• Brian Jones
    10
    Just arrived. My thanks to the creators, moderators and contributors here for the unusually intelligent and civil atmosphere of the place.
    Though schooled in philosophy (to a point—quit PhD work at Cambridge), I’ve never felt at home there, only driven to it repeatedly by negative elimination as it were; and I’m not at all sure my peculiar ways and interests belong here, so (a) I welcome correction and even gestures to the exit door, if they seem useless, outré or both, and (b) I thought I’d start (and maybe end) with questions.
    First, I have a rather far-reaching question, which I hope you’ll forgive me introducing at some length.
    I recently came across the New York Times arts feature, ‘5 Minutes That Will Make You Love Classical Music’ (https://www.nytimes.com/2018/09/06/arts/music/5-minutes-that-will-make-you-love-classical-music.html). They asked 21 classical music aficionados (artists and critics) “What are the five minutes or so — longer than a moment, shorter than a symphony — that you’d play for a friend to convince them to fall in love with classical music?”
    Astonishingly (at least to me), in response to this simple and clearly ‘popular’ question, the aficionados overwhelmingly selected relatively obscure and esoteric pieces from 20th and 21st c composers; and even more incredible, not one chose a piece by Bach or Mozart.
    Of the 690 comments, a few welcomed the novel soupcons, but most contested and many savaged the list, along the lines of my own astonishment.
    This all seemed interesting to me.
    ____

    My related but somewhat different question, then, is: What, for you, is the last truly great work (or figure) in the following spheres?
    A few suggestions that I hope will help.
    1) Feel free to answer on any one or all of the below; beyond curiosity, they’re meant to inform a broader question I’m interested in.
    2) This obviously isn’t meant to be an exact or exacting assignation, so (if possible) I’d like to follow the old Aristotelian rule of thumb, to not demand greater precision than the subject naturally allows (thus, for example, to try not to get bogged down in definitions of ‘greatness’). It’s simply meant to mark the place where, for you personally, the tradition of supreme mastery in this praxis—unquestionable and compelling greatness—was still at work.
    3) On the other hand, any attempt at explaining why you made the particular pick, would be most welcome.
    4) If you think five targets is too unwieldy, I’m happy to break them up, but would love to maintain the synoptic view if possible.

    a) Music

    b) Visual art
    (happy to hear on painting and sculpture separately, and if you think it necessary to go beyond such traditional categories altogether, so be it I guess)

    c) Literature

    d) Philosophy
    (by the process of elimination, I’d say this could include any ‘thinker’)

    e) Leadership
    (hoping also not to get bogged down in whether great leaders can be ‘evil’; I see no prima facie reason why Hitler or Stalin couldn’t be included here, if one’s personal sense of leadership is value neutral)

    For what it’s worth, figure-wise I’d choose Shostakovich, Picasso (though not fond of him), Beckett, Wittgenstein, and Gandhi (or Churchill).
  • RegularGuy
    2.6k
    Musical piece:

    Can't go wrong with Bohemian Rhapsody for the virgin ear! Freddy Mercury's command and presence, the different styles all in one song, the emotion, and the Kafka-esque storyline.

    Visual art:

    I like Gaugin. Just do. The colors. The simplistic styling of the characters. The form. Just like him.

    Literature:

    Kurt Vonnegut. I've read 11 of his novels. Never a bad suggestion for a good, hearty, angst-driven laugh

    Philosophy:

    Be your own favorite philosopher. Everyone can and should develop this art/science

    Leadership:

    Octavius? He was good at what he did, anyway, and the Roman Empire was no small principality
  • Brian Jones
    10
    Thanks, Noah--some serious eclecticism at work there!
    I suppose I'd like to specify so-called classical music, since it's that roughly 600-year-old tradition, rather than Queen's roughly 60-year-old tradition, that I'm really curious about.
    (But I suppose there are those who refuse to distinguish the two.)
  • RegularGuy
    2.6k


    Well, I always liked Copland's "Rodeo"

    But I also like Bach's Toccata and Fugue in D minor. Eery sh*t!
  • BC
    13.1k
    5 Minutes That Will Make You Love Classical MusicBrian Jones

    I would definitely include some Mozart and Bach and Handel. Is Gottschalk too obscure? How about Arvo Pärt--Spiegel I'm Spiegel is quite accessible to the novice. Virgil Thompson's the Plow that Broke the Plains? Aaron Copeland's Appalachian Spring (even though it doesn't actually have much to do with Appalachian anything). There are some arias from operas that are meltingly beautiful (IMHO).

