Beethoven

[Ellen Stuttle]

it's the equivalent of setting your book down behind you and throwing yourself down a grassy hill, rolling around in all of life’s energy and getting it tangled in your hair and dusted over your nose and smeared all over your arms and legs.

I like the image. ;-)

Ellen

___

[Victor Pross]

Liz,

I'm with you, girl. I love rock n’ roll, so put another dime in jukebox, baby.

Many Objectivists I know have a love-hate relationship with rock 'n' roll culture. They have a studied and condescending approach to a highly subjective topic. They always draw attention to the volatile concept of 'rock', as did religionist did in the 1950s when rock first immerged. Given their own “superior” taste in music, these Objectivist have their nose so far up in the air it’s amazing how they manage to look down on you. Fact is, it is music. And one's taste in music is subjective. To each--his own. Knock yourself out, and enjoy.

The worse caricature of this "I HATE ROCK" jibe is none other than Lindsay Perigo. I wonder if Perigo even knows of The Who’s Tommy and its assimilation of the classical operatic format. Yes, Perigo hates rock...he really, really, really hates it! There were times when he attempts to enforce old world views on the embryonic rock culture, and he appears to be overly zealous to debunk rock's significance. It make you wonder why. Too many Objectivist are too much like Perigo, even if they watered down versions of him.

-Victor

[Victor Pross]

Liz,

I'm with you, girl. I love rock n’ roll, so put another dime in jukebox, baby.

Many Objectivists I know have a love-hate relationship with rock 'n' roll culture. They have a studied and condescending approach to a highly subjective topic. They always draw attention to the volatile concept of 'rock', as did religionist did in the 1950s when rock first immerged. Given their own “superior” taste in music, these Objectivist have their nose so far up in the air it’s amazing how they manage to look down on you. Fact is, it is music. And one's taste in music is subjective. To each--his own. Knock yourself out and enjoy.

The worse caricature of this "I HATE ROCK" jibe is none other than Lindsay Perigo. I wonder if Perigo even knows of The Who’s Tommy and its assimilation of the classical operatic format. Yes, Perigo hates rock...he really, really, really hates it! There were times when he attempts to enforce old world views on the embryonic rock culture, and he appears to be overly zealous to debunk rock's significance. It make you wonder why. Too many Objectivist are too much like Perigo, even if they are watered down versions of him.

-Victor

[Greybird]

[... Rand] was aware that she couldn't prove that her reactions to music were the right ones, because — she thought — proving this would require a theory of the physiology of music which we don't yet have. (Partly her physiologic theory is based on misinformation in any case.) But she believed, though she didn't say this in so many words in the article itself, that when the proof was provided, it would support her preferences.

She alludes to this matter of lacking or unproved theory in "Art and Cognition," which piece from "The Objectivist" was added in the early '70s to the paperback (NAL) editions of The Romantic Manifesto.

What misinformation are you referring to? (Either a brief summary or a route to find it in other posts, if you've answered this, as I suspect you have by now.)

I find your "when the proof was provided" to be a clue to a remarkable and quite rare matter in regard to Rand: She almost never, from all descriptions, admitted to having made any induction that was outrunning the scope of her deductions. I gathered from early on, as to the interface between her life and her work (and long before Passion), that any such admission would have been something she fiercely resisted, almost as if one was committing a Breach Against Reason.

All of which showed, to me, how little Rand really comprehended about the working methods of scientists, because that phenomenon is at the heart of what's sloppily referred to as "scientific method." You don't create hypotheses without induction.

Peikoff had a lecture series on "Objectivism Through Induction." I gathered that it tried, in part, to reclaim this process from a vague, de facto disrepute that Rand had cast upon it. Would anyone who saw or heard those lectures say that's a reasonable characterization?

(This was a rare instance where I was tempted to buy a recorded course of his. Yet aside from the usual huge cost, I was still perturbed about seeing yet another potentially seminal effort being consigned to a sterile lock-up in his lecture tapes. ... Ye gads, I'm so very tired of the effects of this ironically oral-culture aspect of Objectivist discussions.)

[...] (The question of why AR didn't like Beethoven was one which was talked about and talked about and ... ad infinitum in New York O'ist circles in the '70s.)

