Entry 418 — How Philistines Think
Here’s Jay Nordlinger, the music critic I think must be the world’s worst, in his latest column for The New Criterion: “Shortly before he left the music directorship of the New York Philharmonic, I did an interview with Lorin Maazel. I asked him about conducting very familiar music. Take Tchaikovsky’s Fifth: Was it still glorious and thrilling to him? He said ‘It’s as glorious and thrilling as the day it was written.’ And ‘if you become jaded because of overexposure, the problem is yours, not the composer’s.’”
It’s a variation on one of the few stupid things Keats said, “A thing of beauty is a joy forever,” that Philistines, particularly in music, use to defend their resistance to anything unfamiliar. But even the worst mediocrities don’t perform Tchaikovsky’s fifth three times during one concert. Boredom with the over-familiar is what keeps a species from extinction. Performances of Tchaikovsky’s symphonies (which I loved when I first heard them in my teens) should be banned until 2040.
But someone (e.g. John Cage and friends in 1963) might perform Erik Satie’s “Vexations” 840 times in a row.
Of even if one believes “a thing of beauty is a joy forever”, i’d hope that doesn’t preclude the creation of another work of beauty.
– endwar
One believing that an artwork is a joy forever could certainly be open to the creation of a second joy forever, but what would be the point of the second one? Why not just continue experiencing the first forever?