Re: Why do you like Mozart's music?


"Lena" <emsworth@xxxxxxxxx> wrote in message
news:1134860205.159976.319050@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
> david7gable@xxxxxxx wrote:
>> Michael Schaffer writes more of his bigoted German ethnocentric
>> nonsense:
>>
>> "We weren't talking about blood. We were talking about performance
>> traditions handed down from generation to generation in the countries
>> where the music originated. And Canada is not one of them. But David7
>> presumes he knows so much more about all that than people who actually
>> grew up in such a musical tradition."
>>
>> I'm not a Canadian, but if I were, I would certainly be offended by
>> this revolting post. The idea that North Americans can't possibly know
>> anything about the performance of classical music because they aren't
>> good little German boys who grew up on German soil like you is
>> preposterous.
>
> I agree. I'm not going to opine on the rest of the HIP vs nonHIP
> stuff, but that argument about growing up in countries where the music
> originated was, perhaps not quite revolting, but irrelevant and pretty
> crass.
>
See Michael's response to this post. If the ultimate source of wisdom is
that which is unconsciously acculturated through an unbroken tradition, then
the logical conclusion of that (false) argument is that those growing up in
places closest to the heart of that tradition would have 'acculturated' it
most strongly. And if that were true, then Germans would have inherited that
'tradition' more strongly than North Americans, where the 'traditions' are
considerably younger and emerged in a transplanted form distinct from their
origins (unless we're talking about playing Gottschalk or Ives or Cage or
Barber or whatever). Now, I don't believe any of those corollaries, because
I don't believe the initial premise. Michael is pointing out that the irony
of such an idealised view of the transmission of acculturated values being
promulgated by one at a certain distance from them, and lecturing someone
else who has known such traditions from the beginning - and knows that they
don't take such an idealised form.

And this leads my back to my objection to the "in the blood" argument, which
I do think in some ways underlies the whole of this debate (even if it
becomes "in the upbringing" rather than strictly a genetic or ethnic thing -
though the distinctions between such positions aren't as clear-cut in
practice). Such insistence on the absolutely primary value of that which is
unconsciously transmitted frequently implies that others can't learn,
there's no point teaching them in a rational manner (and a great many
musical teachers do believe this - that's one reason why their teaching is
worthless and they only sustain their positions through their prestige
value) and in particular, those without the good fortune to have grown up in
such culturally privileged surroundings may as well forget it, and certainly
shouldn't aspire to the situation of those who are "born to it". I know
you're not saying this, David, but I think it's an inevitable consequence of
some of the positions you espouse. And I see very clearly how this type of
thinking permeates the musical world in a hideous manner and leads to
unspoken (perhaps even unconscious) discrimination against a great many
people, in a way I find utterly odious. That is the real reason why I object
so fervently to these viewpoints. In the end, they amount to little more
than dressed-up old-fashioned snobbery.

Ian


.

Relevant Pages

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