On Saturday night I attended a performance, by our extraordinary Cape Symphony, of Beethoven’s Leonore Overture, Violin Concerto, and Symphony #5.
Today I discovered 82-year-old Frank Watkinson:
Is there any greater gift than music? Love, perhaps. But maybe that’s just a distinction without a difference.
2 Comments
I wonder if it would be anti-climatic to hear the Fifth at an actual symphony, since it’s so well-known. Would there be that same sense of frisson?
Regarding your last point, it seems to me music and love may be quite distinct. Hitler certainly recognized great artists like Wagner, but did he ever really know love (except for perhaps his mother)? Conversely an individual with Down’s Syndrome may never appreciate classical compositions, but he or she can certainly give and receive love. But perhaps you’re approaching the question from a very different angle Malcolm.
Hi Jason,
I can assure you there were frissons aplenty. The majesty of Beethoven’s music is inexhaustible, and a live performance by a world-class orchestra is as good as it gets.
(I noticed a typo there just now — I had written “as god as it gets”. Perhaps I should have left it as it was; one of Brian Eno’s “Oblique Strategies” says “Honour thy error as a hidden intention”.)
You’re right, of course, that “love” and “music” are not identical. But perhaps they are simply different “geometric projections”, into this sublunary sphere, of the same transcendent object.
I can’t say anything at all about whether Hitler ever knew love.