Not to her directly, it seems, in an era when she had time on her hands. Several questions come to mind:

~ This was well after "Art and Cognition" (I've got the chronology correct here, having had my coffee {g}). So did anyone ever actually bring up to her whether this unexplained, or perhaps unexplainable as yet, dismissal on her part had any support in her own analysis? Even Harry Binswanger, who might have asked her about it over a game of Scrabble?

~ Did anybody offer to actually take Rand to a classical concert or two, perhaps with several composers' work on the evening menu, to both give her some pleasure and provide her some first-hand evidence either way? It appears that she didn't get out much, to say the least.

~ Why, in the wake of having seen the blow-ups of 1968 at close range, and having so much detritus from so many living second-hand around Rand, would this have been such an obsession at all? Wouldn't that mess have given a few hints to you New Yorkers (much more "insiders" than the rest of us, methinks) that such issues don't do well from being approached with such intensely rationalistic attention?

Edited March 10, 2007 by Greybird

[Dragonfly]

By all accounts Rand was rather unmusical and her knowledge of music was almost nil. Her reaction to Julie's question is in that regard quite telling: she didn't even know some of Beethoven's best known works! In itself nothing wrong with that, until you start to pontificate about Mozart being "pre-music" and the malevolent sense of life of Beethoven. I wonder if she somewhere heard the story about the first notes of the 5th symphony meaning "fate is knocking at the door" and concluding that Beethoven depicted a tragic struggle against fate, while she never heard more than those first four notes (I suspect that quite a lot of people who know those first four notes haven't the foggiest idea what the theme of the last movement is, even while that theme is quite easy to sing and to remember). What she admired in Liszt's Saint François de Paule marchant sur les flots, struggle and victory, is exactly what she'd found in Beethoven's fifth if she'd ever listened to it. It must have been very embarrassing to hear her condemn Beethoven en then have to admit to a young woman that she didn't know Beethoven's best-known works at all. Even now I'm still cringing just at the thought of it.

[Chris Grieb]

In the Sure's book there is mention of Ayn Rand attending a piano concert where some modern music which Miss Rand did not approve of was played. At her art lecture I attended she said she would not comment on Rachmaninoff.

Edited March 10, 2007 by Chris Grieb

[Judith]

Many Objectivists I know have a love-hate relationship with rock 'n' roll culture. They have a studied and condescending approach to a highly subjective topic. They always draw attention to the volatile concept of 'rock', as did religionist did in the 1950s when rock first immerged. Given their own “superior” taste in music, these Objectivist have their nose so far up in the air it’s amazing how they manage to look down on you. Fact is, it is music. And one's taste in music is subjective. To each--his own. Knock yourself out, and enjoy.

I admit to being guilty of this sometimes. Fact is, I like COMPLEX music. I get bored with pop music (into which I lump all music that isn't classical) with the constant tonic-dominant-subdominant harmonic progression again and again and again. I adored the music of Yes and Emerson, Lake, and Palmer growing up, and I still remember it fondly -- in fact, right now I'm in the middle of Keith Emerson's autobiography, "Pictures of an Exhibitionist". Music like that may have been classified as "rock", but it was never BORING.

Gotta dig out those old CDs....

Judith

[Judith]

What she admired in Liszt's Saint François de Paule marchant sur les flots, struggle and victory, is exactly what she'd found in Beethoven's fifth if she'd ever listened to it.

Good god, yes. The opening of the fourth movement is one of the most triumphant moments in music.

Judith

[Judith]

And even those moments of "beautiful rapport" can be with a person with whom one wouldn't have any large amount of rapport in general.

. . .

It was an experience of profound rapport -- and yet the oboist and I are not people who would click in any large way even as close friends. We like each other; we're cordial acquaintances. But we'd never be particularly close. Yet that shared moment we've both remembered, and we've smiled at each other with a special "Hello" nod ever since.

That was a beautifully written description, Ellen!

I'll have to take it as a lesson. Sometimes I read more into moments of musical rapport than is actually there, and later I'm profoundly disappointed when I find out that the person and I have less in common than I had hoped.

Judith

[Rich Engle]

It got very simple for me a long time ago.

1. If you hear it and you like it, listen to more.

2. If you hear it and you don't like it, you either understand it and still don't care for it, or you don't understand it and might still end up not caring for it even after you do.

