Last night I went to a wonderful concert of music by the French composer Poulenc at London's Southwark Cathedral. I'll come back to the concert later, but what I really want to talk about is the pervasive effect of music in modern society. And what has been lost.
Classical music is the best thing that Western civilisation has produced - above all, it is the finest flowering of Christianity, from medieval monastic plainchant to Bach to the astonishing Francis Poulenc. For real Christianity is less about theological dogmas than about sound - The Word made Flesh worshipped through ringing sound, the choir of voices united in worship, the ecstasy of soaring to heaven on transcendent tone. In fact this goes back to the roots of European civilisation in the mysteries of Apollo and Orpheus, which is why Christ was often compared with Orpheus, the sacred musician who can charm and move all things with the music of his lyre.
Yet in England music, like so many other things, has been made a subject of class war. I owe almost everything in my life to the lucky coincidence that led to me taking up a musical instrument and discovering classical music. I have played rock and pop in my musical past, but my favourite kinds of music are folk and classical (and jazz which in many ways is an African American form of classical music). My blood boils at the idea that privileged snobbery and militant class hatred often combine to deprive British people of this wonderful, life saving gift of music. Pop music has its place, but there is just no argument - classical music is better, more important.
Listening to harmonious music positively affects the brain, and not just the brain but the soul as a whole. Learning a genuine musical instrument that makes a real sound is one of the best things a person can do for their happiness and spiritual development. Not all children take to music lessons, and forcing piano lessons on children may do more harm than good, but parents give an incalculable gift in offering the opportunity of a musical education, especially if its based on joy rather than pushy ambition.
And here's the appalling truth. Everyday, we are soaked in disharmonious vibrations. You see people listening to angry music with jarring beats, which makes them angrier. Their bodies twitch, their heart rates race. Cars play music so loud that windows rattle. Commuters with headphones on listening to music that insulates them from the ugly city - yet they become disconnected and allow the city to become even uglier.
We underrate music. It gets 'under the skin', especially repetitious music; it changes your moods, the cycles of your nervous system, your hormonal secretions. Indian yoga uses Mantra, the repetition of sacred sounds that attune yogis to divine vibrations. Many traditional peoples use drumbeats to induce trance - and because so much of modern pop music is rooted in African American traditions, rhythmic, repetitive beats with an ancient link to trance and magic have become part of our global listening experience.
Repetition and devotion to spiritual beings through changing our neurology are natural parts of our human heritage. But they can be abused. From military music used to create the desire for war to jingles to worm into consumers' brains and make them buy things they don't need. And above all the endless message of pop music - be a materialist individual, saying 'fuck you' to anyone that challenges your selfishness.
Modern pop music is mostly either repetitive and moronically hypnotic, or it is jagged paranoid and expresses and furthers urban alienation; and of course bland love songs - which are really sex songs - abound. It is hardly surprising that large numbers of people have almost no attention span, no ability to concentrate and dwindling empathy. If more people learned a musical instrument and learned to listen, crime would decrease and people's happiness and even productivity would increase. More importantly, they would be free - we are either dancing to our own tune, or being moved like marionettes on strings by the covert forces that choose what vibrations our society will be flooded in.
As a generally miserable teenager, I was lucky to play some amazing classical music in youth orchestras. One piece that changed my life was Francis Poulenc's organ concerto. Poulenc (1899-1963) was a French composer of that generation that blended modern music of the French tradition with the new atonal tendencies, as well as jazz, which had a European centre in 1920s Paris. His mercurial temperament, wonderful gift for melody, sensibility affected by his homosexuality and his rediscovery of his Catholic faith combine to make his works endlessly surprising, satisfying and refreshing, full of an endearing humour. Sometimes, as with the organ concerto, there is also tragedy and an soul-filled elegeic mood that more boring and serious composers with heavy souls cannot approach.
