Context Is Everything. Unless It Isn't.
My former colleague over at ArtsJournal.com, Laura Collins-Hughes, has detected a noticable uptick in the number of people who seem to be reading and talking about Dickens lately, and she speculates that it may be that the gloomy, moralizing Dickens is the ideal author for Hard Times. Which is interesting, because I have to confess that Hard Times make me want to read David Sedaris and watch old Eddie Izzard routines until I forget that we're in Hard Times.
I wonder, too, about the music people choose to listen to when the real world is getting to be a bit much to bear. Does it make you more likely to look for something deep, dark, and meaningful on a concert program, or something escapist and light? What's the better cure for an economic malaise and global unrest, something that socks you in the stomach but makes you think, or something that lets you just drift away from reality for a while? Mahler 6 or The Marriage of Figaro? Britten's War Requiem or Bernstein's West Side Story? Sinead O'Connor or Sonny & Cher?
More importantly, does anyone's choice really change that much when times aren't tough? If you answered Mozart, Bernstein, and the Bonos above, would you really be likely to drop $50 on an evening of Mahler if your 401(k) was looking a little better and there was peace in the Middle East? Or are we just who we are in our cultural preferences, regardless of global circumstances?
I wonder, too, about the music people choose to listen to when the real world is getting to be a bit much to bear. Does it make you more likely to look for something deep, dark, and meaningful on a concert program, or something escapist and light? What's the better cure for an economic malaise and global unrest, something that socks you in the stomach but makes you think, or something that lets you just drift away from reality for a while? Mahler 6 or The Marriage of Figaro? Britten's War Requiem or Bernstein's West Side Story? Sinead O'Connor or Sonny & Cher?
More importantly, does anyone's choice really change that much when times aren't tough? If you answered Mozart, Bernstein, and the Bonos above, would you really be likely to drop $50 on an evening of Mahler if your 401(k) was looking a little better and there was peace in the Middle East? Or are we just who we are in our cultural preferences, regardless of global circumstances?
Labels: music and politics, philosophical musings
posted by Sam at
8:34 PM
6 Comments:
This comment has been removed by the author.
My musical tastes are very broad and varied, but when I'm feeling down - particularly about general "hard times", like you had mentioned - I tend toward what I consider "victory" music. Music which is heavy hitting and represents a "victory" or light at the end of the tunnel. Notably, I mean more of a victory in that it feels as overcoming difficulty - not a victory march, which tends to just kind of have a "coming back home" sort of feel. (A piece that comes to mind is David Maslanka's Fourth Symphony). A piece like that, through musical emotions of overcoming strife and emerging more powerful, tends to get me feeling like even if the times are tough, I still have the resolve to pull through them.
Or basically, long compositions that end in huge, full chords that leave you with strength. :)
Many years ago on Weekend Edition (Sunday with Liane Hansen), Singer-Songwriter Rickie Lee Jones told Liane, "Sad people don't like happy songs. Sad people like sad songs."
David
In tough times, whether global or deeply personal, I listen to much more silence. The overlay of musically induced rides, confuses me. I love those roller-coaster rides best when I am emotionally equipped to take me where ever they are going to take me.
"Does it make you more likely to look for something deep, dark, and meaningful on a concert program, or something escapist and light?"
When I purchase concert tickets, I'm hoping for great music performed by a fantastic group of musicians, like always!
However, now that I'm 1,200 miles away from Minneapolis -- that is, in New York -- I have to be content with listening to the MinnOrch's Beethoven CD's! Uffda, they're quite something, let me tell you! I'm serious, the CD's are like listening to Beethoven for the very first time. Thank you!
When the hard times affect society as a whole, or even just the community I live in, I tend to turn to J.S. Bach. His music makes sense of existence for me. Beethoven gets the blood running, Brahms makes me introspective.
It's interesting that this week America and the world is remembering Michael Jackson and the effect his music has had on pop. Listening to his music generally makes me smile, makes me want to move. And the Beatles....
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