3. Sometimes you don't have the time or inclination to learn about it at the moment, so if it's real torture, just don't listen until you do your homework, or something else happens.

Back in the late 70's I used to get into these fierce arguments with a musician friend (actually, the guy that turned me onto Atlas while simultaneously giving me Kant and Krishnamurti to read all at once, whew)-- I'd listen to something and say "I like that," and he'd make horrible fun of me. "What does 'like,' mean, Richard? Why? Explain yourself...be more articulate!" Eventually I just told him there was no need-- I like what I like, and I will continue to listen to that, and develop my pallette.

You can of course talk about philosophy and music, but really...it stiffens up pretty quick. Look what happened when Rand tried it. She would've blown a head vein if she were taken to a Hendrix concert.

rde

I yikes what I yikes.

[Ellen Stuttle]

By all accounts Rand was rather unmusical and her knowledge of music was almost nil. Her reaction to Julie's question is in that regard quite telling: she didn't even know some of Beethoven's best known works! In itself nothing wrong with that, until you start to pontificate about Mozart being "pre-music" and the malevolent sense of life of Beethoven. I wonder if she somewhere heard the story about the first notes of the 5th symphony meaning "fate is knocking at the door" and concluding that Beethoven depicted a tragic struggle against fate, while she never heard more than those first four notes (I suspect that quite a lot of people who know those first four notes haven't the foggiest idea what the theme of the last movement is, even while that theme is quite easy to sing and to remember). What she admired in Liszt's Saint François de Paule marchant sur les flots, struggle and victory, is exactly what she'd found in Beethoven's fifth if she'd ever listened to it. It must have been very embarrassing to hear her condemn Beethoven en then have to admit to a young woman that she didn't know Beethoven's best-known works at all. Even now I'm still cringing just at the thought of it.

Oops, oops; slow down a bit. Damn words; they can so easily lead to miscommunication. Julie reeled off the names of several Beethoven compositions ("But, Miss Rand, have you heard...?"). I don't remember the whole list she mentioned; the Fourth Symphony was definitely one she named, and "The Tempest" sonata -- she used the nickname, not the opus #, and the Violin Concerto. The Fifth Symphony was not on the list she asked about; nor the Ninth Symphony. It was known that Rand had heard at least those two. Indeed, it seems to have been the Fifth Symphony, which she'd heard in Russia, which had been the original basis of her dislike of Beethoven.

[DOUBLE OOPS. I just realized, upon re-reading Dragonfly's comment, that I'd misread it. What he wrote was: "It must have been very embarrassing to hear her condemn Beethoven en then have to admit to a young woman that she didn't know Beethoven's best-known works at all."

I read that as indicating embarrassment on Rand's part, but what instead it indicates is embarrassment on mine. No, I didn't find this embarrassing. It was quite what I expected -- that she'd heard little Beethoven and except for a few especially famous works, wouldn't know which pieces she'd heard. I now continue with the post as I wrote it, addressing whether Rand was embarrassed by her lack of knowledge.

(I offer in excuse for the hasty reading that Larry has the Saturday opera broadcast playing in the computer room -- reading while having the last act of Die Meistersinger dinned into one's left ear isn't to be recommended.)]

As to her being embarrassed by Julie's question. She wasn't embarrassed at all. She was sitting there looking at Julie in that appraising way she looked at people. She replied in completely flat factual tones, "I don't know."

Recall something Barbara said on the Wagner thread, about how Rand, with her view that she could understand the full picture of a philosopher's ideas from a small excerpt also feeling that she could come to a judgment about an artist on the basis of one or a few works. The situation with her and Beethoven could be summarized by the line "Tried it once; didn't like it." She wouldn't have felt the need to explore further having decided once. Allan Blumenthal had played some other Beethoven works for her over the years -- I don't know exactly which ones -- and had tried to encourage a greater appreciation, or at minimum a recognition that others might hear Beethoven's (and other composers') work differently than she did. But he didn't get anywhere with her. (I'll say more about that in response to some questions Steve Reed asked.) She wouldn't have listened enough to be able to hear in her mind particular works simply on the basis of having those works named, except in the case of particular favorites. Even people who listen more than she did wouldn't necessarily know if they've heard a specific composition just from the name -- and especially just from the number -- of the composition.

