Order! Order!

[LMcD]

I'm more convinced than ever that, in addition to all the other blessings which 'classical' music brings us, its sense of permanence and order is the one we should treasure, defend and promote. In an increasingly chaotic and frankly scary world of nasty local and regional wars, devastating climate change, challenged values, despised social and political institutions and the virtual disappearance of personal responsibility, it's immensely comforting to know that the phrase or passage which you noticed in the first movement will return in the fourth, even in the most controversial or challenging interpretation of the work in question. If asked of what 'use' classical music is, we could do worse than point out that it will keep our spirits up as we bob up and down at the mercy of the wind and waves, and will also serve as a kind of bucket which will be essential if we are to keep the amount of water in the lifeboat at a safe level.
(I find that a dose of flippancy also helps one to cope with life's day-to-day vagaries).

[Joseph K]

What's this sense of 'permanence and order' you mention about? Can you expand on what you mean? (It almost sounds like the description of aristocratic - i.e. feudal - society as contrasted to the constantly changing bourgeois - i.e. capitalist - society).

Also I would have to question your assertion about personal responsibility. It seems that while in this increasingly neoliberal day and age while the government sees its responsibility to put as much of taxpayers' money into private hands as possible, it is very keen to invoke the notion of personal responsibility for things it simply fails to do.

[Joseph K]

[LMcD]

Barrage of questions - you mean one or two? I'd be interested to hear how you imagined this thread would pan out.

It's weird that you should apparently find offence at someone who takes an interest in what you say and asks you to expand upon it.

Well - I thought, rather naively perhaps - that people might like to tell us how music helps people cope with things - that's all.

[Richard Barrett]

time for me to leave this thread to the polemicists

You asked for it, by talking about "classical music" as a repository of "permanence and order" whereas actually it's something that over its history has reflected, and responded to, all the changes taking place in society, philosophy, the idea of the individual and the individual's relationship to everything from the subconscious to the cosmos. All music has been "new music" at some point in history. That's not a polemical view, it's a fact!

[gradus]

Well - I thought, rather naively perhaps - that people might like to tell us how music helps people cope with things - that's all.

I don't always turn to classical music for solace, or indeed to any form of music, sometimes silence is best when trying to restore order.
I find restorative properties in all kinds of music but predominantly classical and it is often well-known pieces that do the trick especially if I haven't heard them in a while, the familiarity is comforting and reassuring I suppose and I often hear things that I simply hadn't noticed or perhaps had forgotten in the sound of the piece. I have to be careful not to overdo things though as I have sometimes played things to death and put myself off the music for quite a time.
I am puzzled by my intense emotional reaction to what I hear as the transcendent beauty of some music and why my reactions aren't often shared by my friends!

[Dave2002]

I find this odd. Here we have an opening statement, followed by one answer, and then almost an immediate rebuttal.
This thread could be interesting - though I might have difficulty with it.

The opening specifically refers to "classical" music - whatever that is. There is a lot of music which some people would not call classical music, and there is some classical music would some would not call "classical". Maybe better to just refer to "music".

I personally find music helpful - I don't know why. I spend a lot of time now studying music. I don't spend time playing football or watching football or other games. These are all different forms of activity. I choose what I want to do.

The recent Olympics have shown something of the relationship between particular activities (sports) and society. Incidentally I enjoyed watching some of them - I'm not denying those people who enjoy doing or watching those activities their "rights" to do so.

I have almost given up on trying to concern myself with what governments "should" do. How are they to act - are they to be "responsive" to the demands of their populations, or are they to dictate what individuals should do? I don't want to live in a dictatorship, but we are apparently living in a democracy where some outcomes - supposedly decided by "the people" are clearly not very desirable.

I despair that noises are made about climate change - yet most governments are absolutely useless when it comes to dealing with such enormous issues, either individually or collectively. Self interest of a few comes to the fore.

If most people are not interested in classical music then how is it important? What have governments got to do with music, or vice-versa?

