Chin Stroke at The Disco

Plato wasn't keen on art: he said it's like pretending to be God, and it's only a pale imitation of reality, anyway. 

He thought that the real action was in this spiritual realm, where the perfect form of everything existed. Even the world as we experience it is just a phantasm compared to that.

This is what annoyed Nietzsche, and ought to frustrate materialists and atheists all day long. Plato postulates a spiritual zone that is better than the physical world. No wonder Christianity has a soft spot for Plato.

He didn't mind a bit of music though: he reckoned that good tunes had a positive effect on the soul - if the beats were legit. 

We were saying, when we spoke of the subject-matter, that we had no need of lamentations and strains of sorrow?
True.
And which are the harmonies expressive of

sorrow? You are musical and can tell me.
The harmonies which you mean are the mixed or tenor Lydian, and the full-toned or bass Lydian, and such-like.
These then, I said, must be banished; even to women who have a character to maintain they are of no use, and much less to men.
Certainly.

The big idea here is that listening to Lydian music encourages sorrow, and that doesn't help a man become a become. Unsurprisingly, Plato likes his music to have an educational purpose. 

The Piano Concerto No. 14 in E flat major (Mozart), as performed in Transatlantic Crossings, probably fits in with Plato's thoughts on 'useful' music. The classical styling - by which I mean the order and zippy melodies that aren't too fussy - and the virtuosity demanded by the score - have a firm manliness. Even when they are played by a woman, Gabriela Montero. 

When I say 'manliness', I'm talking about a notional quality that has nothing to do with willies but probably exists in Plato's World of Forms and is utterly without gender. 

In the next place, drunkenness and softness and indolence are utterly unbecoming the character of our guardians.
Utterly unbecoming?
And which are the soft and convivial harmonies?
The Ionian, he replied, and some of the Lydian which are termed “relaxed”.
Well, and are these of any use for warlike men?
Quite the reverse, he replied; and if so the Dorian and the Phrygian are the only ones which you have left.


I don't think he'd have liked The Novelist, an MC I saw up The Art School. He wasn't do the Ionian thing, but all that shouting he did - mainly to predictable, sparse beats - seemed to require drunkenness to be appreciated. Actually,  Piazzolla's Three Pieces for Piano and Strings sound like they'd fit the Ionian bill. Lively and effusive, they have a relaxed, cool energy, and swayed a bit like a pissed-up invertero.

The Novelist, and Kode-9 who was headlining, might actually fit into Dorian or Phrygian modes... they are kind of macho, and while the MC was shouting his head off to no great end, Kode-9 throws down sinister electronic beats and a rumbling bass that makes me want to watch The Warriors.

See that Bach. He's not the Messiah.

All of these people talking about Bach like he’s God’s left hand… you know what it is, right? He wrote the book on tempered keyboards. It’s like, before Bach, composers just did what they liked, any old scale will do and hey, if I want a harpsichord solo right now, I’ll have one. It’s the birth of the age of the enlightenment, innit, the time when art decided it was more important than religion, and science was the only game of truth in town…

Yeah, I like Bach in small doses, like a  Ricercar à 6 as part of a well-balanced menu. You know, maybe to cleanse the palate before I tuck into some meatier fare. Maybe some romance, maybe Three Pieces for Piano and String by Piazzolla. Give me some of that tango-influenced swing, baby, and hammer on the bass and piano like they are percussion.

You know what we forget so often? That classical music is a story. That the movement from polyphony, through opera to the massed orchestra of Mahler and then into Matthew Whiteside working to get his compositions out on the street: it is history made visible through flashes of lightning… or a rattle of thunder… and events like South Atlantic Crossings or Sound Thought tell the story from a different perspective. And the story is that people keep moving, only finding places now and again to stand and grasp at solid ground.

Those people who say Bach is special: they’re only talking loud and saying nothing. Without history, with context, it just some sounds. In a good sequence, but it is this sequence that matters. And it won’t stop with the last note.

In my dreams, I am talking to Plato, and when he is not talking about Aristotle being a total ass, he’s like: you gots to listen to the right kind of music man. All that rock’n’roll going to destroy your soul man and I know you thinks that’s cool…

But have you seen the state of the world lately? Sure, we didn’t treat the slaves and the foreigns right in fifth century Athens, but I didn’t see any nuclear bombs in the hands of a maniac when I went on my holiday to Syracuse. I’m not saying Donald Trump is stupider than Pericles, but I am saying that the worst thing Pericles could do is head-butt someone.

He did have one hell of a forehead.

Anyway, I don’t think Trump will bomb anyone. It just comes across as an ass-hat to show off in front of his new mates. Get him in the Oval-Office, and it’s going to be like the end of The Candidate all over again.

“What do we do now?”

“Well, The Donald, why don’t you take Little Donald to the opera? Music soothes the savage beast after all. From the way you’ve been carrying on, I don’t think you’ve had your hole lately. Abstract sounds sculpturing air into architectural orders might assuage that raging boner for death.”

It’s like having Thanos standing for election.