Re Liszt's Saint François de Paule marchant sur les flots: I don't know if I've ever heard that. I figure that surely I must have, but in this case I'm not getting music in my mind from the name.

Ellen

___

Edited March 10, 2007 by Ellen Stuttle

[Ellen Stuttle]

That was a beautifully written description, Ellen!

Thank you, Judith.

Ellen

___

[Dragonfly]

Oops, oops; slow down a bit. Damn words; they can so easily lead to miscommunication. Julie reeled off the names of several Beethoven compositions ("But, Miss Rand, have you heard...?"). I don't remember the whole list she mentioned; the Fourth Symphony was definitely one she named, and "The Tempest" sonata -- she used the nickname, not the opus #, and the Violin Concerto.

In an earlier post you also mentioned the sixth symphony and the fourth piano concerto as works that were sent to Rand, implying that she didn't know them. So she didn't even know the Pastorale and the violin concerto and still had the gall to condemn Beethoven for his malevolent universe!!!

[DOUBLE OOPS. I just realized, upon re-reading Dragonfly's comment, that I'd misread it. What he wrote was: "It must have been very embarrassing to hear her condemn Beethoven en then have to admit to a young woman that she didn't know Beethoven's best-known works at all."

I read that as indicating embarrassment on Rand's part, but what instead it indicates is embarrassment on mine.

Not specifically you, just anyone who knows a bit about music and was present there, although that of course includes you as well.

As to her being embarrassed by Julie's question. She wasn't embarrassed at all. She was sitting there looking at Julie in that appraising way she looked at people. She replied in completely flat factual tones, "I don't know."

Of course I hadn't expected that she would be embarrassed, and that is not a compliment. She was quick to condemn people on the basis of infinitesimal knowledge about them. The bleak naturalism of subjects next door to kitchens was her characterization of Vermeer. I must stop, this is more than I can take.

Re Liszt's Saint François de Paule marchant sur les flots: I don't know if I've ever heard that. I figure that surely I must have, but in this case I'm not getting music in my mind from the name.

Nice piece first with tremolos and later with up and down rolling scales in the bass for the waves and a simple "walking" theme in the right hand:

increasing agitation with chromatic figures:

leading to a climax:

[Ellen Stuttle]

[....] Julie reeled off the names of several Beethoven compositions ("But, Miss Rand, have you heard...?"). I don't remember the whole list she mentioned; the Fourth Symphony was definitely one she named, and "The Tempest" sonata -- she used the nickname, not the opus #, and the Violin Concerto.

In an earlier post you also mentioned the sixth symphony and the fourth piano concerto as works that were sent to Rand, implying that she didn't know them. So she didn't even know the Pastorale and the violin concerto and still had the gall to condemn Beethoven for his malevolent universe!!!

Yes, the sixth symphony and fourth piano concerto were among the recordings Julie said she was sending to AR. And I might have mentioned some others in an earlier recounting of the incident. It's been more than 30 years; I don't have clear recall of the exact list Julie named in her "But, Miss Rand," question. Afterward she and I talked about what to include in the package.

I read that as indicating embarrassment on Rand's part, but what instead it indicates is embarrassment on mine.

Not specifically you, just anyone who knows a bit about music and was present there, although that of course includes you as well.

The way it was, only Julie and I heard. The scene was the reception line. Julie had earlier asked, in the Q&A session, if Rand had an opinion of Beethoven. Rand had answered by explaining what she meant by a "malevolent sense of life" and then describing Beethoven as "a giant of the malevolent sense of life which is the opposite of mine." Those last words I wrote down on my program. There's as close to a taped report as one could get.

Then, in the reception line, Julie asked if Rand had heard ___. I had followed just behind Julie to hear what Rand would say. I was standing a bit to the left of Julie, enough to provide a clear view of Rand's face. I was the only one overhearing. The only other person who could have heard was a Ford Hall Forum staff member who was standing to Rand's left behind the table where Rand was sitting. But that person wasn't listening to the exchange.

As to her being embarrassed by Julie's question. She wasn't embarrassed at all. She was sitting there looking at Julie in that appraising way she looked at people. She replied in completely flat factual tones, "I don't know."

