Classical music defines western culture

What is your favorite genre of music?

Four chords.

Dot dot dot dash in morse code.

The famous V for victory.

An unprepossessing start to a piece of music, but 20 minutes later Beethoven has us in a defining moment in Western civilisation.

It defined the revolutionary forces sweeping away the defunct aristocratic rulers.

It defined the resistance to Nazis controlling Europe just over a hundred years later and can still fill any concert hall two hundred years on.

It has been nicknamed ‘Fate, ‘ – the chord sequence being fate knocking at the door.

Beethoven went on the compose the Ode to Joy melody, now the European Anthem.

Or Mozart, breaking the hegemony of the Catholic Church and freeing art to become free and independent, Wagner weaving philosophy through art, Sibelius defining Finish resistance to Russia.

Mozart

I’ve only scratched the surface and the music sounds great, too.

Published by Clive La Pensée

Clive La Pensée, ex-science teacher, recognised writer on history of beer, novelist, expressionist, dreamer, believer in never giving up, empathiser, hopeful for a future without class, gender or racial prejudice. It's tough and at the moment, one has to remember distance travelled, rather than where we are at.

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