    As far as who wrote, painted, or chiseled the last great art work, no -- I won't go for that. There are no "last great" art works. Someone is creating a work of art right now that will speak in an authoritative voice to hundreds or thousands of people. Somebody is prowling the library and will stumble upon a poem written 500 years ago, or maybe 2000 years back, and it will give them more pleasure than everything written since.

    There might be a last great work of philosophy, though. Don't ask me, cuz I don't much like reading any of it.

    Literature? I'd impress a young person with some good contemporary literature -- something written in the 20th or 21st century. There's lots of good stuff that's older, but one ends up with 10,000,000 choices. Lets keep it to just 1 million.

    Hey, welcome to The Philosophy Forum!
  • BC
    13.1k
    Cinema Soundtracks certainly count as serious music. Elmer Bernstein (Leonard's cousin from the Bronx) did some great soundtracks for westerns; Erich Wolfgang Korngold's soundtracks sound like concert pieces, and his concert pieces sound like soundtracks.
  • BC
    13.1k
    This could be the last great cartoon...Lewis_2013_01_07_0081575.jpg
  • ssu
    7.9k
    Last greats?

    a) Adagio for Strings by Samuel Barber from 1936.

    b) While have drawn cartoons once for the university paper, here's my pick
    for the last greatest cartoon, even if it hasn't the pun that Bitter Crank has, is
    Gary Larson's "Car!" with four cows on the field. A masterpiece in it's simplicity.
  • Terrapin Station
    13.8k
    “What are the five minutes or so — longer than a moment, shorter than a symphony — that you’d play for a friend to convince them to fall in love with classical music?”Brian Jones

    Re this by the way, as with anything, recommendations only make sense if they're tailored to the tastes of the person you're trying to interest. I don't know anything about the article aside from what you're telling us, but the optimistic side of me would hope that so many of the suggestions were modern pieces because the people they asked realized that recommendations only make sense when tailored to the target's tastes, and so they had specific people in mind, people who they realized would probably not care very much off-the-bat for Bach or Mozart etc. because the targets in question mostly listen to pop-rock, EDM, hip-hop, etc.

    At any rate, in my view, the arts (all of them--music, visual art, literature, film, etc.) still regularly produce great works, as does philosophy.

    Re leadership, I have a pretty cynical view of politicians in general. I wouldn't call any leader "great." The best we can hope for is that they kind of do their jobs and don't create any big disasters. We don't very often get the best we can hope for.
  • Terrapin Station
    13.8k
    I suppose I'd like to specify so-called classical music, since it's that roughly 600-year-old tradition, rather than Queen's roughly 60-year-old tradition, that I'm really curious about.
    (But I suppose there are those who refuse to distinguish the two.)
    Brian Jones

    I hate, Hate, HATE any sort of snobism, elitism, and any sort of high art/low art, "serious"/"non-serious" etc. distinctions.
  • BrianW
    999
    Music: Flower duet from the opera Lakmé by Léo Delibes (whether opera is part of the classical genre or not, I wouldn't know. I doubt it's even old enough to belong to that period referred to.)

    Visual Art: Any painting by Jan van Eyck with those mirrors which reflect other elements of the painting. Just genius.

    Literature: The Bhagavad Gita. (Religious teachings incite a lot of controversy but the intelligence, balance - not strictly religious nor otherwise, philosophy, even the context in which this was supposedly given, to me, is very inspiring.)

    Philosophy: Gibran Kahlil Gibran.

