It is only by a convention that the Pastoral Symphony is thought better art than Tarara-boom-deay. Perhaps, in two or three hundred years, when everything is done by electricity and every one is equal, when we are all happy socialists, with good educations and better morals, Beethoven’s complexity will be like a mass of wickedness, and only the plain, honest homeliness of the comic song will appeal to our simple feelings.
W. Somerset Maugham - Mrs. Craddock (1902)
It has all happened rather sooner than William expected, although we do seem to be bungling our way into a future where everything isn’t done by electricity. The moronic music in our local Co-op isn’t a series of comic songs either. It’s even worse than Tarara-boom-deay, but the idea is similar enough.
It may also be worth adding that everything done for the elites may be done by electricity if not for the rest of us, so 8/10 I’d say.
Well done William.
6 comments:
It's probably a manifestation of Pareto's 80/20 rule. Beethoven is only for the 20%, pop music (for this is what Tarara-boom-deay is) for the 80%. Electricity for the 20%, none for the 80%.
The trick is to get yourself into both elites. That's pretty much modern life: membership of as many elites as possible. Devil take the hindmost, and this year he appears to have been given a head start.
I was taken to the Royal Albert hall for a Henry Wood Prom where Beethoven's sixth symphony was played. I we completely 'blown over' by the beauty of the music; especially the second movement.
It has been my favourite ever since.
Tarara-boom-deay? That's quality compared with my experience this afternoon: I left the lounge and sat at the dining table to read because the girlies were watching a recording of "The Voice". The memsahib is slightly mutt, of course, so even a hall and kitchen away there is no escape from that dross, its loud egotistic staff and its brain-dead audience.
Sam - it's a strange situation. People appear to know they are being shafted by the elites but seem to think there are good elites and bad elites.
DAD - we walked past a pub today with the crudest pop "music" blaring out of the open door. Maybe it stuns drinkers into more drinking.
Jannie - Mrs H uses headphones if she wants to watch something on TV I don't like. It works the other way round, but only rarely because I don't watch much.
Ludwig van? Hard to beat this.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mgHxmAsINDk
dearieme - thanks, I'll bookmark it and play it through my headphones. I don't know much about the London Classical Players.
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