Of course I hadn't expected that she would be embarrassed, and that is not a compliment. She was quick to condemn people on the basis of infinitesimal knowledge about them. The bleak naturalism of subjects next door to kitchens was her characterization of Vermeer. I must stop, this is more than I can take.

I know it isn't meant as a compliment. ;-) I wouldn't mean it as a compliment either. It's pretty appalling, I feel.

If you can stay awake awhile longer, stay tuned for some things I'll try to write in about the next half hour responding to a post by Steve Reed. I'm having lots of trouble with my computer connection -- some kind of problems happening with the University server. I might get cut off.

Thanks for the musical quote of Saint François de Paule marchant sur les flots. I recognize it. I think I understand why she would not hear a commonality -- such as you described in your earlier post -- to the Beethoven fifth symphony. I'll wait till Monday to comment about that. (Won't be home tomorrow.)

Ellen

___

Edited March 11, 2007 by Ellen Stuttle

[Dragonfly]

If you can stay awake awhile longer, stay tuned for some things I'll try to write in about the next half hour responding to a post by Steve Reed.

Sorry, it's way past midnight here, and my connection with OL is extremely slow. I'll try again tomorrow.

[Ellen Stuttle]

If you can stay awake awhile longer, stay tuned for some things I'll try to write in about the next half hour responding to a post by Steve Reed.

Sorry, it's way past midnight here, and my connection with OL is extremely slow. I'll try again tomorrow.

If you're having slow-connection problems, too, maybe it's OL's server which is causing my getting cut off and not UHa's.

Pleasant dreams. Try not to have nightmares about Rand on aesthetics. ;-) Talk to you Monday.

Ellen

___

[PalePower]

Many Objectivists I know have a love-hate relationship with rock 'n' roll culture. They have a studied and condescending approach to a highly subjective topic. They always draw attention to the volatile concept of 'rock', as did religionist did in the 1950s when rock first immerged. Given their own “superior” taste in music, these Objectivist have their nose so far up in the air it’s amazing how they manage to look down on you. Fact is, it is music. And one's taste in music is subjective. To each--his own. Knock yourself out, and enjoy.

I admit to being guilty of this sometimes. Fact is, I like COMPLEX music. I get bored with pop music (into which I lump all music that isn't classical) with the constant tonic-dominant-subdominant harmonic progression again and again and again. I adored the music of Yes and Emerson, Lake, and Palmer growing up, and I still remember it fondly -- in fact, right now I'm in the middle of Keith Emerson's autobiography, "Pictures of an Exhibitionist". Music like that may have been classified as "rock", but it was never BORING.

Gotta dig out those old CDs....

Judith

I'm totally with you there. I said in a previous post that I like rock, but that more applies to the instrumentation. I never listen to the radio, except classic rock time to time when I'm driving. The chord progressions never change!!! IT'S ALL THE SAME.

Fortunately, there's SO MUCH exciting, "complex" rock out there today, recent stuff, too - mostly progressive stuff, some power metal, too. They just don't play it on the radio. Rhapsody, Nightwish, and Lacrimosa incorporate the entire symphony orchestra into their music, The Flower Kings go off onto, like, symphonic movements in their songs, only with keyboards and guitars and all that good stuff, and Ayreon continues on with the rock opera bit, but their songs could easily be written for classical instruments and you'd never know the difference. Glorious!

And - YES! Oh my God. AMAZING. Have you heard their fairly recent album, "Magnification"? Rock genius!

[Ellen Stuttle]

Steve,

As the first of your questions in the post to which I'm responding, you asked about "misinformation" in Rand's theory of how music is processed. This is a subject which Roger Bissell has addressed at length. I believe there's a summarizing post of his on the "Microcosm" thread. I was planning to look for that post after I got done writing this one, but I'm having so much trouble with my computer connection to OL -- plus I have to get up early tomorrow to go to a meeting -- so I'll leave finding Roger's discussion till Monday.

[...] (The question of why AR didn't like Beethoven was one which was talked about and talked about and ... ad infinitum in New York O'ist circles in the '70s.)

Not to her directly, it seems, in an era when she had time on her hands. Several questions come to mind:

~ This was well after "Art and Cognition" (I've got the chronology correct here, having had my coffee {g}). So did anyone ever actually bring up to her whether this unexplained, or perhaps unexplainable as yet, dismissal on her part had any support in her own analysis? Even Harry Binswanger, who might have asked her about it over a game of Scrabble?

