Category Archives: Culture

Beethoven Represents The Best Of The West

Art, Christianity, COVID-19, Culture, English, Music, The West

Beethoven, Mozart, Bach, Mendelssohn, Schubert, Brahms, Bruckner, Debussy, César Franck, Dvorák, Tchaikovsky (Russian), Elgar, Fauré and more—they embody The Best of The West, not the Woke perverts, the Covid goons; rap, reparations, and the critical race bile ~ilana

THE TRUE MEANING OF THE WEST is not our ugly, grubby, tit-for-tat politics and even ghastlier culture, in which our kids, liberal and conservative, are allowed to wallow.

It’s not the Woke, postmodern perverts degrading the language, literature, music, art and sciences.
It’s not the COVID cartel and its army of goons, medical and bureaucratic, devoid of intelligence and bereft of proficiency in anything but the use of coercion.

The meaning of the West is not to be found in the staged acts of ugly exhibitionists and filthy pornographers who bedeck our cultural and sporting events, the likes of loud, lousy Lizzo, a mountain of meritless flesh, and Sam Smiths Sicko—degenerates who are all engaged in publicly approved indecent exposure and tuneless yelping, that not even the Auto-tune magic software recording technology can correct.

These are cultural interlopers, frauds and freaks.

Beethoven is The West. Beethoven is an example of the best of the West.

“Ode to Joy,” inspired by Friedrich Schiller’s eponymous poem, is but the soundbite in Symphony No. 9. Sublime as it is, “Ode to Joy” is the popular tune in a more magnificent whole.

One should not seek out exclusively the Ode of the Finale—the fourth movement—without assimilating the typically ballsy build-up by Beethoven throughout the preceding Allegro (first movement), scherzo (second movement) and Adagio (third).

Music is Man. Like nobody else, Beethoven instantiates this truth in all his Symphonies. (Listen to No. 5 here, conducted by the great Herbert von Karajan, and tell me this is not so.)

To share with you, I have a fine performance of “Symphony No. 9 in D minor, Op. 125 ‘Choral’ (1824).” It is that of The West-Eastern Divan Orchestra, conducted by Daniel Barenboim. Barenboim’s intensity during the performance and the perfection he wrung so effortlessly from these young musicians—beautiful in face and form, hailing from far flung countries across the Middle East and North Africa—led me to suspect this setting was more than just a celebrity conductor—one of the greatest, for sure—parachuted in for a night.

Indeed, the West-Eastern Divan Orchestra is a product of the vision of Maestro Daniel Barenboim and the less talented more verbose Edward Said, a Palestinian intellectual. The impetus of the collaboration, I imagine, was to foster peace through music. Done.

Not Allah or Jehovah ever inspired this kind of transcendence. Christianity did. This is The West, not the Woke perverts, the Covid goons; rap, reparations, and the critical race bile

It’s men like Beethoven, Mozart, Bach, Mendelssohn, Schubert, Brahms, Bruckner, Debussy, César Franck, Dvorák, Tchaikovsky (Russian), Elgar, Fauré and more—they embody The West. They and these young performers furthering the work of the Lord.

Sad anecdote: Beethoven had composed the sublime work utterly deaf.

Via Britannica:

According to one account of the event, the audience applauded thunderously at the conclusion of the performance, but Beethoven, unable to hear the response, continued to face the chorus and orchestra; a singer finally turned him around so that he could see evidence of the affirmation that resounded throughout the hall.

Performative Contradiction: Pipsqueak Declares Pat Buchanan ‘Not A Great Writer’

Argument, Conservatism, Critique, Culture, English, Intellectualism, Logic, Reason

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‘Whereof one cannot speak, thereof one must be silent’ ~ Ludwig Wittgenstein

This is rich! (In-hysterics emoji)

Against the backdrop of the retirement of the superb Patrick J. Buchanan, some cipher—that’s a melodic word for a zero, a nobody—at The American Conservative, which I recommend avoiding like spam for penis extensions, one Declan Leary declares that Pat Buchanan “was not a great writer.”

Mr. Buchanan is a very fine writer! Spare and strong, easily great.

Let’s see: A nullity, Declan Leary, implies Buchanan was a mediocre writer, and does so while writing—nay embodying—mediocre, nondescript prose. I’m in stitches here.

Leary is still a pipsqueak, but you don’t grow talent. You either have it or you don’t. It is self-evident that Leary’s prose is never going to be anything but nondescript. (Experience Declan for yourself in “Against ‘Buchananism.’”)

I do declare that Declan Leary is engaged in something of a performative contradiction.

“Whereof one cannot speak, thereof one must be silent,” said Ludwig Wittgenstein, a great analytic philosopher.

*Lawrence Auster and I were first to denounce the American Conservative.

* Screen picture credit

UPDATED (11/30/022): Complex, Masterful Music Is Not Marxist; Atonal Arnold Schoenberg Is

Art, Cultural Marxism, Culture, Music, The West

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Schönberg’s music sounds as ugly as it looks—behold the the sheet-music heading this blog post

People throw about the term “Cultural Marxism” with abandon, without always understanding what it means. Like antibiotics, the overuse of the term diminishes its potency.

About the virtuoso progressive metal band “Dream Theater,” a reader wrote on Twitter:

It is not MUSIC, it is the INSIDIOUS cultural Marxist degradation of music into a WALL OF NOISE that passes itself off as progressive. In actual fact, it is a step backward for civilization.