    Leadership: Muhammad Ali and Nelson Mandela. (It's one thing to stand against a Nation on principle, especially in modern times, and another to stand for a Nation. Both are equally impressive.)
  • Rank Amateur
    1.5k
    Music: Ave Maria 60 years of hearing it at important parts of my and other lives - Always
    makes me feel something good and hopeful
    Art: The Scream - humanity turned inside out
    Literature: Hemingway - Islands in the Stream - how hard it is to love well, even if you want to
    Philosophy: Camus - honest atheism
    Leadership: Maj Richard Winters - if even 25% of how he is depicted in band of brothers is accurate
  • Brian Jones
    10
    Thanks kindly, folks.
    I appreciate the thoughtful comments--and the (neither bitter nor cranky) welcome from you, Bitter Crank--but I seem indeed to’ve made (at least) one mistake, in including more than one category--like mixing too many colors of paint. Should've started more focusedly, and with music alone, I think, especially as (for me) it's a touchstone for the rest, in a sense.
    So, with many thanks for the generous responses, apologies for soliciting them so muddily, and the suggestion that we not confound snobbishness (which is never good) with distinguishing more and less demanding forms of praxis (which we often can and must do, as a matter of pragmatic course), I propose, members willing, to close this enquiry in favor of a better one in future perhaps.
  • Terrapin Station
    13.8k
    Man, it seems sad to me that apparently a lot of folks around here think there have been no great artworks in their own lifetime.
  • RegularGuy
    2.6k


    I may have misinterpreted Brian's original request for "the last great ones." Certainly there are great works of art that are being produced right now as we speak. However, I chose to give my personal favorites instead, taking "great" to be a subjective term.

    I also apologize for my list containing only white men. Certainly there are great women and members of other ethnicities. Unfortunately, my experience has been dominated by white men. That is probably the fault of both society and myself. Having said that, you might forgive me for looking up to particular men, being a man myself.
  • Terrapin Station
    13.8k


    I definitely think that "great" is necessarily subjective. I just find it sad that the answers give the impression of a bunch of people for whom, no matter what anyone does in music, literature, visual art, etc. during their lifetime, they don't like any of it as much as stuff that was made before they were born.
  • RegularGuy
    2.6k


    Perhaps it's more a poverty in the education system than anything. Contemporaries rarely get their due in secondary and post-secondary institutions.
  • Terrapin Station
    13.8k
    Perhaps it's more a poverty in the education system than anything. Contemporaries rarely get their due in secondary and post-secondary institutions.Noah Te Stroete

    But don't you listen to a lot of music, read a lot of literature, watch a lot of films, go to art museums, go to the theater (for live performances), etc., including stuff made in your lifetime--and hopefully including some relatively new stuff, just for enjoyment's sake?
  • RegularGuy
    2.6k


    Yes, of course! Perhaps I also took "great" to mean "setting a precedent" as well.
  • Brian Jones
    10
    Man, it seems sad to me that apparently a lot of folks around here think there have been no great artworks in their own lifetime. — Terrapin
    I wouldn't have said that was so much in evidence, yet at least; we've only heard from very few, after all, and a good number of their proposals were comparatively recent (for such long traditions).
    I've been asking this question for many years, and of many different people; and more often find either no thought at all, or a kind of fuzzy thought that there must be something of ours, but then difficulty in advancing or defending, with much passion or conviction, what that something may be.
    (Except amongst the aficionados, as in the NYT survey, whose careers, livelihood and self-esteem all rest on its being categorically false. The article, by the way, was explicitly targeted at a 'popular' audience who had no real acquaintance with classical music, as I tried to say; and that's partly why the comments were so bruising.)
    At the risk of incurring more hate HATE HATE, I must confess that: (a) it is very much the case for me, for whom unquestionable greatness strangely ended in these traditions around the time I was unfortunate enough to be born, in the critical pivot point of the 60's-70's, (b) more than sad, it amounts to a cultural tragedy that has only gone undiscussed for reasons that usually do not show well on us, and (c) profoundly important as it is in itself, it is in fact only a symptom of much deeper cultural debilitation, whose remedy is practically unthinkable in this distracted time.
  • Terrapin Station
    13.8k
    With music, for example, I'd have a difficult time being limited to picking one great album per week, from the pool of stuff coming out from week to week. Sometimes there are 10 or more great albums coming out in a given week in my opinion.

    I'm a fan of the whole gamut of music, though. There are no genres or even subgenres that I categorically dislike. There is very little music I hear period that I dislike.
  • Ciceronianus
    2.9k
    Well, as for the last, and as for works:

    Music--that's difficult. I have to mention three; two jazz, one classical. "Round Midnight, Thelonious Monk, Take Five, David Brubeck, Barber's Adagio for Strings.

    Visual Art--I like photorealism. I like phone booths. Richard Estes Phone Booths.

    Literature--Evelyn Waugh, Brideshead Revisited.

    Philosophy--J.S. Austin, Sense and Sensibilia

    As for a leader, I think the most recent great one was Lincoln.
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