[richardfinegold]

A colleague of mine who never listens to Classical, and who adorns the walls of his waiting room with album covers of Classic Rock, was echoing the sentiments of the OP only substituting Led Zeppelin where the OP mentions Classical.
For him, retreating from the cares of the world by communing with the formative music of his youth (and to which he has continued to listen) is his way of restoring peace of mind

[richardfinegold]

Might it be a good idea, perhaps, to create a separate thread - or sub-Forum - or separate Forum - for polemicists, controversialists and others with strongly held and even more strongly expressed, opinions? It's a bit depressing to start a thread about the healing force of 'classical' music only to have its presumed socio-political credentials challenged, or at least questioned.
The new Polemicists' Platform need not, of course, be limited to discussion of social or political matters - it would be an ideal setting for robust debate on such subjects as performance style.

I personally dislike pigeon holing all topics. It's more natural to have discussion evolve out of a thread even if it is way off the base of what the thread creator was aiming for. That happens in real life as well, right? You don't (I hope) silence a dinner companion who has veered a discussion into a tangent by stating they aren't allowed to do that and have to wait for the correct time to discuss the tangent.
Come to think of it, I guess I have silenced a few people who constantly divert topics, usually back to their own personal lives ,regardless of how tenuous the link is to whatever is being discussed. However I view my policing events those repeat offenders as outliers.

[Joseph K]

Well - I thought, rather naively perhaps - that people might like to tell us how music helps people cope with things - that's all.

Music might have that property - of helping people cope. TBH I'd say this is basically implicit in the whole forum, that everyone here loves music.

There are many ways of conceiving of music - I like to conceive of it as something simultaneously fundamental to existence like the air we breathe, the food we eat etc. and at the same time offering some kind of transcendence. It is something both quotidian and humdrum - particularly for someone who plays an instrument or composes etc. - and consciousness-expanding and sublime. I recall reading/hearing that no other activity engages as many parts of the brain as does music.

[ahinton]

Music might have that property - of helping people cope. TBH I'd say this is basically implicit in the whole forum, that everyone here loves music.

There are many ways of conceiving of music - I like to conceive of it as something simultaneously fundamental to existence like the air we breathe, the food we eat etc. and at the same time offering some kind of transcendence. It is something both quotidian and humdrum - particularly for someone who plays an instrument or composes etc. - and consciousness-expanding and sublime. I recall reading/hearing that no other activity engages as many parts of the brain as does music.

Quite!

[Richard Barrett]

something simultaneously fundamental to existence like the air we breathe, the food we eat etc. and at the same time offering some kind of transcendence.

Some people might think of the imaginative world that opens up through musical experience is some kind of unchanging Platonic realm (which is sort of what LMcD seems to be saying in the OP), while others might think of it as something dynamic and thought-provoking, which engages intellect and emotions in such a way as to go beyond perceived differences between them, in other words embodying not an escape from the world we live in, as a vision of a world we imagine might some day be made real. Where some see timelessness, others experience a desire for a better future. The first plays into the hands of conservative social/political tendencies by emphasising that we can't change things but at least we can escape from them into the warm embrace of art, while the second stresses the imagination, a sense of possibility, that if human beings can achieve this then they can change things.

[Bryn]

Some people might think of the imaginative world that opens up through musical experience is some kind of unchanging Platonic realm (which is sort of what LMcD seems to be saying in the OP), while others might think of it as something dynamic and thought-provoking, which engages intellect and emotions in such a way as to go beyond perceived differences between them, in other words embodying not an escape from the world we live in, as a vision of a world we imagine might some day be made real. Where some see timelessness, others experience a desire for a better future. The first plays into the hands of conservative social/political tendencies by emphasising that we can't change things but at least we can escape from them into the warm embrace of art, while the second stresses the imagination, a sense of possibility, that if human beings can achieve this then they can change things.

And some experience music in both those ways simultaneously. I think Hegel and Marx might have had a word for it.

[Ein Heldenleben]

And some experience music in both those ways simultaneously. I think Hegel and Marx might have had a word for it.

Do you know I going to say exactly the same thing but a good deal less pithily and without the Hegel/ Marx reference?

[Richard Barrett]

And some experience music in both those ways simultaneously.

Experiencing a static situation and a dynamic one simultaneously is experiencing a dynamic situation, isn't it?