A BRIEF SCENARIO
STANDING ON THE PRECIPICE
At the end of the 19th century Classical Music was perched upon was soon to become a precarious precipice as unfavorable cultural winds hidden just off the horizon were gathering
THE GATHERING STORMS OF TIME
The Cultural attributes which had given rise and sustained this poignant tradition were now soon to be engulfed by the huge transformations that society at large was undergoing
THE CLASSICAL MUSIC TRADITION AND...MODERNITY
The Classical Aural Traditions,(Not just music but correspondence,conversation intimacy ,poetry,and prose too name a few ) soon had to confront the most devastating oncoming winds of Objectivism,Collectivism,
Industrialism,Utilitarianism,
Anti-Expessionism,Superficialism,
Technolgical Distractionism and a host of others arisings which have enveloped the traditions like an oncoming storm of relentless fury.
THE RISE OF THE INSTITUTIONS
WE MAY ALSO ASSUREDLY SAY THAT BEFORE THE ADVENT OF THE CONSERVATORIES OF THE 19TH CENTURY AND THEIR ENSUANT RESIDUE...(The field of Musicology and it's misanthropic spawn of anti-expressive proprieties.);Classical music was a vibrant form of expressive freedom where........ individuality,intuitiveness, originality,spontaneity,varied performer's affect subjectivity,flexible tempo,colored articulation...to name a few of it's salient qualities...held sway.
THE ANTI-EXPRESSIVE OBJECTIVE MISANTHROPY
When Classical music was vital...it operated on the underlying assumption that is was something made by humans...for human consumption within a paradigm of flexible aesthetics that were required to justify thenselves proportionally in the moment as opposed to an abstract unvarying external measure .The individual was not held to an mono-dimensional standard and persecuted for intrinsic variance.The shift that has occurred culturally withing the last 125 years is the notion that this assumption is fallatious....and that we have been made for the purpose of worshipping classical music with it's attendant objectively unvarying aesthetics and with this misanthropic notion have come the hollow inanimate cold plastic icons of Composers and Composer's state of mind as the Godheads of the altar....to which we must dutifully submit and subject ourselves.
MATERIALISM AND THE TOTALITARIAN VEHEMENCY OF THE CULT OF ANTI-MYSTERIOUS-ISTS
Coinciding with the change of assumptions underlying classical music,has come certain culturisms of the day, which have busily infected themselves in the classical art established an intolerant regime of anti-spiritual quality.Perhaps the preminent such infection is THE CURRENT VOGUE OF MATERIALIST RATIONALISM AND IT PENCHANT FOR ANNIHILATING MYSTERY.We simply have grown to distrust that which we cannot measure by our technologies of measurement,(such as a literal score or blueprint), in lieu of unquantifiable intuition...and the way we deal with confronting eternal possibility and our own insecurities is we simply vehemently deny that, which we can not or are simply ill-disposed to measure....exists. DENIAL AND COMPARTMENTALIZED FRAGMENTATION UNDER THE GUISE OF RATIONAL ANALYSIS HAVE BECOME INSTITUTIONALIZED VIRTUES AS A PART OF SOCIAL CONDITIONING...and as such has become a powerful condition of acceptance through conformity.
REDUCTIONIST OBJECTIVITY AND THE ILLUSIVE CULT OF MONO-DIMENSIONAL REALISM
In our desires to create respectable performances that are "true to the composer's intention"...we have reduced the performance from the immeasurable dimensions of the performer,audience,expression,instrument and instrumental acoutrement makers and all of their intuitions to just one simple fallacy...does it match the Reductive principles of the group concept concerning what we perceive this composer's expression to be...or not? And in doing so we validate the Anti-Expressive misanthropy that....music does not exist for us....rather we exist ...for it...HERE AGAIN IS THE REINFORCING OF THE EXTERNALIZATION OF INDIVIDUAL SPIRIT,INTUITION,AND THE TOTALITY OF MYSTERY TO A VAPIDLY UNIVERSAL ABSTRACT IDEAL.
THE RESULT OF FALLACIES
THE PREEMINENT FALLACY OF MODERN CLASSICAL MUSIC PERFORMANCE IS THAT IT SHOULD BE LITERAL...AND THEREFORE...COUNTERINTUITIVE.While some small exceptions are made to this Fallatious concept,(such as the occasional slowing at a section end or an added ornament)...Performers are and have been asked to keep their interpretations in the realm of non-interpretance since World War 1...with the result being that (THE SCORE...A HOPELESSLY REDUCTIVE MONO-DIMENSIONAL RELIC OF THE EXPRESSION)has now been promoted from a cryptic(though necessary) hint of the expression to the position of all-powerful Arbiter...of what is clearly a highly sophisticated-multi-dimensional process emanating from an aural tradition.AGAIN...THE EXTERNALIZATION AND SUBJUGATION OF INDIVIDUAL INTUITION AND SOUL RESPONSIBILTY
THE TRIUMPH OF SELF NEGATION TO TOTALITARIANISM THROUGH SELF-ASSURING CONFORMITY
With the greater organization and institutionalization of the society of man has come an ever greater pressure and incentive to find one's goodness in abandoning the responsibilities of intuition and surrendering one's self to conditioning.The Denial of the individual self has become a sensual vice in the 20 and 21st centuries...with The classical music field in contention for one of the most uninterrupted tyrannies of pan-cultural mass conformity yet seen.While the evils and ensuant woes of the abdication of personal responsibilty have been successfully illustrated politically at times...it has never ceased to be lauded as a prime individual behavioral virtue in classical music performance.
THE CURRENT RESIDENCE OF THE TRADITION
The result has been devastating for classical Music which in the last 50 years has seen it's position drop from one of cultural and economic Vitality and Relevancy to a one of an almost extinct marginalized fossil.It still has no difficulty finding performers...but the audience is....within any reasonable assessment...resting peacefully under this tree.