Both take western music too seriously
Reader comment on item: You Need Beethoven to Modernize

Submitted by Steve Meikle (New Zealand), Dec 24, 2005 at 12:59

Both Mr Pipes and the Muslim fundamentalists take classical music too seriously.

The passions it stirs are overrated.

I do not speak as a philistine but as a former professional classical musician who once, in my youth, lived for classical music.

But music, though it may be an oblging servant, is a tyrant of a master.

As such music is only entertainment, to seek more from it is to abuse it. And this abuse leads to boredom with it just as an addict needs stronger poison to get his highs.

The West is saturated in music, but where is justice?

I pity the barrenness of those lives that feel bereft without art.

Are they deaf to birdsong and blind to a tree in leaf, or blind to a sunrise?

And as the West is dismantling the rule of Law in enthusiastic emulation of George W Bush, the West is itself over rated and is likely doomed. Even if they are singing Bethoven or Eric Clapton while it goes down.

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