~ Did anybody offer to actually take Rand to a classical concert or two, perhaps with several composers' work on the evening menu, to both give her some pleasure and provide her some first-hand evidence either way? It appears that she didn't get out much, to say the least.

~ Why, in the wake of having seen the blow-ups of 1968 at close range, and having so much detritus from so many living second-hand around Rand, would this have been such an obsession at all? Wouldn't that mess have given a few hints to you New Yorkers (much more "insiders" than the rest of us, methinks) that such issues don't do well from being approached with such intensely rationalistic attention?

Except for the second question, I'm feeling that I don't really connect with just what you're picturing the circumstances as having been. Maybe I'd best further explain the issue to which I was referring. It was that of why she considered Beethoven's music malevolent and whether or not her assessment was correct.

I think there were people who wondered about either the first or both of these questions from the first time they ever heard of her views on Beethoven. I myself first heard of her calling Beethoven malevolent when I was still a student at Northwestern -- I think this was in '64 -- from a law student and "student of" whom I happened to meet one day on the mass-transit "El" ("Elevated," for those not familiar with the Chicago area). I don't remember ever encountering a New York City-area Objectivist with whom I had any conversation about music who didn't know of Rand's opinion of Beethoven. Julie, the girl who asked the question at the Ford Hall Forum -- phrasing the question as if she didn't know -- in fact had already been told of Rand's opinion of Beethoven, though she, Julie, was a newcomer to Objectivist circles.

The problem which people talked about was one which almost everybody who had more-than-passing familiarity with Beethoven's music found puzzling. There were those rare few who at least claimed to share Ayn's response -- I can't remember any names, but I do remember very occasionally encountering a classical music fan who at least claimed not to find her description puzzling. The rest of us wondered "What is she hearing? Where does she get 'malevolent'?" The debates people would have were over whether the sense of "struggle," to use as possibly neutral word as I can think of at the moment, validated the description "malevolent." Most of us didn't think it did. The attempt in a way, for some, was to rationalize Rand's description. For others, there was worry that they were somehow not hearing right, that she must be right, so there must be a flaw in their reactions. (At times, I used to feel like screaming -- and I think every now and then I did scream: "Use your own ears, damn it; not hers!")

As to whether Harry Binswanger in particular would have tried to talk with Ayn about Beethoven...couldn't tell you. I don't even know if Harry was/is a classical music fan. I was seldom in a circumstance where I had direct conversation with Harry, and I don't recall music ever being mentioned on those occasions.

Someone who did have many, many conversations with Ayn about music was Allan Blumenthal. I in turn probed Allan on the subject of her tastes in music -- and on music generally -- many times during before- or after-class talks with him when I was taking his psychology courses. It was as a result of my piecing together things he said that I eventually formed the hypothesis that there was something about "quintessential" Germanic classical-era style as such which put her off. She didn't like Mozart, Beethoven, Schubert, Brahms, Schumann. Some of Mendelssohn she did like, but not as a prime rave. (She also disliked the whole Baroque style, including Bach.)

Allan didn't get anywhere with her on the issue of there maybe being something more worthwhile in composers she didn't respond to than she thought. In a conversation I had with him after he'd split with her, he told me: "[T]here are some subjects about which she knows nothing, like music and painting. But if you try to explain to her, she'll tell you you're wrong. And then she'll call the next day to ask if you've thought about what she said, and if you say 'no,' then it will be long discussions of your psychoepistemology. Conversations with her were not a pleasure." (Obviously, this is in retrospect after he and Joan had had it and had broken off their relationship with Ayn. They wouldn't have stayed around as long as they did if they'd never found conversations with her a pleasure. Plus, from other reports, it seems she got worse in pushing at them after the Split, when Nathaniel was no longer occupying her attention.)

Re:

~ Did anybody offer to actually take Rand to a classical concert or two, perhaps with several composers' work on the evening menu, to both give her some pleasure and provide her some first-hand evidence either way? It appears that she didn't get out much, to say the least.