The City of London Symphonia conducted by Stephen Layton, did a grand job. Opening with Poulenc's engaging Les Animaux Modeles, the organ concerto closed the first half, a thrilling ride despite the challenge posed by the acoustics of Southwark Cathedral. The second half was opened by Ravel's Pavane pour une infante defunte, played with stately elegance before closing with the astonishing Gloria and the astonishing and beautiful soprano Elizabeth Watts.
We have become too addicted to music that makes a statement or is a narcotic for the disintegrating contemporary psyche - usually the statement is full of ego, ambition and a kind of soulless concentration on form. Witness the ruthless perfection of the dance routines that accompany contemporary pop videos. Listening to Poulenc last night my heart ached for all that Europe has lost, destroyed by the combined forces of Fascism and Communism which in fact won World War 2 and from whose reign we struggle to escape. The roots of Europe are our folk tradition, our good paganism, our good Christianity and our commitment to a society which balances the needs of the individual with the good of the community.
It is time to clean out our ears, open our hearts and refresh our souls.
Friday 12 April 2013
Saturday 6 April 2013
The Devil Drives - Sir Richard Burton and the meaning of greatness
No, not Richard Burton the film actor and husband of Elizabeth Taylor! Most people reading this have probably never heard of Sir Richard Burton. Yet he was one of the most colourful characters of 19th Century Britain. Actually, he would probably have resented that description, having spent his early years in France and much of his later life travelling in the East. Like many another vital and driven young Englishman, he felt less at home in England with the English than anywhere else.
Soldier; master linguist who spoke 29 languages; explorer; swordsman and spy, Burton risked death as a non-Muslim in making the Hajj to Mecca in Muslim disguise and journeyed with Speke to Lake Tanganykia in search of the source of the Nile. But he is probably best known as an early translator of the Arabian Knights and of the Kama Sutra. Indeed, erotic literature was one of Burton's great fascinations and his knowledge of erotic Eastern literature and poetry unrivalled at the time.
Although he was a disreputable figure who mischievously claimed to have broken all of the 10 Commandments, Burton was patently a great man and was knighted by Queen Victoria in 1886, largely for his feats as an explorer and geographer, particularly in the mysterious heartlands of Central Africa. It is not uncommon for outsiders and adventurers to achieve social recognition, but Burton seemingly remained wedded to his rebel status. Regarded as 'Satanic' for his intense and intimidating appearance, his un-English respect for foreigners, his interest in the cultures of the East and his contempt for petty moralism, Burton exemplified the hidden wishes of his times, doubtless without any desire to do so. He was a great man and one has to ask why our times are so petty by comparison.
The image of the rebel is burned deep in the Western psyche. The great irony, the grit in the sand of Western morals, is that our cultural conformity is built around a rebel, Jesus. All young men think they are Jesus - or rather the Jesus they see is the great, misunderstood critic of cant and hypocrisy, the outsider who ought to be king but is too great for the pharisees and rulers. The 19th Century version of this perennial adolescent inspiration was the Romantic movement which created the image of the 'artist': brilliant, misunderstood, sensitive, so much more interesting than the rational and prudent mediocrities that surrounded him - and it usually was a him! For men of course is the added attraction that the image of the 'rebel' is often sexually attractive, a way for young bucks to show their virility and challenge the old animals. One day, of course they grow old, become the establishment; they cut their hair, only to be challenged by the next generation.
Many of the Romantics of course could indulge this stereotype because they were rich children who could dabble in poetry, even experience temporary poverty, without any real risk, in great contrast to the art of previous centuries which was either produced for patrons and employers, or as a leisure activity. Ironically, the history of Western art has been that of the creator marketing him or herself. The image of the 'lone rebel genius' was successfully updated and still lives on in the impeccably coiffeured fake rebels of pop music.
Yet this masks the fact that individuality is being eroded at remarkable speed. In fact modern media and arts are a major cause of the loss of individuality, while pretending to represent and further it. When misled by our dying arts, we are a nation of fake rebels, conformist individuals, people who know their rights yet have nothing to say.
