Sunday, March 24, 2024

The Music Salon Guide to Reading Philosophy, part 2

Kant's house in Königsberg

Bear in mind that I am not a professional philosopher, though I have done a lot of reading, and these are my personal opinions. If you want a large, even-handed history of philosophy I recommend the History of Philosophy by Frederick Copleston S.J. in eleven volumes!

  • One of the things that David Hume is famous for is waking German philosopher Immanuel Kant from his "dogmatic slumbers." Kant is credited by many as the father of modern philosophy because of his work on ethics and metaphysics. He is a very difficult philosopher to read even if you understand what the "synthetic a priori" is! The two main modern schools of moral philosophy are utilitarianism and deontological ethics. Kant is the locus classicus of the latter which is pretty much the Golden Rule (do unto others as you would have them do unto you) updated. A good book to read is the Groundwork for the Metaphysics of Morals.
  • Utilitarianism or consequentialism, the other main school of moral philosophy was founded by Jeremy Bentham and John Stuart Mill and has probably done more damage to public policy than any other philosophy, with the exception of Marxism, of course. Utilitarianism seems very plausible, inevitable even, as it judges actions solely by their consequences and aims for the greatest good for the greatest number. Strangely, it usually ends up with rather unfortunate consequences. There have been many criticisms of the various forms of utilitarianism, one of the most intriguing is from Derek Parfit: "According to Derek Parfit, using total happiness falls victim to the repugnant conclusion, whereby large numbers of people with very low but non-negative utility values can be seen as a better goal than a population of a less extreme size living in comfort. In other words, according to the theory, it is a moral good to breed more people on the world for as long as total happiness rises."
  • The Germans came a bit late to the philosophical debate, but once they got started they really got their teeth into it. One of the most important is Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel who wrote a stack of rather large volumes on just about everything: philosophy of history, metaphysics, epistemology, ontology and so on. He was born in the same year as Beethoven and in terms of the breadth and range of his influence the two are certainly comparable. Hegel's Lectures on Aesthetics as mentioned by our commentator the other day, might be worth a look.
There are great swaths of philosophy that I don't find personally very interesting so I am just going to skip over a lot of the 19th century. I encourage you to consult the volumes by Copleston. One I can't entirely skip is:

  • Friedrich Nietzsche who had a real problem trimming his mustache. He is another difficult German philosopher, but a very influential one. His On the Genealogy of Morality is a very important book that discusses the evolution of moral concepts.
  • I find the work of Ludwig Wittgenstein to be of immense interest because of the way he sidesteps most of the traditional obsessions of philosophy by examining our language and how we use language to describe the world. This is more important than it might seem. There is an immense amount of commentary on him as well as published books, notes and manuscripts. The best discussion I have found is The Routledge Guidebook to Wittgenstein's Philosophical Investigations by Marie McGinn which is remarkably clearer than most.
  • One of Wittgenstein's closest associates was G. E. M. Anscombe who herself published a very important paper that shook moral philosophy out of its dogmatic slumbers: "Modern Moral Philosophy" reprinted in Virtue Ethics, edited by Roger Crisp and Michael Slote. Virtue ethics is a revival of the basic approach to ethics that Aristotle outlined in the Nicomachean Ethics and it resolves a lot of modern difficulties.
  • Finally, a contemporary figure, Peter Singer whose Famine, Affluence, and Morality has sparked a great deal of pious gnashing of teeth in the elevated ranks of society. I think of him as the Professor of Virtue-Signaling at Princeton University.
UPDATE: I forgot to put a philosophy video clip in this post, so let me add one now. Here is another one by Jeffrey Kaplan about the problem of consciousness:



Today's Listening

 One of the greatest ballets ever composed, Romeo and Juliet by Prokofiev:

One wonders why Russia is so very good at music (three of the greatest composers of the 20th century, and many of the greatest pianists, not to mention a few violinists and cellists), dance, chess, mathematics and literature and so very, very bad at government.

Saturday, March 23, 2024

The Music Salon Guide to Reading Philosophy

Philosophy is one of the items listed on the Music Salon masthead and, though we often approach it via aesthetics, a shared concern, as in this post: Aesthetic Facts and Opinions, we also talk about philosophy tout simple. I was going to put up some links, but really there are so many philosophy posts that I could spend half the morning picking and choosing and I really need to get to practicing Bach!

