'Copying Beethoven' A Movie Well Worth Renting

I recently saw the movie ‘Copying Beethoven’ in which Ed Harris played Ludwig van Beethoven. It is worth seeing. But the central character of the movie is Beethoven’s music. And that makes for a very inviting and attractive movie. There is another major character. It is a girl who shows up to make copies of the score as Beethoven finishes his ninth symphony. Such a female never existed and it is indescribably unlikely that a woman would have done that job in those times. Let me just say that some unfortunate people find Gloria Steinem, Bill and Hillary and PC foolishness more important than historical accuracy and say no more about this blemish on this movie that is otherwise highly commendable.
The movie recaptures the events surrounding the completion of the ninth symphony and its first performance. The movie conveys a strong sense of the beauty and grandeur of the ninth without the whole work being executed from beginning to end at one go. Some sense of that debut is created by large chunks of the beginning and end being played in a beautiful and spacious hall. The final choral section’s ability to bring tears to the eyes of men and women because of its joyous beauty is there in all its glory.
The movie has a few scenes that show Beethoven’s relationship with his nephew. Beethoven had raised the young man but had not done a fantastic job at it. It could be summed up by saying that he loved his nephew and had been better at parenting than his own father had been. It is probably unrealistic to expect more than that from anyone. But this subplot gives us insight into the man who happened to be an artist. And Beethoven’s contacts with others were generally very limited. He was consumed by and totally devoted to his music.
Beethoven had an extremely high opinion of himself because of his great talent for music. And his great gift makes him stand out in the history of mankind. But the inordinate greatness of his gift was so prodigious that it would be more accurate to call it a rare gift from God than the an aptitude or achievement of one person. Still it is good that Beethoven saw himself as so very special. Because of this sense of self-importance he went to the lengths necessary to create his body of musical work. He was able to live through the loneliness, misunderstanding and sacrifices that necessary for the creation of his work. And the emotional tenor of his music makes it obvious that he never surrendered to anger or hate.
Throughout my life I have been emotionally drawn to different composers at different times. In my twenties I was drawn to Mahler, Brahms and Stravinsky. In more recent years I have felt more pulled toward Gabrieli, Vivaldi, Corelli and Scarlatti. But throughout varying times Bach and Beethoven have remained constants. (I sometimes think of them as the Catholic and the Protestant of music or the papist and the roundhead.)I do not know much about many of the technical aspects of music. I listen to the emotion of the music and am guided totally by my emotional reactions. And I suspect that this is also the case with the most technically talented and knowledgeable of musicians: they also end up where their emotions lead them.
Emotionally I find Beethoven’s music a rock and an inspiration. Around the edges and sometimes a little deeper the master’s music is aware of the challenges, irritations, disappointments and inescapable tragedies of life. But at the core is an heroic and steadfast and even joyful perseverance in the face of anything life sends at him. Beethoven’s music defiantly refuses surrender to any force. Plato would have welcomed this music into his Republic because there is nothing about it that encourages sentimentality, lewdness, cowardliness or excessive introspection. There is something about the master’s music that fully appreciates the dangers and difficulties of life and responds by grappling with them and enjoying any victories. Defeats are possible but are only momentary since they are never wallowed in and the hero of this epic music always has forward momentum.
But this music is not just about difficulties and obstacles. There is also the simple and soul strengthening enjoyment of natural beauty. And there is joy. The joy of just being alive and aware. The joy of creation and accomplishment. The joy that comes of feeling the radiance of a beautiful work of art or one of nature’s endless miracles. As love is the opposite of hate and fear, I think that joy is a species of love. Rather than having one object joy’s object is all of creation: the eternal and imperishable within myself and within everything in creation. I suspect joy even enjoys the perishable and finite in everything. In his Poetics Aristotle says that a beautiful object is characterized by unity, harmony and radiance and joy is the radiance within me that is able to pinpoint and enjoy the radiance in everything external to me.

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Cross posted at The Chinese Jar.

Leo Strauss lectures on Plato's Meno 4 - [1966]

Leo Strauss lectures on Plato's Meno 3 - [1966]

Leo Strauss lectures on Plato's Meno 2 - [1966]

Hegel and historicism.

Leo Strauss lectures on Plato's Meno 1 - [1966]

What is political philosophy?

Victor Davis Hanson: Where the University Went Wrong

Some of the reasons why universities are often called socialist reservations. And he makes a great case for an old fashioned liberal arts education, which wins my heart every time.

