Times of cultural misery are the most conducive to immersing oneself in great eras, great works, and great achievements. This is because everything in them stimulates an interest accentuated by contrast, leaving no doubt as to where attention should be directed. In truth, even in the most prolific times, the portion that survives is small, and therefore the portion that distracts is large. There is, of course, a special feeling that comes from novelty; but perhaps this feeling diverts attention from where it could be focused much more profitably.
Category: Notes
It Is Interesting How a Combination…
It is interesting how a combination of multiple factors, such as modern music itself, the astonishing ease of access and, at the same time, the rarity of chance encounters and natural guides, has made it extremely difficult to orientate oneself in the great works of music. To reasonably know a prolific composer such as Mozart, Bach, Beethoven, or Brahms, it is not enough to have an unusual taste for classical music: it takes a conscious and focused effort to get to know them, an effort to search for a guiding light that seems hidden behind the tangle of hundreds of compositions. Carpeaux’s book, of course, solves the problem and falls like a godsend into the hands of the modern music lover. But long before thinking of reading it, most have already succumbed to disorientation.
Leopardi’s Work Is Proof That It Does Not…
Leopardi’s work is proof that it does not take many poetic forms to produce a strong effect of variety. Reading his Canti, the last thing you feel is monotony; and yet, there are always decasyllables and hexasyllables. However, due to the extremely varied arrangement of verses and rhymes, one never knows what comes next. And the brain, challenged and entertained in capturing the order, is satisfied with the meaning that never allows itself to fall into the banal. The problem of form is real and relevant, but it is only justified when there is truly something to say.
In Theory, Meetings With Remarkable Men…
In theory, Meetings with Remarkable Men, by George Gurdjieff, was conceived with “similar objectives” to those of Autobiography of a Yogi, by Paramahansa Yogananda. But this can only be said in quotation marks, because the discrepancy between the works is so striking that it would not be an exaggeration to consider them models, one of truth and the other of falsification. One is truly instructive, presenting truly remarkable men and thus achieving its “goal”; the other is merely a succession of accounts whose purpose is nothing more than to inflate the ego of an author who, whenever he seems about to say something important, he cunningly states that he will only say it in a volume yet to be published and that you, the reader, will have to buy. But above all, what both works reveal is a contrast between personalities that, if not opposite, are absolutely distinct. The qualities that shine through in Yogananda are completely absent in Gurdjieff: the former inspires respect and admiration, while the latter inspires only antipathy.