For Romanticism on its own is all image. Lord Byron re-created the idea of the 'Satanic' individual, shocking polite society while embodying its deepest wishes. And a comparable later figure like Aleistair Crowley showed a comparable range of activities - scholar, gentleman and acrobat! Yet while Byron had little originality of mind (for all his good qualities) and Crowley was a strange mixture of modern and reactionary, Burton still showed the vigorous influence of the 18th Century Enlightenment. He wanted to know, experience, understand. Burton was a skilled draftsman and used this skill in his botanical illustrations. He combined his wanderlust with his scientific mind in his anthropological studies. Where the 18th Century Europeans had looked at old ruined temples in Italy, Sicily and Greece, Burton observed ancient civilisations still thriving. He was more interested in life than in his ego. This is a classic sign of the 'daimon' - the inspiring genius that drives a person to live a life in the true sense.
I strongly encourage everyone to read Fawn Brodie's fascinating, gripping and often hilarious biography of Burton, The Devil Drives, which reveals his personal tragedies and struggles and his waggish sense of humour. For Burton was also one of the great raconteurs of his age.
It is a melancholy experience to read about the British Empire of the 19th Century. The British did terrible things as an Imperial power yet also magnificent things, yet we have little right to judge them because our world is smaller. Most British people today are far less cosmopolitan than the many thousands who lived in India through a military career or otherwise as part of the administrative structure of the Raj. We think we understand geopolitcs but we live in MacWorld; in the Internet age, it is too easy to carry ourselves around everywhere we go.
There were indeed arrogant racists among the British, as there were and are among all peoples. (Being conquered in war does not suddenly turn a people into saints of the church of liberalism, far from it). Yet there were many like Burton - honest people who took a deep interest in the languages, literature, religion and society of the people whom they temporarily 'ruled'. They were in many respects far more individual and far more 'multi-cultural' than the bland though impeccably politically correct clones which modern education and media produce, unless actively resisted.
Sir Richard Burton's tomb is in a churchyard in Mortlake in South West London. It is unique - a stone imitation of an Arab tent with the folds of canvas replicated in sculpture. As you climb up the ladder you can peer into the tomb through a window you can see interesting objects including a painting of Mary Magdalene. Another great Englishman, polymath and traveller, Dr John Dee, Queen Elizabeth's astrologer and the original 007, lived in Mortlake and was buried not far from Burton's tomb.
Contemporary spirituality and religion, and contemporary science and pop culture both thrive on the generic and seek to turn us into a mass of faceless consumers in search of products, who get (temporarily) angry when our rights are infringed.
How do we learn to get our own face and our own accent back? Stage 1 - learn to look, really look at what is around you. Stage 2 - stop pretending you know what you don't know. Stage 3 - resist being told what to feel by the media. After that, personality is possible, it just takes a bit of risk and effort.
Soldier; master linguist who spoke 29 languages; explorer; swordsman and spy, Burton risked death as a non-Muslim in making the Hajj to Mecca in Muslim disguise and journeyed with Speke to Lake Tanganykia in search of the source of the Nile. But he is probably best known as an early translator of the Arabian Knights and of the Kama Sutra. Indeed, erotic literature was one of Burton's great fascinations and his knowledge of erotic Eastern literature and poetry unrivalled at the time.
Although he was a disreputable figure who mischievously claimed to have broken all of the 10 Commandments, Burton was patently a great man and was knighted by Queen Victoria in 1886, largely for his feats as an explorer and geographer, particularly in the mysterious heartlands of Central Africa. It is not uncommon for outsiders and adventurers to achieve social recognition, but Burton seemingly remained wedded to his rebel status. Regarded as 'Satanic' for his intense and intimidating appearance, his un-English respect for foreigners, his interest in the cultures of the East and his contempt for petty moralism, Burton exemplified the hidden wishes of his times, doubtless without any desire to do so. He was a great man and one has to ask why our times are so petty by comparison.
