GG: Deification

[Alun Severn <alun@ukiah.demon.co.uk>]

Alan F wrote:

    >
    >   GG didn't think of WMA's late works?   GG did or
    >   could have produced the last 3 symphonies, 39,40,41, a
    >   clarinet concerto and a Requiem in his final days? Or in
    >   any days? I am truly amazed by the hubris shown on this
    >   group by deifying GG. Hey, he was a guy. He played
    >   piano. He went bonkers, like Horowitz, afraid to face
    >   the people who made his career.   And, he
    >   insisted that the world accept his humming and chair
    >   noises along with the music of Bach.   Please all.
    >   Let's put the guy in perspective.
    >

Hmm...a succinct argument against deification--and one I have some sympathy
with. But for that matter, WAM was a puerile and maladjusted individual; he
happened to write sublime music--but one would probably have tired of his
company in minutes.
        Beethoven--was it LvB?--is rumoured to have had fleas and
innumerable behavioural problems. The great writer, speaker and thinker,
compiler of the extraordinary DICTIONARY, Dr Samuel Johnson, is said to
have suffered from something akin to Tourette's Syndrome. The point I am
making here is that it has often been the case that grat art flows from
some of the frailest, most tortured human beings. Not Gods; often not even
great people. Addictions, mental illness, weaknesses. Art, along with
everything else both good, bad and indifferent, arises out of the *human
condition*. That is probably the most extraordinary thing about it.
        But this is a good thread--provocative. Let's see 32 variations on
this one!

- best,    Alun

26/8/96
11:41 pm

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