The Modern Library

When I was young I read a lot, all kinds of books. I read those horrible books written for specific age groups and then slowly went beyond to the classics. Sometimes I look back and wonder what it was that so drew me. I know part of it was deep insecurity. I had no sense of purpose or goal . And I felt that if I read and studied the books that centuries of consensus called the best I would become better by learning what mankind valued most highly. And that is how it works. Matthew Arnold called education an introduction, “to the best that has been thought or said.” If done properly it includes developing critical thinking. And also developing a sense for recognizing and appreciating beauty which is a specialized form of critical thinking.
One of the things that made the classics attractive was Random House’s Modern Library. They are simple but delectable little books. When I was in school they mainly published the best writers from Homer and Confucius to Joyce and Proust. In those days I spent dozens of hours a week in libraries and these beautiful little jewels of books were sprinkled throughout the stacks. Initially I didn’t read any of these books. But I took them down off the shelf and just enjoyed looking at them. They were smaller and had more pleasant proportions than most books. They all had essentially the same binding. It was clean, symmetrical and appealing and each had a little surprise: the title and author’s name in the small dark box. When younger I was always mildly startled by the art deco naked runner with the torch. I grew up with Pinkie and Blue Boy and landscapes on the walls. I didn’t know from art deco. In spite of their modest size they were not inconsequential. Printed on heavy paper they had real heft. And I loved to open them to the back and look over the list of all of the titles offered . Here I slowly made familiar objects of all the names. Turgenev, Pepys, Plutarch, Goethe, Gogol and many others slowly began seeping into my consciousness.
Then I slowly began reading them. One I tried earliest was Gulliver’s Travels. It moves slowly compared to what I was accustomed to. There would be pages and pages of minute descriptions. I couldn’t hack it. I don’t think I made it to page forty. Then I started checking out some of the Caedmon recordings of plays. Some Shakespeare, some O’Neil and lots of Tennessee Williams. I didn’t enjoy any of this but I forced myself because I was sure it was good for me. In those days the average American education didn’t prepare a ninth grader for Shakespeare.
I kept at it. I was a senior when I read Plato’s Republic. And even though most of it went over my head it was the first of the bunch I recall enjoying. (I’m pretty sure it wasn’t a Modern Library edition; it was probably the Viking Portable edition.) From there I went to reading histories of philosophy and many individual thinkers. I ended up with some fondness for Plato, Aristotle, Aquinas, Spinoza, Hume, Kant and Wittgenstein. When I entered college I intended to get a string of degrees in philosophy. But I soon realized that my mind does not have the acute gift for logic that serious philosophy requires.
As I was growing away from philosophy I developed deeper enjoyment of literature. Many of the greats were to be found in the Modern Library. And I had begun to haunt bookstores. Used bookstores were full of Modern Library editions in those days (the seventies and eighties). And I discovered some other great and attractive books. The Loeb Classical Library filled some of the spaces left by the Modern Library, e. g., Strabo. But the Loebs are higher priced. Penguin books are great. The Oxford Classics are ok but don’t have the grace and charm of the Modern Library. The Viking Portables are pleasant and reasonably priced. I highly recommend the multivolume collection of English verse if only for the marvelous and enlightening introductions to each by W. H. Auden.
The other day I looked up the Modern Library on the net. http://www.randomhouse.com/modernlibrary/ And they still have a hell of a fine line up of books. Though they seem comparatively more expensive and I didn’t see any frequent flyer type of program. And, no, they didn’t pay me to write this.

Is the Social Contract Broken?

During the Katrina disaster hundreds of very sick patients were stuck in the middle of downtown New Orleans with a few doctors and nurses who felt an obligation to stay and care for them. They had no electricity and had to break windows to get a little ventilation in the heat. Many days passed and only a few helicopters arrived to evacuate the very sickest patients. Those who remained were abandoned. I think that few Americans who looked closely at this situation would feel that these patients and caregivers were treated properly. I, personally am outraged and disappointed in my country. I am 59 years old and I know that America used to be better than this. We expected more of ourselves than this. And Congress has not looked deeply into FEMA's incompetence or done anything to prevent this from happening again.When I was eighteen I was inspired by Socrates' argument that the laws of Athens had made his civilized life possible and he felt that he had no right to turn his back on these laws just because he had lost the trial for his life. I think that he was motivated to cause young idealists such as I was to respect law and civil life. But, if the laws abandon you, if the president is unconcerned about rescuing the sickest and the poorest among us, and if Congress won't be bothered to do something to insure that this won't happen again, what does the average citizen owe a society so run amok? The president and Congress will tell us what we owe them but seem ready to hide behind legal niceties to avoid doing anything for anyone who hasn't done for them. Maybe they need to read the fine print in the contract.

When I was a Leftie -- part two

Too many of the anti Viet Nam war protesters weren't so much against war as against the U.S. winning the war. And I couldn't be a part of that. So, there I was with all the energy and moral superiority of youth wanting to do something to end this war that I couldn't stomach. But my roommate, Stan, and his Straussian friends appeared with an answer to my dilemma. They had formed a more moderate organization that was recruiting students to act against the war without marching in the streets and cheering the success of America's enemies. Instead they drafted petitions and recruited students to go door to door getting the petitions signed and educating the public about the war. So I became involved in this organization. I helped with organizing and helped to staff a little office we set up in a room donated by the local Unitarian church. (I even went to a few services at the Unitarian church. But they seemed rather meatless after my Baptist upbringing.)The main organizers of this little anti-war enterprise were all Straussians and all students of Mike, the professor who taught Straussian political ideas in Cal State Long Beach's political science department.Leo Strauss would probably have approved of this organization since it drained energy away from the mad rabble who were out on the streets. Strauss would have had little use for this mob since it was just such a mob that had executed Socrates for corrupting the youth of Athens. The fear of the mob and the excesses it is capable of is a major theme and motivation in the work of Leo Strauss. He contended that his great hero, Plato, had written cryptically and symbolically in order to both communicate his elitist ideas but still be free from harm from the rabble. Strauss and Plato both despised the mob and felt the mob was incapable of the wisdom necessary for the exercise of power.I now have recollections of the nature of leftie hate and malevolence. I have said I could not support America's enemies. But it is more complex. My anger at the war often got channeled into hate for LBJ, Nixon, Westmoreland, and even military people in general. I'm ashamed to say it now, but I took a rageful enjoyment of the death of American soldiers. They had to die so that I could be proved right. And I was very aware that this sick enjoyment was shared by many of my contemporaries. It helped drive many of them to openly rooting for the Viet Cong. And it helps explains the shabby treatment that many returning soldiers received. I think the present anti-war movement is little different. The human psyche acts in certain general and often repeated patterns. So I think I can safely say that very many anti-war activists take intense and secret pleasure in the death or maiming of any American soldier: being human is a mixed bag and it isn't always pretty or praiseworthy.