So what I would like to do instead is offer brief comments on different philosophers and what you might gain from reading their works. And at the end I will link to a couple of philosophers on YouTube that might be worth your time. But first, why bother with philosophy? The popular opinion is that it is largely a waste of time--your time would be better spent with self-help books or in the gym. True, a lot of philosophy is of only marginal value to everyday life, but as soon as you stumble across that word "value" you might find yourself asking, what is of value in life? And that is a philosophical question. Sure, you could just go with Conan:

But the ability to examine ideas critically might prove quite useful. For example, in that post I link to above I quote an article in the New York Times by a philosophy professor who points out a problem with the public school curriculum:

The inconsistency in this curriculum is obvious. For example, at the outset of the school year, my son brought home a list of student rights and responsibilities. Had he already read the lesson on fact vs. opinion, he might have noted that the supposed rights of other students were based on no more than opinions. According to the school’s curriculum, it certainly wasn’t true that his classmates deserved to be treated a particular way — that would make it a fact. Similarly, it wasn’t really true that he had any responsibilities — that would be to make a value claim a truth.

Yes, it is perfectly obvious that for a lot of people their moral principles are facts but yours are just opinions! Once you realize this, it becomes easier to stand up for yourself. So let's dive in and take a critical look at famous philosophers:

  • Socrates is one of the most important inventors of the philosophical method often called the "Socratic method" which involves asking questions. This makes people uncomfortable so the people of Athens condemned him to death for corrupting the young.
  • Plato, his student, continued the work writing a bunch of dialogues of Socrates in conversation. I recommend the first one, the Euthyphro which poses the interesting dilemma, do the gods condemn murder because it is wrong or is it wrong because they condemn it?
  • Aristotle, student of Plato, was the teacher of Alexander the Great and basically laid the foundation of things like logic, metaphysics, aesthetics, psychology, ethics, botany, and a few other things. Plato is easy to read, but Aristotle is emphatically not--like many really great thinkers he is a very awkward writer. But the book to read is the Nicomachean Ethics a guide to moral conduct for many for centuries.
  • There is rather a large gap as the Romans were not big on philosophy, but things improved when Western Europe discovered the ancient Greeks. St. Thomas Aquinas created a synthesis of Aristotle with theology that still remains the foundation of Catholic theology. The most accessible text is the section on the five ways to prove the existence of God from the Summa Theologica.
  • The founder of modern philosophy is the 17th century French philosopher René Descartes. His Meditations on First Philosophy is worth reading and it's only sixty pages.
  • The best philosopher writing in English is the Scot David Hume and his Dialogues Concerning Natural Religion will give you a taste. It's a bit longer, but still only 120 pages.
I think I will stop there as philosophy gets more and more gnarly (not to mention lengthy) from here on so I will save that for future posts. But this should give you an intriguing start.

Those YouTube philosophers? One of the best is Jeffrey Kaplan; here is his take on Aristotle:


Friday, March 22, 2024

Today's Listening

 Here is a very interesting Reichian piece by Ligeti:


UPDATE: Egads, I think I saw a 17 in the time of 24-let! Or was it 24 in the time of 17? Ok, I went back and checked and it was even worse: 17 in the time of 16. How the heck you do that in a whole string section and how the listener can tell if they are right or not are things to ponder.

Bad Times, Bad Times

With those dismal words of Naomi Wolf still ringing in my ears.

There is a marked degradation in what can only be called aesthetics, and a great deal of erasure of what had been the presence of the treasures of Western culture.

If you are a child going to the Brooklyn Museum on a field trip, you will literally have no idea what the Western artistic heritage has been, but you will learn that it is bad.

I see this item in the Victoria Times Colonist: Difficult times for Alix Goolden Hall

Not so long ago the VCM’s Alix Goolden Performance Hall was a busy venue for a wide variety of musical performances. I believe it was regularly rented by local and out of town musical acts.

It can accommodate a large audience and has excellent acoustics and sightlines.

These days it mostly appears to host conservatory related recitals. I imagine that without the Pandora Avenue entrance the allowable seating capacity in the hall is greatly reduced.

This is, of course, due to the city’s continuing toleration of the antics on Pandora. The conservatory has become a kind of fortress. Folks are permitted to camp directly on the sidewalk in front of the hall’s main entrance. I have to wonder why that is even permitted.

