Lies, Lies and Dominant 7ths

This will be another of those posts that eludes categorization and to which I therefore attach my "aesthetics" tag. I was just reading an article in the Globe and Mail about Ellen Degeneres: Ellen DeGeneres returns with a phony-baloney apology and I was struck by this passage:

In March, as the pandemic started, comedian Kevin T. Porter wrote on Twitter, “Right now we all need a little kindness. You know, like Ellen Degeneres always talks about. She’s also notoriously one of the meanest people alive.”

This phenomenon, of a public persona being so different from the reality that it is almost its opposite, seems to have become a pandemic of its own. I can remember a time when what you saw in public and the private reality were not so very different. A somewhat feckless, but well-meaning Canadian politician was somewhat feckless but well-meaning in both his private and public life--and yes, I am talking about Joe Clark for you Canadian political aficionados.

But more and more, as the slow seep of politics invades every aspect of society, we expect, as a matter of course, politicians to be Potemkin fronts of high ideals masking a vicious reality. Government agencies slowly transform into vast, unfeeling bureaucracies whose main priority is to preserve their pay and benefits. Regulatory agencies find it more and more profitable to be "captured" by the industries they purport to regulate. Students and scientists in fields like environmental science discover that certain views are well-rewarded with research grants while other views will cause you to be shunned. And artists lose sight of their real responsibilities in favor of "branding," marketing and personal promotion. Every career trajectory is calibrated to increase "exposure" and revenues.

Something has obviously gone a bit astray, I say with characteristic Canadian understatement.

But a field like classical music can offer a window into a scene where the "phony-baloney" does not rule the roost, where a bit of genuine truth can be glimpsed. I have been to many concerts where, completely outside the bounds of language, truth and not lies holds the stage. You can't really lie with a musical phrase. You can play it badly, or play it with no personal connection or conviction, but for a music-lover, this will pretty much be evident. The very abstract nature of music makes it hard to deceive the listener. Now, sure, we can argue about whether this or that artist is an empty virtuoso, but the more vacuous performers are largely known to the music world. Mind you, the pressures to sell records, to fill seats, while temporarily in abeyance due to the pandemic, are still there, but the performers who are most eager to pander are not hard to identify.

Most musicians are still out there to play music in a competent and expressive way--and they don't get paid a lot of money to do it, in most cases. So, when we despair of hearing an ordinary, warm, musical performance delivered with some conviction, we can usually find the remedy in a concert or online performance--well, when concerts recommence at least. Our chamber music society is launching its new season in mid-October with a piano recital in an outdoors setting. Easy to arrange in Mexico, but October in Montreal might be a different story!

I used to tell my students that when they played music, their real personality was right there for anyone to see and hear. Despite all the tricks and subterfuges and elaborate photo sessions of musical promotion, I still think this is true. It is pretty hard to lie with a dominant 7th.

Here, with one of those entirely truthful performances is the incomparable Grigory Sokolov playing some Beethoven: