[Futurework] Re: Classical Music in Enlgand (was: Enslaved by Free Trade?)

[Keith Hudson]

Ray,

At 13:09 31/05/2003 -0400, you wrote:

I much enjoyed your response but I haven't copied it here because your typeface prints as a faint grey on my copier and thus my grandchildren will find it unreadable (that is, if they ever read this in the family archives!)

But let me just summarise by saying that your views and mine on matters of art differ so much. I believe that there is really no difference between creative artists and entrepreneurs and ordinary workers. They all work for money. The creative artist is just immensely more skilful than the norm. Each of us likes what we have the time to become familiar with (which is why I don't like most of Wagner's music!).  But back to the artist,  I think Dr Johnson was right:

"No man but a blockhead ever wrote, except for money".

The post-Johnson type of "artist" who actually lived and died in poverty for the sake of his art (e.g. van Gogh) was, in my view a psychological misfit -- though sometimes he might be able to persuade rich investors that his work was worth buying. And that's how the rot started. And in music and literature (e.g. James Joyce), too. Emperor's clothes and all that.

Keith Hudson

Keith Hudson, 6 Upper Camden Place, Bath, England