The image of the rebel is burned deep in the Western psyche. The great irony, the grit in the sand of Western morals, is that our cultural conformity is built around a rebel, Jesus. All young men think they are Jesus - or rather the Jesus they see is the great, misunderstood critic of cant and hypocrisy, the outsider who ought to be king but is too great for the pharisees and rulers. The 19th Century version of this perennial adolescent inspiration was the Romantic movement which created the image of the 'artist': brilliant, misunderstood, sensitive, so much more interesting than the rational and prudent mediocrities that surrounded him - and it usually was a him! For men of course is the added attraction that the image of the 'rebel' is often sexually attractive, a way for young bucks to show their virility and challenge the old animals. One day, of course they grow old, become the establishment; they cut their hair, only to be challenged by the next generation.
Many of the Romantics of course could indulge this stereotype because they were rich children who could dabble in poetry, even experience temporary poverty, without any real risk, in great contrast to the art of previous centuries which was either produced for patrons and employers, or as a leisure activity. Ironically, the history of Western art has been that of the creator marketing him or herself. The image of the 'lone rebel genius' was successfully updated and still lives on in the impeccably coiffeured fake rebels of pop music.
Yet this masks the fact that individuality is being eroded at remarkable speed. In fact modern media and arts are a major cause of the loss of individuality, while pretending to represent and further it. When misled by our dying arts, we are a nation of fake rebels, conformist individuals, people who know their rights yet have nothing to say.
For Romanticism on its own is all image. Lord Byron re-created the idea of the 'Satanic' individual, shocking polite society while embodying its deepest wishes. And a comparable later figure like Aleistair Crowley showed a comparable range of activities - scholar, gentleman and acrobat! Yet while Byron had little originality of mind (for all his good qualities) and Crowley was a strange mixture of modern and reactionary, Burton still showed the vigorous influence of the 18th Century Enlightenment. He wanted to know, experience, understand. Burton was a skilled draftsman and used this skill in his botanical illustrations. He combined his wanderlust with his scientific mind in his anthropological studies. Where the 18th Century Europeans had looked at old ruined temples in Italy, Sicily and Greece, Burton observed ancient civilisations still thriving. He was more interested in life than in his ego. This is a classic sign of the 'daimon' - the inspiring genius that drives a person to live a life in the true sense.
I strongly encourage everyone to read Fawn Brodie's fascinating, gripping and often hilarious biography of Burton, The Devil Drives, which reveals his personal tragedies and struggles and his waggish sense of humour. For Burton was also one of the great raconteurs of his age.
It is a melancholy experience to read about the British Empire of the 19th Century. The British did terrible things as an Imperial power yet also magnificent things, yet we have little right to judge them because our world is smaller. Most British people today are far less cosmopolitan than the many thousands who lived in India through a military career or otherwise as part of the administrative structure of the Raj. We think we understand geopolitcs but we live in MacWorld; in the Internet age, it is too easy to carry ourselves around everywhere we go.
There were indeed arrogant racists among the British, as there were and are among all peoples. (Being conquered in war does not suddenly turn a people into saints of the church of liberalism, far from it). Yet there were many like Burton - honest people who took a deep interest in the languages, literature, religion and society of the people whom they temporarily 'ruled'. They were in many respects far more individual and far more 'multi-cultural' than the bland though impeccably politically correct clones which modern education and media produce, unless actively resisted.
Sir Richard Burton's tomb is in a churchyard in Mortlake in South West London. It is unique - a stone imitation of an Arab tent with the folds of canvas replicated in sculpture. As you climb up the ladder you can peer into the tomb through a window you can see interesting objects including a painting of Mary Magdalene. Another great Englishman, polymath and traveller, Dr John Dee, Queen Elizabeth's astrologer and the original 007, lived in Mortlake and was buried not far from Burton's tomb.
Contemporary spirituality and religion, and contemporary science and pop culture both thrive on the generic and seek to turn us into a mass of faceless consumers in search of products, who get (temporarily) angry when our rights are infringed.
How do we learn to get our own face and our own accent back? Stage 1 - learn to look, really look at what is around you. Stage 2 - stop pretending you know what you don't know. Stage 3 - resist being told what to feel by the media. After that, personality is possible, it just takes a bit of risk and effort.
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