| Despite so many different kinds of music surrounding and accompanying us, where is the marvellous music that, in Orpheus’s hands, was once capable of taming wild beasts and converting even the most brutal of men into sensitive human beings? Where are the modern-day Orpheuses to save us from the underworld? Or is man perhaps gradually losing the capacity, valued so highly by Shakespeare, to listen to music? In no period in the history of mankind have we heard so much music, nor have we witnessed such extreme and generalised levels of violence. Indeed, this brings to mind Bertolt Brecht’s prophetic words, ‘he who has a smile on his lips hasn’t heard the latest news,’ a phrase which still rings painfully true today. Or is man’s gradual loss of sensitivity a result of increased passivity, as Stravinsky warned?: ‘Over-saturated with sounds, weary of the most varied combinations, people fall into a kind of brutalisation that deprives them of the capacity for discernment and makes them indifferent to the very quality of the works that are of use to them.’ (Chroniques de ma vie, 1935). |
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