There is a photo:

What you are looking at is the entrance to the concert hall of the Victoria Conservatory of Music. When it was inaugurated it was seen a wonderful venue for all the gifted performers that would emerge from the new premises of the conservatory. This is personal for me as my first job after university was as chair of the guitar department at the Victoria Conservatory of Music, a fine institution with high standards headed by the pianists Robin and Winifred Wood, both graduates of the Royal Academy in London. Outstanding performers like violinist Sydney Humphries and pianist Eva Solar-Kindermann also taught there. I felt honored to be invited to join the faculty. Nowadays it is a shadow of its former self with fewer and fewer classical students as they are edged out by more and more programs devoted to popular music. When I was there the classical guitar department had several teachers and dozens of students. Now there is a mere handful of students and most of the teachers have long since departed. The descent of the exterior of the concert hall into a dystopian hell is symbolic.

Friday Miscellanea

It's good news, bad news: Tennessee becomes first US state with law protecting musicians from AI

Tennessee Governor Bill Lee signed a bill into law on Thursday that aimed to protect artists including musicians from unauthorized use by artificial intelligence. 

The Tennessee legislation updates Tennessee's personal rights protection law to include "protections for songwriters, performers, and music industry professionals' voice from the misuse of artificial intelligence," the governor's office said in a statement.

The good news is that this might help artists defend themselves against the simple theft of their image, sound, style and so forth by AI programs. If you look at YouTube you can see many clips that create fake imagery of famous people like Emma Watson--who most certainly did not pose for all those bikini shots. But on the other hand, this is just another example of government taking over our individual powers of decision and discrimination which is most certainly a bad thing. In a better world, we would simply refuse to look at and listen to obviously fake representations. The necessity to distinguish between truth and falsity, illusion, is one of the most basic human needs.

* * * 

Finally Wagner gets HIP: How Did Wagner Want His ‘Ring’ Cycle to Sound?

With a team of researchers and dedicated musicians, the conductor Kent Nagano is taking a historically informed performance approach to Wagner’s epic.

This is Wagner without constant vibrato, and sometimes without traditionally operatic singing. But mostly, the difference in sound comes from the instruments themselves, both originals from the 19th century and reproductions. Historical, often temperamental winds and brasses have a milder timbre, similar to the gut strings used throughout the orchestra, which here is tuned to 435 hertz — Wagner’s preference, slightly lower than the frequency of 440 Hz used by most players today.

Looks like it is time to review Taruskin's remarks about historic "authenticity." If we are doing "historically informed" performances of Wagner now, can John Cage be far behind? Where is that piano he "prepared" and do we have the original screws?

* * *

Naomi Wolf and the culture of New York: ‘Broken in What Way?’

The culture of New York is now completely fragmented, and this happened through language.

It used to be that while there were a million different languages and accents here, everyone was trying to communicate as best he or she could — all the time. New Yorkers were famous for this! Any given day was thrilling, because random strangers, from whatever part of the world, would say something silly or funny or wise to you in passing, and everyone would manage to get the gist of each other, whatever anyone’s level of English. We were all present in the joy of being Americans — New Yorkers!— together.

That commonality is simply gone. Culturally, this city could now be anywhere in the world — any globalist, polyglot city. The culture that was New York has been smashed right through.

And here is the crux of it:

There is a marked degradation in what can only be called aesthetics, and a great deal of erasure of what had been the presence of the treasures of Western culture.

If you are a child going to the Brooklyn Museum on a field trip, you will literally have no idea what the Western artistic heritage has been, but you will learn that it is bad.

Read the whole thing, if you can stand the depression, for the details. I think a few moments reflection will reveal by whom and through what means this was accomplished.

* * *

And here they are: In the name of anti-elitism, Arts Council England has declared war on opera and excellence. Of course they have. Recall my post a while ago: of the five priorities of government, the first three are to serve themselves, the fourth is the basic functions of government such as the administration of justice and dead last is things like infrastructure and cultural subsidies. Government fundamentally has no interest in culture which is the product of individuals working in concert, its only interests are power and control. So more fool you if you let government have control over culture.

Despite zero evidence that audiences are averse to revivals or more responsive to newly commissioned work, the authors, Tamsin Cox and Oliver Mantell, emphasise their point with one of several threats featuring in a document intended to help shape its future opera funding. “As a result of its limited engagement with the creation of new work, opera and music theatre may find it harder to make an argument for its continued evolution as a cultural practice.”

* * *

Proving that the University of North Texas hates early music as well as Schenkerian analysis: UNIVERSITY SHOOTS THE HARPSICHORDIST

One hundred and fifty people, including students, faculty and alumni, signed a petition, and faculty wrote letters urging the College of Music to reconsider its decision not to renew the contract of its only lecturer of harpsichord.