The only report I heard of someone's offering to take her to a musical event was the offer by David Dawson to take Ayn to a performance of La Boheme. Barbara describes the occasion, and its rarity:

pp. 363-4,

The Passion of Ayn Rand

David Dawson, a former NBI student married to Joan Kennedy Taylor, was able to persuade Ayn to attend a performance of La Boheme at the Metropolitan Opera House. Attending any event with Ayn was usually a traumatic experience: she rarely went to a movie, a play, a ballet, an opera, and when she did so she would announce her judgments in a clearly audible voice--and her judgments usually were negative. "They must understand what immoral trash they're seeing," she would insist when friends begged her not to disturb the audience. There was nothing her friends could do but wish they could hide under their seats until the ordeal was over. But during the performance of La Boheme, she was raptly silent. As she and Frank walked along Broadway afterward, David recalled, "she was as happy as a child. She was skipping along the street. She kept saying, "I haven't seen it since Russia--and I've always loved it so. It's wonderful!' I'd never seen her like that. She was wonderful!"

Ellen

___

[Judith]

And - YES! Oh my God. AMAZING. Have you heard their fairly recent album, "Magnification"? Rock genius!

Do you mean to tell me that the group still exists? They've been in existence since the late '60s! My god, they must be using walkers! I haven't gotten an album of theirs since "Tales from Topographic Oceans" in the '70s.

Judith

[Robert Jones]

A very interesting question, Robert. I'll answer in a somewhat roundabout way.

Not long after I met Rand, we began discussing some of the issues I was struggling with in my philosophy classes at UCLA. It became my custom to wrestle as hard as I could with positions held by thinkers such as Hume, or Decartes, or Plato, and by more obscure thinkers whom I was studying. If I thought a certain position was correct, I'd try to justify it; if I thought it was mistaken, I'd try to discover and name precisely why. If I was completely stuck, then I would take the problem to Rand. Often, I would bring my textbook with me, and show her the passage or passages that were creating problems for me, where, perhaps, I thought there was an error but could not identify it.

What usually happened was remarkable. Rand would read the relevant material, then give a non-stop presentatkon of how and where and why the philosopher had made mistakes, and what the correct answer should have been. And then -- and it was this that was more than remarkable, it was astonishing -- she would tell me what that thinker, because of what he had concluded on the subject, say, of metaphysics, would necessarily have concluded about epistemology, morality, politics, etc. And I never found her to be mistaken. Her power to see the world in a grain of sand was prodigious.

Rand understood this about herself; she knew that she could see vast implications in the smallest of signs. And so, to answer your question, yes, she did the same thing with music that she did with philosophy, convinced that her conclusions would be equally valid. But because music comes from emotions, and emotions can be contradictory and can vary enormously within the same person, it can't be done with nearly the same validity. She intensely disliked composers of whose work she had heard anything but a representative sample. She would hear only fragments of a composer, perhaps something gloomy -- and that was that; she would listen to no more, convinced she understood everything she needed to understand about his music. I suspect that had she first heard some of Rachmaninoff's more tragic music, she might never have discovered his Second Concerto. And I doubt very much that she ever listened to Beethoven's Seventh Symphony; she would have made her final decision about his music long before anyone might have mentioned the Seventh Symphony.

Barbara

Thanks for your reply, Barbara. That's an interesting point you make about Rachmaninoff's darker pieces. My own favorite is Die Toteninsel, a tone poem in 5/4 time, very much impressionistic for the Russian composer.

I don't understand, though, how she would stamp something "malevolent universe" after a few gloomy bars, as you put it. That she wouldn't have understood that music too needs conflict between the forces of light and darkness to build its own drama. Even Rachmaninoff's Second Piano Concerto has a bit of this going on.

Everyone else, thanks too for your comments. Glad to see Beethoven is still controversial almost 200 years since his passing.

Peter: Interesting that passage of Wagner's description "the apotheosis of the dance," one which I'm familiar (I'm a huge Wagner fan). There's a rhythmic element in the Seventh akin to Paganini's "Moto Perpetuo," and I cannot listen to interpretations of the Seventh by too many contemporary conductors; they break it down into disjointed fragments, which wrecks Beethoven's flow of sound.

The best recordings I've heard are the 1936 Toscanini/New York Philharmonic and the Erich Leinsdorf/BSO record.

