval music but what there is has a unique melodic feel to it. Songs like Miri it is and Edi be thu are like nothing else.
Dowland and Palestrina rank among my personal favorites as well.
@William - Funny story. I was talking, in chit chat, to somebody and mentioned in passing something about Shostakovich, who - much like you - I can tolerate but don't enjoy. (I have never knowingly listened to a piece of his more than once.) Anyway, for some reason (maybe I got it from Radio 3?) I pronounced his name ShostAKovich - and the person I was speaking-with drew the immediate conclusion that therefore I must like his work a lot, and know a lot about it.
I would say ShostaKOvich though not sure why. It's probably one of those words/names i've read but not heard said. I was once talking to a Greek person (in English) and he mentioned this fellow called PitaGOREus. It took me a while to work out who he meant.
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