My husband decided to look at the concert of three Mozart symphonies that was played in the Albert Hall this week, and broadcast by the BBC. The performance was splendid but the British nation's broadcaster decided that at the interval it was time for their daily "hot topic" - in this case, 'is there such a thing as "genius", that is: are there really people who are superlatively brilliant in their areas of activity, leaving most of us in the also-ran category, or is "genius" just a white male construct?'
Leaving aside the ridiculous claim made by one of the participants in the discussion that Beethoven wasn't as much of a genius as Mozart, (at least she acknowledged that genius is a thing), the BBC had the temerity to argue that David Bowie and Prince were generally considered to be geniuses - (if, of course, one accepts the term at all) - on a par with Mozart. The presenter also appeared to despise the idea that there might be such a thing as "the divine" from which inspiration for works of genius may emanate. I would suggest to him that our inability to create works of beauty since the majority decided to ditch a belief in the divine rather argues that there might be something up there after all.
The whole "hot topic" event made me feel, yet again, intensely disappointed by the government broadcaster - and also enraged by them. The discussion was confected nonsense; the first and second parts of the concert clearly demonstrated that genius exists and that Mozart was a genius. If anyone else is capable of creating music that is so beautiful that it gives the impression of having arrived from a better place, they are unarguably a genius. In other words, if anyone reading this can match Mozart's achievement, I unhesitatingly award them the same title. Otherwise, no, forget it - equality of achievement is not something we can engineer, any more than equality of looks.
A while back, as part of a project of reading books published this century, I took up White Teeth by Zadie Smith, where among other matters I noticed
ReplyDelete"October 1, 1974. A detention. Held back forty-five minutes after school (for claiming, in a music lesson, that Roger Daltrey was a greater musician than Johann Sebastian Bach) and as a result, Clara missed her four o'clock meeting with Ryan on the corner of Leenan Street."
On the other hand, Roger Daltry is a white male, isn't he?
Thank you for alerting me re the misspelling in an earlier post, now fixed.
DeleteRe Z Smith, while I enjoyed her novel that is related to EM Forster, I bounced off White Teeth each time I tried to read it, defeated by an overwhelming lack of interest. It is funny that the current absolutely race-obsessed, identity evangelist version of herself that Smith has become chose Daltrey, whose political trajectory is what I suspect she would see as highly incorrect:
https://www.nme.com/news/music/roger-daltrey-slams-labour-party-explains-pro-brexit-stance-2330217
Interesting, isn't it, that so much of the best contemporary music comes from Christian Eastern Europe – Arvo Part (Estonia), Peteris Vasks (Latvia), Valentin Silvestrov (Ukraine)...
ReplyDeleteOf those I only know Arvo Part. Thank you for alerting me to the others. The nations of Eastern Europe understand so much and the countries of Western Europe treat them with the disdain of headstrong teenagers for their parents. Perhaps too late there will be a realisation that there has been quite a lot of hard-acquired wisdom built up in places that the "sophisticates" of core Europe, for want of a better phrase, are too immature to recognise as having anything to offer.
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