The reader is confused. Highly accomplished and polished progressive rock groups like “Dream Theater” or “Symphony X” follow Western rules of harmony, which go back hundreds of years. Layers of complexity in composition are being conflated here with Cultural Marxism.

The fact that it takes some dedication to listen to music that isn’t all of three chords—as is the blues or the country music twang—doesn’t make it Marxist.

What the reader is hearing in Dream Theater is, again, complexity. Highly accomplished and polished progressive rock groups like Dream Theater and Symphony X follow Western rules of harmony. And, odd time signatures, “irregular, complex, asymmetric or unusual time signature,” (my fav) are not Marxist.

While Dream Theater uses exceptionally complicated rhythms, their music is at its structural core traditional Western music.

What the reader says about Dream Theater—some would say about the genius of Béla Bartók or Igor Stravinsky. They would be wrong.

I was trained by a tough father, no longer with us, to listen to classical, in particular, chamber music, starting at a tender age. No option was given. The love followed the discipline, hence the ear for complexity.

If we wanted to spend time with dad, Friday, it was 5 hours of nonstop music. One night it’d be Bartók, the other Beethoven, but dad also introduced us to The Beatles. (Western civilization, parents. Do it up, not Kanye West.)

The routine dad enforced seemed awfully oppressive then. Today, I am grateful for the gift of knowing—nay, seeking out—the greatest music, which is, indubitably, Western music. Thus transitioning from Schubert’s “Death and the Maiden” to gifted progressive rock guitarist Tony MacAlpine is organic.

Dad, a rabbi, once whispered sheer blasphemy to me as a kid, “Don’t tell anyone, but Bach is really God.”

Without going into Cultural Marxism and doing the hard work of applying the concept to music, let me say only that the music mentioned is not Marxist as it adheres to traditional scales and structures.

WHAT IS MARXIST is the G-d-awful Arnold Schönberg and his atonal technique. Schönberg’s music sounds as ugly as it looks—check out the sheet music heading this post.

The reason he’s Marxist is that Schönberg treated all 12 semi-tones as equal, seeking to weaken harmonic progression. This rigidly ruled out patterns and familiarity, and with it the pleasant sensation that comes with beauty and symmetry.

MORE here:
http://barelyablog.com/category/music/
www.ilanamercer.com/category/music/

UPDATED (11/30/022)

Arnie Schönberg would think “Brother Of Mine,” a sublime piece by “Yes,” kitschy in the extreme.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U5LNojKALxc

https://youtu.be/U5LNojKALxc

While it has plenty odd time signatures; it also has exquisite compositional complexity, masterful execution, top-notch musicianship. AND THIS IS LIVE. Indistinguishable from the studio version.

Most so-called musicians today, other than classical, are inaudible and tuneless live without the mighty Auto-Tune: the “holy grail of recording,” that “corrects intonation problems in vocals or solo instruments, in real time, without distortion or artifacts.”

The Illiterati Strikes: Stupid, Slothful And Nasty

America, Culture, Education, English, Etiquette, Ilana Mercer, Intelligence

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The letters-to-the-editor came quick and steady. Some were repulsively nasty. None of the authors could read, reason or write. All had the attention span and concentration powers of a gnat (with apologies to the gnat community).

For some reason, the image conjured by the bare-fanged fury of one letter writer is of Lisa Simpson, transformed into a mountain of immobile, doughy flesh, in “Mama’s Watching Her Stories.”

Unable to read or comprehend a paragraph, the writer, Annemarie, launched into a sneering screed:

If you haven’t yet realized your egregious error—if only one is present—William is the elder grandson of Elizabeth, married to Kate, who together have three children. Harry is married to Megan Markel and they have two children. I couldn’t even finish your commentary as I began questioning other statements you made as I read. Sorry Ileana, but your credibility is shot with me: in my estimation you now rank right up there (or should I say ‘down there’)with the rest of the “woke” media—you have list all credibility with me. I am extremely disappointed that the editors at WND allowed this column to get into print because your dismal transposition reflected badly on them as well.

My reply about the words (in “Bar Meghan Markle From The Great Lady’s Funeral“), which the dolt was unable to read and comprehend:

It’s sad that you’d rather shoot your mouth off nastily, believing you are being clever, than read with care.

Here is the correct excerpt, without your imagined contortions. You appear unable to deal with, 1. A long sentence. 2. An em-dash in the middle of it. 3. Capital “B”.

Omit the em-dash— it’s like a clause—and you’ll get the “correct answer.”

Next time, read, and re-read before dashing off a hateful note to someone who toils thankless for liberty with her capable WND editor. I’ve separated the paragraph into sentences to make it easier for you.

William worked as an RAF search and rescue helicopter pilot.

Before marrying that dolt from Tinseltown—Meghan Markle, who imagined she was a match for the queen of England—young Prince Harry had served in Afghanistan, and wore his Afghanistan Campaign medals on his brother’s wedding day. …

To my surprise, there were more such letters.

And, Boobus Americanus is headed for the voting booths.

An aphorism from one of Oscar Wilde’s plays came to mind. I paraphrase: “She thought that because he was stupid he’d be kindly, when kindliness requires imagination and intelligence.”

Stupid is usually mean.

* Screen picture credit @ Reddit.