I have been around music now for a good 35 years. The first 20 years of my life I wasn’t really that much involved in it. An amazing 35 years it has been.
What has changed in the 35 years? What have I learned in those 35 years? What is the result of 35 years of music?
I think most musicians will tell you that a lifetime of musical activity will lead you to the same conclusion, that Bach, Mozart and Beethoven are without question the essence of what makes music great.
Sure there are many other great composers from other countries and time periods, but really, it is these three composers whose music transcends the world and lifts us into that magical space of artistic universality that binds all things together.
The phenomenon cannot be described in words really, nor is it fully explained in the music. No, the message that is delivered by these three masters is that human beings are capable of incredible beauty, ingenious thought, immense emotional depth and a sixth sense that we are all blessed with a spiritual sensitivity that allows us to love beyond measure and that these gifts are the true desire of every human being at their core.
Is Bach, Mozart and Beethoven too complex for the common man to grasp? Does the intellectual gauntlet thrown down by education of the world so vast that the guy on the street can never reach their lofty heights to even get a glimpse of their majestic qualities?
How can men barely appreciated in their own time become the bulwarks of an entire art form? What gave these men the energy and the will to create on such a massive and compelling scale?
But, more importantly, what sets them apart from all of the other great composers and musicians in the annals of time?
I doubt that anyone knows the answers to these questions. I won’t attempt to answer them but to reply to them with the question ”Why is the music of these masters important in our society today?”
I believe the answer is that these masters teach us how to think, reason and evaluate our emotions. Not in so many words, but in the music that forces our brains to hustle to understand them, for you cannot listen to music without the brain rushing to try and understand it.
For one, if forces you to close your eyes. It forces you to take time out to listen. It forces you to be patient and connect with it on an immediate basis. The labyrinth of Bach’s music is like going on an expedition in a vast system of caves. Turning in and out, upside down and coming out on top and having taken the journey come out at the other end with a heightened awareness of life. It is a world of it’s own, but it is also the world as a whole. For life is a labyrinth and we are lost in the caves trying to find our way out. Bach teaches that the way out is not escape but to embrace the journey and that each turn leads to another turn and that is okay. In the end we will not only reach the destination, but the treasure we find is the one we picked up along the way.
In Mozart you find the topic of love to be paramount. Mozart loved talking about love in all of it’s disguises. But, what is he really saying? He is saying that the human condition requires love so it can tolerate the mess that the human condition can get us into. He shows us that we are all fragile creatures with faults and virtues and that a hero is nothing more than someone who survives the obstacles of life and isn’t bitter because of it, but becomes a person of compassion and understanding.
Beethoven shows us that life is hard to kill and that death is not a barrier for life. Beethoven is like a prisoner who is always struggling to be free. He is like a bear caught in a trap, tortured, pained and yet not so angered that he loses his thirst for the fresh meadows of grass and pure streams filled with fish to eat. He shows us that even in the captivity of life we can soar with our spirits into heaven and that the journey ins’t a frivolous act of desperation but a worthy expedition of the spirit and a necessity for the human experience on earth.
But probably one element supersedes all others when it comes to these composers. It is the sense of ‘Truth’ that you get. I think that if you can ‘hear’ the music of these composers you understand what ‘truth’ is. Then the writing of this music is undeniably true with a logic that is unbreakable and consistent.
I think it is what they sought to write about and when you listen to a Beethoven Sonata you hear it.
The truth of Bach, Mozart and Beethoven will endure because they transcend all times and places. Everyone wants the truth and they need to get it. They can find it with these three composers.