Roll over, Beethoven – IOTW Report

Roll over, Beethoven

Saturday, 26 September 2020, 12:00 MJA Uncategorized 34

American Thinker:

The man that hath no music in himself, 
Nor is not moved with concord of sweet sounds,
Is fit for treasons, stratagems and spoils

Recently Vox magazine published an article claiming that Beethoven’s most famous work is a symbol of “exclusion and elitism.”  The authors claim that “wealthy white men … embraced Beethoven and turned his 5th symphony into a symbol of their superiority and importance.”  They claim, “For others — women, LGBTQ+ people, people of color — Beethoven’s symphony is predominantly a reminder of classical music’s history of exclusion and elitism.”  Apparently, Beethoven’s symphony was transformed from a symbol of triumph and freedom into a symbol of “exclusion, elitism, and gatekeeping.”

Beethoven has been under attack for decades.  In 1995 professor Susan McClary of UCLA won a MacArthur Foundation “genius grant” for her work criticizing the composer.  She claimed, “the pelvic pounding in Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony adds up to nonorgasmic rape.”  She heard, “the throttling, murderous rage of a rapist incapable of attaining release.”  The 1994 MacArthur winner, Adrienne Rich, had a somewhat different view, believing that Beethoven was thinking about impotence.  She described him as a “man in terror of impotence/or infertility, not knowing the difference.”

Classical music critic James Bennett II reveals the actual reason for opposition to Beethoven: “As you perpetuate the idea that the giants of the music all look the same, it conveys to the other that there’s not a stake in that music for them.”  Beethoven is one of those dangerous Dead White Males.  Anthony McGill, one of the few black musicians with the New York Philharmonic, claims, “We’re not promoting any of the composers alive today that are trying to become the Beethovens of their day.”  Are the Beethovens of today being neglected?  They are certainly not shunned by the political class.  In an MTV interview, John Kerry claimed to be “fascinated by rap and hip-hop,” stating “there’s a lot of poetry in it.  I think you’d better listen to it pretty carefully, ’cause it’s important.”  Al Gore reviewed a Mos Def CD: “Certainly, the artistry of the CD you gave me can’t be questioned.”  In Dennis Kucinich‘s “Open Letter to the Hip-Hop Community,” he states that hip-hop listeners are “the leaders we have been waiting for.”  “I call upon the collective genius that gave the world the most innovative musical development in a quarter century to change the face of electoral politics.”  Michelle Obama invited rapper Common to the White House. more here

34 Comments on Roll over, Beethoven

  1. …so, you’re saying a guy who can compose hours of soaring, uplifting music for hundreds of instruments and dozens of singers that lasts and is loved for centuries should not be held in higher esteem than a guy who makes noises with his mouth and raps about his dick and killing cops and White people when he’s not denigrating women or saying “niqqer” every third word that no one’s gonna remember a year from now because a NEW guy will be rapping about his dick by then, gotcha, seems legit …

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  6. Susan McClary, whoever the bitter woman is, is certifiable. Beethoven’s 9th is arguably the most beautiful work of art ever created. When I listen to it,I am amazed that a deaf man could create such beautiful and powerful sound and I marvel at the glories mankind can achieve. When she listens to it she hears pelvic pounding and rape. And she won a grant for this? 10-1 the only pelvic pounding Ms. McClary gets is powered by a Sears Die Hard battery.

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  11. I don’t think of rap as music. If I had to fit it into any of our traditional art genres, it would be beat poetry (pun very much intended).

    But it would be even better to classify rap in its own category, not a part of music, poetry, literature, or any of the others. Alphabetically, “Rap” would fit between “Rabid Dog Antics” and “Raw Sewage Extravaganzas”.

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  15. Go buy a Ticket to the Piece Of Shit Drake’s Concert.

    A honkie like me can’t afford tickets to see the poser jerkoff either.

    Does that make me poor or just smart enough to realize that I can not afford to be seen with, or catch the brain damage, from the talent less auto tuned ass leakage from Toronto?

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  17. Moonlight Sonata is an incredible piece of music, although very sad.

    I call it “cry in your cognac music”, as opposed to “cry in your beer music” which is more likely to happen in America. When I listen to it, I imagine some European gentleman, ca 1820, who is in deep despair over a lost love, sitting and crying into his glass of cognac.

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  19. I pity those who have not had the joy of listening to so many of the great musical pieces from history. These include the medieval pieces like the Gregorian Chants, the Renaissance (including Byrd, Gibbons, and Tallis), the Baroque classics (early composers include Monteverdi, Scarlatti, and Lulli, followed by Bach, Handel, and Vivaldi), the true defined classical which includes Bach, Beethoven, and Mozart. These were followed by Romantic composers, which include Chopin, Mendelssohn, Wagner, Strauss, and Rachmaninoff.
    I know I am leaving out a large number of very good and influential composers that many have heard of out. I didn’t want to make this post too long. Either you are into that type of music and musical history, or you aren’t.

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  20. “For others — women, LGBTQ+ people, people of color — Beethoven’s symphony is predominantly a reminder of classical music’s history of exclusion and elitism.”

    Beethoven stands as proof that Western Civilization HAS BEEN, for many centuries, far advanced ahead of the human cultures that idiots like you want to validate and glorify.

    The charge of ‘elitism and exclusivity’ is nonsense.
    She does impugn those groups of above specified primitives as deficient and that they need to be recognized as such.

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  21. @Uncle Al – I do disagree with you. While we both have the same lack of appreciation towards the crap that many put out today, it is still music to those that listen to it. It just isn’t our definition of music (see Rock and Roll in the late 50s). I, like you (apparently), will never accept, or even admit that it truly is music.

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  27. @Who da sexist, who da racist?:

    Twerking should replace ballet.

    Heh! That generated a bizarre and disturbing mental image of the scene in Disney’s Fantasia with Ponchielli’s “Dance of the Hours” … with the hippos in tutus twerking their fat asses off!

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  34. (C)rap is; vile, obscene, infantile nursery rhymes constructed around primitive, stone-age rhythms created by undeveloped inferior minds, wholly lacking any socially redeeming value whatsoever.

    But it does make utterly class-less, talent-less, criminalistic thugs rich, so there is that.

    I mean, I’ve never of heard of gang wars erupting between Mozart and Liszt, or Chopin and his crew bustin’ a cap up in Schubert’s ass, have you?

    Just as communism demands there is no such thing as God, it also demands there is no such thing as beauty.

    And that perfectly explains the true agenda behind the patently absurd, and laughably ridiculous ideas proffered in the Vox article, “How Beethoven’s 5th Symphony Put the Classism in Classical Music.”

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