In summer 2023, College of Music Dean John Richmond made the decision to let Lecturer of Harpsichord Bradley Bennight’s contract expire at the end of the spring 2024 semester. The petition says the loss of the harpsichord lecturer position and the changes that would follow, in combination with previous cuts and any future cuts, could “severely cripple, if not destroy” the college’s early music program.

* * *

After so much promise: SALONEN CLARIFIES HIS REASONS FOR LEAVING SAN FRANCISCO

The departing conductor has made some cryptic comments to Vesa Siren at the Helsingin Sanomat. Among other concerns, he is upset that budget cuts have eliminated next year’s Europe tour, requiring him to find a new orchestra to premiere his horn concerto at the Lucerne Festival.

He says: ‘The board has decided on big and dramatic cuts that affect the orchestra’s artistic profile so deeply that I don’t consider it possible to continue my contract.’

Additionally, ‘I’m not taking a new position as chief conductor, at least not soon. Possibly never again. After all, this has already been going on for a long time, 40 years.’

From an earlier Slipped Disc:

What really happened? Salonen, a sought-after conductor of progressive – meaning expensive – ideas ran into a headstrong board chair, Priscilla Geeslin, who demanded cuts. She called his departure ‘bittersweet’. That can be taken to mean that she is at least half pleased by the costly conductor’s departure. She got her way.

The third element is a weak CEO, Matthew Spivey, only 18 months in the job. When Geeslin pushed and Salonen shoved off, Spivey was squeezed until the pips squeaked. He piped up something about ‘significant financial pressures on the organization that have become impossible to ignore.’ What’s impossible to ignore is the ignominy of the situation.

There were three elements in the storm and one had to give way. It was, inevitably, the artist. 

* * *

 From the "Agh, not again" Department: Music (Not Math) Is Our Universal Language — Two New Studies Show

Music is a universal language… it’s an often repeated axiom, but what does that mean? Two newly published scientific studies add proof to the common impression.

One dismantles one of the pillars of Western theory, while the results of the other show that no matter where we come from, we have an innate response to the emotions that music conveys.

Music isn't even a language, let alone a universal one. Also, music does not convey ordinary emotions. Finally, these are scientific studies, of course, so one ought to be on guard from the outset about scientific studies that make claims in non-scientific areas.

The study looked at the responses of test subjects to the music arising from different traditions, using what are called body sensations maps or BSMs. What they found was quite simple: the same kinds of emotional and physical responses were produced across diverse cultures.

The emotional qualities in music produce physical responses and sensations, in patterns that were similar across the diverse groups;

The acoustic and structural features of the music were linked to the emotions and bodily sensations produced;

There were universal patterns in the responses they observed;

They did not observe any significant differences across divergent cultures.

A joyful piece of music will always be interpreted as a joyful piece of music, in other words, no matter where it is heard.

My skepticism meter just hit the red. Without all the details of who the test subjects were, how many they were and where they came from and the exact details of what music was used and how responses were measured, not to mention how to precisely define "joy" in music, I haven't the slightest idea what they are actually claiming, let alone how true it is. AGH! (If you follow the link in the article, you can get some more details, but...)

* * * 

I think we need some music composed by Salonen. Here is his cello concerto:

A little harpsichord music by Jacques Duphly:

That's rather "dark academic" isn't it? Now let's have a piece of music that would be received utterly differently by different listeners depending on their cultural background:

But of course, this is true of pretty much all music, isn't it? Metallica fans might not get much out of a Mozart serenade and vice versa:

Thursday, March 21, 2024

Bach's Birthday (Old Style)

Today is the 339th birthday of Johann Sebastian Bach, the composer who just gets more appreciated every year. Yes, ok, his actual birthday, after the Gregorian calendar reform, is actually March 31st, but I'm afraid if I wait I will forget to post anything. So let's lift a glass today. Apparently Bach liked to compose while drinking beer and brandy, according to a tavern bill, but raise the glass of your choice. Bach wrote a couple of secular cantatas alongside the religious ones. Here is a particularly jolly one, the "Coffee Cantata":

And while we are on joyous music, here is one of the most exuberant that Bach ever wrote, the Magnificat BWV 243:

One of my favorite pieces by Bach, the Canon per Augmentationem in Contrario Motu in which the answer to the theme is upside down, in double note values and down a fifth. Then, when all that is worked out, the voices simply switch, meaning that the whole thing was also in invertible counterpoint. I'm not sure we have a sufficiently robust expostulation for that! Shpadoinkle!

And finally, something really sublime, the Brandenburg Concerto no. 2, beloved by every listener and every trumpet player's nightmare: