# Americans know more high art than they think they do.



## MarkW (Feb 16, 2015)

This goes back to the "Classical music is so gay" thread.

I think that there is a common perception that not only CM, but most High Art is effeminate or elitist. And I think many Americans have no idea how often they are exposed to art, nor, in some cases, how fortunate they are.

Yes, the sound tracks to motion pictures often have scores that few would willingly listen to in a concert hall. (How many noirish detectives have chased people down dark wet city streets to expressionistic music that is only one step removed from Schoenberg? Or the portions of the Jaws soundtrack that is Stravinsky inspired? etc. etc.

Or the Broadway musicals on serious subjects that may not aspire to Eugene O'Neill territory, but certainly act as an on-ramp to those kinds of things. (Even ABC broadcast a version of the landmark Robards/Dewhurst performance of "A Moon for the Misbegotten" in the early '70s.)

Or dance, which Americans unknowingly are exposed to more of than any other nationality. Think of Broadway -- Agnes DeMille choreographing Oklahoma, Jerome Robbins West Side Story, etc. Production numbers in movie musicals (Astaire, Gene Kelly, Bob Fosse's Cabaret, Chicago, etc. -- even the chimney sweep number in Mary Poppins), TV variety shows (the June Taylor Dancers on Jackie Gleason). And now Dancing with the Stars. Only ballet continues to have a sissified image -- although The Turning Point and Natalie Portman's recent Black Swan film (I forget the title) had wide audiences.

And in the early days of TV, quasi artsy shows like the Bell Telephone Hour, The Voice of Firestone, Omnibus, etc. brought some good stuff into living rooms.

The point is that we are exposed to a lot more art in popular culture than we think we are -- even as we are disparaging it. And that's a good thing! (The only bad thing is that PBS thinks it has to talk down to the audience with things like Andre Rieu during pledge drives!)


----------



## Manxfeeder (Oct 19, 2010)

I am amazed at how popular TED talks are. They manage to take subjects few people would explore and make them interesting.


----------



## Orfeo (Nov 14, 2013)

Mark, I think you are on to something, especially your second paragraph. I think many Americans are indeed knowledgeable of elevated art than we are willing to realize. The key word is willing, because there seems to be a push or move towards things that are popular, familiar, or easy to grasp. A lot of it is commercialism, much of it is laziness, and a good deal of it is due to nationalism (coupled with the lack of education/exposure). Most people do not know Copland, or Barber or the Jazz giants of the 1940s onward (Wardell Gray, Lester Young, Parker, Silver, et al). The younger generation is not familiar with the milestones of the 1960s and 1970s achieved in cinema, television, music, literature. Broadway was revolutionary during that time also. 

Then was the age of pushing the envelope, exploring the unknown or the controversial. Today is decadence and going for the common denominator, with exceptions here and there. There are many Americans familiar with high art of various forms and ethnic origins, but they are increasingly becoming a lesser voice in our vast yet diverse culture with a lot of options, for better or worse depending on whom you're asking.


----------



## SONNET CLV (May 31, 2014)

When most folks watch a film and correspondingly hear the accompanying soundtrack, they generally don't isolate the one from the other. They don't think about the artifice of music coming out of the sky to backdrop a car chase, a slasher stalking a co-ed, or a shark attack.

Yet, the film composers who provide such backdrops generally spawn from the same music schools that provide groundings in orchestration a la Berlioz, Rimsky-Korsakov, and ... Schoenberg! These composers are artists. Some more profound thinkers than others, certainly, but all possessing some higher command of the musical art than the "average" person.

Even Andre Rieu (and Kenny G, for that matter) are artists, well skilled in their instruments and in music in general. But they make choices, possibly due to their own likes and dislikes. This is not a bad thing. You and I make choices, too, concerning our musical pursuits and preferences. Some choices lead to greater financial gains. This isn't a bad thing either. (I do wonder what music Andre and Kenny may listen to in the privacy of their own listening spaces. Perhaps Andre enjoys Webern; perhaps Kenny G bops to Coltrane.)

Can one actually fully enjoy a "film" if one becomes too conscious of the music playing in the background? I know that when I listen to an opera in a language I cannot access (Hungarian, for instance), I miss much of the opera and find myself concentrating on the music. But I don't listen to, say, Benjamin Britten operas in this way, since the language allows me access to the fuller view.

Too, I prefer opera with its visual aspect -- in other words, in the opera hall or on video -- to recordings per se. As a theatre person, I know that to _read_ a play is different from _experiencing _a full production. And there is a great deal of interpretive freedom involved in the latter that makes one production different from another -- and all the dynamics of what _that _means in terms of quality. Shakespeare's _Macbeth _on the page is what it is; Shakespeare's _Macbeth_ in the theatre has countless variations.

Yet, all art is artifice. It's no surprise the first three letters of "artifice" are "art". Though Aristotle (in _Poetics_) asserts that art is an imitation of nature, we know the difference between the real (nature) and the artifice (the imitation). One involves suspension of disbelief, a concept that makes so much art work. (Especially film and theatre.)

As with any field of endeavor, there are some who see it through highly informed eyes, ears, brains, and those who do not. The "do nots" will always be at a disadvantage, perhaps, in some ways. But perhaps not in all. Perhaps such folks can enjoy a "mindless movie" in ways that you or I can not.

To each his own.

I know only that I've made particular choices, and I'm satisfied living with them.


----------



## Manxfeeder (Oct 19, 2010)

SONNET CLV said:


> Even Andre Rieu (and Kenny G, for that matter) are artists, well skilled in their instruments and in music in general.


Just an aside . . .

Finally, someone said something nice about Kenny G!

Carry on.


----------

