--- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, awoelflebater <no_reply@...> wrote: > > Thanks Barry, that's what happens when I don't see something > until 5 years after it occurred.
On the other hand, there are folks on FFL now who weren't there for the previous discussion. I have a number of beefs with the whole experiment. One of them is the choice of instrument and music. It's almost as if the choices were made to ensure that as few people as possible would be arrested by the music as they hurried to work. The Bach Chaconne in particular is not a piece that most people would instantly recognize as "beautiful" unless they had had considerable exposure to classical music. I have had such exposure, and Bach is my favorite composer, but I didn't begin to appreciate the Chaconne until I'd heard it four or five times. Nor is solo violin the easiest to appreciate, depending on the piece. None of those listed in the article were all that likely to attract ears that weren't already familiar with classical music. For me, the *scandale* demonstrated by the experiment is that so few people get an education in or much exposure to classical music. Most people are not aesthetes; they don't automatically recognize beauty in whatever form it presents itself. There's a certain snobbery, it seems to me, in basically putting down folks who aren't instantly responsive to beauty in a form one is accustomed to experiencing and appreciating by virtue of one's own background. I've never gone to the trouble to expose myself to and learn about rap music, in which some people take great aesthetic satisfaction; I'd be highly unlikely to stop to listen to a rap group, even one featuring a major rap star, performing in a subway station during rush hour. Does that make me a grind and a dullard who lacks the capacity to appreciate beauty? Or 12-tone music, for that matter, which my sister enjoys. She'd stop to listen to a subway performer playing a Schoenberg piece; I wouldn't. > > --- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, turquoiseb <no_reply@> wrote: > > > > --- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, awoelflebater <no_reply@> wrote: > > > > > > I am thinking of Curtis also when I was reading the Washington > > > Post article with the link below. It is a good read. Check it > > > out, if you have a few minutes... > > > > > > http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/04/04/AR2007040401721.html > > > > Ann, try not to take it personally if no one chimes in > > on this one. It's a fascinating story, but it is one > > that has come up here before, and it's been running > > around the Internet for almost five years now. So many > > may have "been there done that" with their reactions > > to Mr. Bell's concert and what it might mean.
