Ok I know that I am getting old and that my views of popular culture are tarnished by the patina of time, but I listen to new music and sometimes despair. Chanting obscenities or gibberish to a thumping beat may be what kids are presented with and perhaps it is the inevitable product of an evolutionary process that has produced a generation, of which many of whom seem to have lost a sense of direction.
The reason for the Oxford trip the other night was to attend a concert performed by one of our best symphony orchestras. The program included works by Chopin, Glinka and Tchaikowski. I haven't been to such a concert for some considerable time and it was a joy to experience wonderful music performed by real musicians, and what crossed my mind was that this is one of the pinnacles of man's achievements. Composers, rightly, are given most of the credit for the works that they write, and yet, without the dedicated professional musicians that interpret those writings, their efforts are nothing to most people, but scribblings on a page. In order for great music to be delivered to us mere nobodies, there has to be a convergence of some of the finest minds with talents that are rare and precious. They, together, become one with the mind of the originator and bring to life, music that is priceless.
There have been many bands of musicians of many genres that have achieved wonderful things, producing music that has had the power to move and thrill audiences. Some bands evolved and grew to almost orchestral proportions, inspiring an anti - music trend called punk. Punk bands took music back from the dizzy heights and ran it screaming and kicking into the gutter. Punk, like the banal Rap of today was purely visceral, and lacked any intellectual thread. Punk was a protest against quality and against talent and so today we have a music industry that is on its knees, for probably the same sort of reason. Boy and girl bands abound and any of the scarce real musicians are forced along a pathway that renders their own work pretty much subsumed into the musak promoted by the get rich quick.
I was heartened by the fact that there were many young musicians in the orchestra and yet the program notes suggest that most of them come from eastern Europe.
The reason for the Oxford trip the other night was to attend a concert performed by one of our best symphony orchestras. The program included works by Chopin, Glinka and Tchaikowski. I haven't been to such a concert for some considerable time and it was a joy to experience wonderful music performed by real musicians, and what crossed my mind was that this is one of the pinnacles of man's achievements. Composers, rightly, are given most of the credit for the works that they write, and yet, without the dedicated professional musicians that interpret those writings, their efforts are nothing to most people, but scribblings on a page. In order for great music to be delivered to us mere nobodies, there has to be a convergence of some of the finest minds with talents that are rare and precious. They, together, become one with the mind of the originator and bring to life, music that is priceless.
There have been many bands of musicians of many genres that have achieved wonderful things, producing music that has had the power to move and thrill audiences. Some bands evolved and grew to almost orchestral proportions, inspiring an anti - music trend called punk. Punk bands took music back from the dizzy heights and ran it screaming and kicking into the gutter. Punk, like the banal Rap of today was purely visceral, and lacked any intellectual thread. Punk was a protest against quality and against talent and so today we have a music industry that is on its knees, for probably the same sort of reason. Boy and girl bands abound and any of the scarce real musicians are forced along a pathway that renders their own work pretty much subsumed into the musak promoted by the get rich quick.
I was heartened by the fact that there were many young musicians in the orchestra and yet the program notes suggest that most of them come from eastern Europe.
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