Ellen, sorry to hear about that story about the girl Julie. She must've been heartbroken. BTW, will check out the Szell/Cleveland record -- it seems that the best conductors of Beethoven aren't Germans, but Hungarian Jews: George Szell, Eugene Ormandy, Fritz Reiner, Sir Georg Solti. Like Toscanini makes everything sound like Verdi and Puccini, the Hungarians make it all sound like Liszt and Dvorak (a Czexh, I know, I know)!

Nonemaker: Without Wagner there'd BE no heavy metal. Along with classical, I am hugely inspired by heavy metal. When Black and White Magzine interviewed me, I mentioned that my "Concrete Cathedrals" series was inspired primarily by listening to the music of Jean Sibelius and Led Zeppelin on my car CD player. When the story came out, both Sibelius and Brahms were mentioned, but no Page and Plant. Hmmmm. Still a snobbery against metal, even though John Paul Jones is music director at Westminster Abbey!

On Ozzy, Randy Rhodes left his lasting influence on him. Rhodes was a classical guitar devotee, listened to Julian Bream, Segovia, etc. You can hear it in songs like "Bark at the Moon," and esp. (as you point out) "No More Tears," which was after Rhodes died (I think Zack was his guitarist at that point).

My favorite Ozzy tune is "Perry Mason," because the opening Organ chords quote Fred Steiner's TV-show theme. I love soundtracks!

[Robert Jones]

P.S.: My favorite Beethoven "Malevolent Universe" composition is his most underrated symphony, the Fourth.

Edited March 11, 2007 by Robert Jones

[Judith]

I suspect that had she first heard some of Rachmaninoff's more tragic music, she might never have discovered his Second Concerto.

Thanks for your reply, Barbara. That's an interesting point you make about Rachmaninoff's darker pieces. My own favorite is Die Toteninsel, a tone poem in 5/4 time, very much impressionistic for the Russian composer.

Interesting point, Robert. I wonder if she ever heard "Isle of the Dead"? It's a great piece, but certainly not joyous in any sense of the word, except perhaps for the middle section, and that ends in the inexorable ride to the island.

Judith

[Wrighty]

Interesting point, Robert. I wonder if she ever heard "Isle of the Dead"? It's a great piece, but certainly not joyous in any sense of the word, except perhaps for the middle section, and that ends in the inexorable ride to the island.

Judith

Having thought I knew of all Rachmaninov's orchestral works I checked out Die Toteninsel....distant Bells rang as I half thought ....Toten....?? Isle of the Dead?? They are indeed one and the same.

[Wrighty]

Robert - interesting comment about contemporary conductors and the "flow of Beethoven"....

My introductory conductors in Beethoven were Ormandy (Emperor Concerto with Rudolf Serkin) and Bruno Walter (5th Sym). Given you always have an affection for those particular "guides", I admit to having few recorded marvels since in terms of interpretation (and we're going back nearly 50 years). I liked Solti's set but there were no real highlights. I loved Perlman's Violin Concerto (Philharmonia/Giulini version) and the Eroica by which I measure all others is Karajan's 1963 recording. A review I read underlined the '63 Karajans as being "before the fetish of smooth perfection" which underlined the Berlin Phil's later reputation under Karajan.

In terms of malevolence, I once attended a live concert which started with Coriolan Overture. ........Sonically and emotionally it was stunning and I was pinned to the back of the seat! That such an old warhorse could come thundering off the stage.....I was totally underprepared!

[Robert Jones]

I suspect that had she first heard some of Rachmaninoff's more tragic music, she might never have discovered his Second Concerto.

Thanks for your reply, Barbara. That's an interesting point you make about Rachmaninoff's darker pieces. My own favorite is Die Toteninsel, a tone poem in 5/4 time, very much impressionistic for the Russian composer.

Interesting point, Robert. I wonder if she ever heard "Isle of the Dead"? It's a great piece, but certainly not joyous in any sense of the word, except perhaps for the middle section, and that ends in the inexorable ride to the island.

Judith

Ah, yes, Charon, the rower! The middle section is indeed piu dolce, very heartrending, bittersweet. Glad to know someone else knows this piece. It's Rachmaninoff's most succinct yet thorough musical statement, a world-within-a-world, like Sibelius's "Tapiola."