Let's talk music, no genre boundaries

@richardbrand 

I listened to Klaus Mikela conduct Sibelius's 5th. It was excellent. He paced the first movement faster than I am used to but it worked really well. On all the movements his tempo did not vary to achieve dramatic effect. He reminded me of the reknown Carlos Kleiber whose Beethoven's 5th seems to be on the top of everybody's list. I will listen to more of Sibelius conducted by Mikela.

@stuartk ,

I am working my way through your Bluegrass list. I liked Strength in Numbers, Sarah Jarosz, and Stray Birds. Their music is uplifting. I did not like Mick McCauley and Winifred Horan as much. Perhaps ironic that they're the classically trained musicians. Their music felt a bit pristine without enough rough edges. 

@mahgister 

I didn't really answer your question about the correlation between genius and chronological time. When talking about art--all the arts--I don't really know what genius is. It's not exactly what I'm talking about. Certainly with all that Haydn accomplished, inventing the symphony, string quartet, etc., he could be considered a genius. The period he composed in, however, is not that interesting to me. It's a bit too refined. I like the emotionally charged Romantics and beyond.

I am much more educated in writing, so I can talk a little more intelligently about it. After Shakespeare, English writers became boring for around 100 years. I've heard theories that Shakespeare was too intimidating to follow. Alexander Pope was a genius at rhyme and meter, but his poems are boring to me. And that pretty much holds through the 1700s until the Romantics begin with Wordsworth around 1800.

Before I started painting, and realized I wanted to paint non-representationally, my wife and I would go on trips to various countries with interesting museums. In my mid-forties I felt myself pulled toward "abstract" non-representational paintings, and spent more time in modern-art museums. It wasn't that I couldn't appreciate earlier artists. They just didn't interest me as much. It's about taste for me, not the talent of the artists.

More and more I am pulled toward modern classical music, Stravinsky, Bartok, Shostakovich, Corigliano, etc. I believe that Beethoven is the great genius of music, but often I want music closer to my time.

I didn’t really answer your question about the correlation between genius and chronological time.

A genius in art is someone who stay in our collective memory as a representative of his era.

The history of art is parallel and perpendicular to the story of science whose two are part of the history of consciousness which we can read  in the history of language itself...

See Owen Barfield : history in english words...

Monteverdi is a genius because he manifested his era  on another level inventing opera ...

I dont like many opera...

I like madrigals a lot especially Gesualdo and the 8th book of Monteverdi...

 Art is not about "taste" which are only an expression of our own personal biased history... Art is about some truth of an era and his link to universal truth...

 I recommend Jean Gebser masterpiece book about consciousness history " the ever present origin" ...

If you dont fall out of your chair i will pay the book price...

I heard music from infancy onward. I actually remember music as a very distinct feeling as far back as 2 yrs old. I have pictures of my twin brother and me sitting in our high chairs at dinner time. My mother was feeding us (food we immediately threw at each other) while my father played the record player and grooved. He typically played Duke Elllington, Count Basie or Woody Herman at dinner. Later on it was all classical.

I was allowed to drop the needle on the big, fancy record player at age 5 or so (after having destroyed my own record player and records). At that age I loved practically every type of music I heard. For me there were no distinctions between (for example), Beethoven symphonies, John Philip Sousa marches, and the theme from the TV show, Dragnet. Pretty much all music made me swoon. It was always an otherworldly experience. My mind travelled far and wide whenever music was on.

I didn’t know it until much later, but my music appreciation was greatly aided by a striking case of synesthesia: I perceived music not only as sound but also as colorful visual informaiton. I closed my eyes and saw ever expanding geometric and architectural shapes, quite specific to each piece of music. After that, the acid and mescaline trips years later seemed oddly familar.

Very little changed over the years: music moves me intensely, as it always has. I learned a great deal about what I was hearing; was able to pursue deep explorations of classical and jazz. And within classical, my tastes are strongly tied to choral/liturgical music from any era; and modernity (dissonance is totally fine for me). And of course, chasing audio improvements has further aided my enjoyment of music.

The day I stop caring a LOT about music is the day I leave this earth.

The end of music made by humans is over now that we have AI.  Velvet sundown is charting on Spotify and will serve up soul less generic music consumed by mindless drones- aka- people.  

@polkalover Dystopian futures sometimes enter my mind, I do see some of this coming to pass, perhaps all the golden ages may be in the past. Mindless drones aka technicolor rats aka people. Doesn't take much to satisfy the people if you set expectations low enough.

But then perhaps the above all a sad delusion, get out the welding goggles for the bright white of the future, this selling big time.