I like music from many idioms, indeed I came here to talk about Persian pop, but I look to Western Classical music as The Elite World Tradition, as shown by the participation of elites in all other major cultures. The finest of it like all great Art stands the test of interrogation, e.g. when I played a rock musician friend a Shostakovich prelude it showed up that he was using less than 10% of his options for modulation and in a recent Strictly Come Dancing Dancing (Dances With Stars) two very competent dancers couldn't cope with the changes of accent in Prokofiev's Knights' dance - a relatively accessible piece.
Don't get me wrong. The BEST thing about music is that nearly all of us can get enjoyment from it at some level, but there also has to be a Gold Standard otherwise there is no striving for higher and higher ideals.
|