Monday, September 8, 2014

History and Aesthetics

I just ran across this quote in an essay by Theodore Dalrymple:
It is more or less incontestable that the artistic production of mediaeval and renaissance Florence, with a population a seventh of that of contemporary Metropolitan Akron, Ohio, or a quarter of that of the London borough of Croydon, was of greater value than that of the whole of the western world, with a population 7000 times greater at least, for the last seventy years (if not very much longer than that).
 Do you agree? Perhaps the equivalent in the musical world would be to say that "It is more or less incontestable that the musical production of Vienna between 1760 and 1830, with a population of 200,000, was of greater value than that of the whole of the western world for the last seventy years."

Just to refresh your memory, those years comprise the entire output of Haydn, Mozart, Beethoven and Schubert, to name only the greatest composers.

Hmmm, could be true, couldn't it?


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