(09-28-2018, 11:31 PM)Classic-Xer Wrote:(09-28-2018, 11:06 PM)Eric the Green Wrote:What do you have in common with Bach other than admiration the music he created a long time ago?(09-28-2018, 11:17 AM)Bill the Piper Wrote:(09-28-2018, 07:56 AM)pbrower2a Wrote: Intellectually hollow as our President is, he seems to act as if the only mind that matters is his own. That's not quite the complete story, as other minds might simply be irrelevant to him.
There is also a word for that: psychopathy (or narcissism at least).
In this respect, Trump is an embodiment of Thomistic Western civilization, which also behaved as if other cultures (e.g. the Chinese culture) didn't matter, even if these cultures were in some ways more sophisticated than the West.
Quote:It may be that he thinks that minds other than his are irrelevant, which gives him an impoverished view of the richness possible in those who recognize that there are far greater and more productive minds than their own. A truly great man can recognize that he is not Michelangelo, Shakespeare, Vermeer, or Bach. I encounter pretensions to superiority based upon class, power, or wealth and am unimpressed. I encounter intellectual greatness manifesting itself in delightful achievements, and I am humbled.
I don't think disliking Michelangelo, Shakespeare, Vermeer and Bach means that there is something wrong with the person. Many people, like me, prefer rock music.
Recognizing greatness in the arts, music or other achievements, whether it's rock or Bach, old or new, is being able to see the highest potentials in yourself; something to aspire to. Trump doesn't seem to have much capacity to look toward the greatness in others and aspire to something greater for himself. He doesn't seem to be interested in learning beyond his prejudices and desires. He is content to praise himself as he is, and boast and do positive thinking.
Least important: that I am about half German or German-Swiss in ancestry. I have heard some excellent performances of the cantatas of J S Bach -- from Japan. These largely-vocal works involve people whose languages could hardly be more dissimilar in phonology. There must be something universal in Bach for his appeal to people of high intelligence. being able to get something thoroughly foreign and not at the lowest common denominator of appeal. I also love the music of Gustav Mahler, who was never accepted as a German despite a German culture (he was a Czech Jew, which is about as culturally as German as one can get!). In the blood? So far as I know I have no Jewish ancestry, which surprises me in view of my recognition of the Ashkenazim as cultural brethren. I also love Puccini, whose vocal expressions are as strong as those in Bach's vocal cantatas. I do not have Italian ancestry, either. Bach as a relative? Only in spirit. My German ancestors are from the wrong parts of the German-speaking world... Switzerland, Baden-Wurttemberg, Alsace (now in France), and the Rheinland. I love Haydn, Mozart, Schubert, and Bruckner, too, but my ancestors did not come from Austria, so I doubt that I am in any way related to them.
The well-recognized composer to which I am most closely related is Charles Ives. Interesting, but nowhere near Bach. I do genealogy, but I don't look deeply into German relatives. I don't want to find any Holocaust perpetrators.
No connection: I am nowhere near his level of competence in any musical activity as a creator or performer. Should you ask musicians what they think of Bach, they will be in awe. He could write incredibly simple music well suited to musical expression to fit their personalities. I have gone more for breadth of compositional style than depth of individual performance of specific works, but if there is one set of works that I would love to hear different individual performances it is his Suites for solo cello. Vastly different as Casals and Rostropovich could be in their performances of these masterworks, they are both right. That says much about Casals and Rostropovich. That also says much about J S Bach. Bach in his time was as much a virtuoso performer on harpsichord, violin, cello, and organ as he was splendid as a composer.
Three hundred years later, Bach's music is still powerful. It is incredibly versatile, as well; I have heard convincing jazz performances of Bach works. It is not that I have a personal connection to the music; the music connects to me. Some cultural efforts are ephemera that people outgrow, and some are worthy through the ages. Even as a ruin the Parthenon is still magnificent. The pyramids and the Sphinx still awe us. Much of the cultural effort from the 1920s, a decade for which few people showed any attachment once it was over, is rightly forgotten. Is it the mathematical precision of his composition that gets me? Maybe. Likewise Mahler.
The ideal subject of totalitarian rule is not the convinced Nazi or the dedicated Communist but instead the people for whom the distinction between fact and fiction, true and false, no longer exists -- Hannah Arendt.