For that matter, do I have to defend Beethoven and Mozart? They wrote most of their music for money. Is it somehow purer to make art designed to appeal to an audience of rich aristocratic patrons and their friends than to make art designed to appeal to rich corporate patrons and their friends? Because I can't really tell the difference. [1]
The text and subject matter of Beethoven's seventh symphony's are not merely "superficial": They're entirely absent. The work has no words. Therefore it doesn't express any ideas but abstract musical ones. I guess I should feel ashamed for liking it?
Of course, a musicologist would insist that Mozart and Beethoven's stylistic and formal innovations were anything but "superficial". But to be fair we must apply the same standard to Gladwell, and note that he is himself a gifted stylist and a master of his own form.
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[1] Actually, this isn't quite true: I tend to prefer corporate art to aristocratic art. A lot of corporate art gets reproduced and spread around; that's what most of it is for. Even non-aristocrats get a chance to enjoy Wilco albums, and we even get to hear their Sprint commercials for "free". Whereas history is replete with great art that was written for aristocrats, but then was kept out of public view, and sometimes even lost entirely, for decades or centuries. A fine example is Bach's Brandenburg Concerti:
…"widely regarded as among the finest musical compositions of the Baroque era", composed by Bach, gifted to a margrave in 1721, who apparently never had them performed. The scores sat around in his library. When the margrave died the manuscripts were sold for about $20 (in 2008 dollars). They were eventually rediscovered in Brandenburg's archives in 1849 and published in 1850. Mozart never heard them. Beethoven never heard them.
How I digress. Let's drive this footnote back towards the point: I, for one, would rather have my life's work superficially glossed by Malcolm Gladwell in an artfully-written and wildly popular book than have it sit in a trunk unread until someone throws it away.
The text and subject matter of Beethoven's seventh symphony's are not merely "superficial": They're entirely absent. The work has no words. Therefore it doesn't express any ideas but abstract musical ones. I guess I should feel ashamed for liking it?
Of course, a musicologist would insist that Mozart and Beethoven's stylistic and formal innovations were anything but "superficial". But to be fair we must apply the same standard to Gladwell, and note that he is himself a gifted stylist and a master of his own form.
---
[1] Actually, this isn't quite true: I tend to prefer corporate art to aristocratic art. A lot of corporate art gets reproduced and spread around; that's what most of it is for. Even non-aristocrats get a chance to enjoy Wilco albums, and we even get to hear their Sprint commercials for "free". Whereas history is replete with great art that was written for aristocrats, but then was kept out of public view, and sometimes even lost entirely, for decades or centuries. A fine example is Bach's Brandenburg Concerti:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brandenburg_concertos
…"widely regarded as among the finest musical compositions of the Baroque era", composed by Bach, gifted to a margrave in 1721, who apparently never had them performed. The scores sat around in his library. When the margrave died the manuscripts were sold for about $20 (in 2008 dollars). They were eventually rediscovered in Brandenburg's archives in 1849 and published in 1850. Mozart never heard them. Beethoven never heard them.
How I digress. Let's drive this footnote back towards the point: I, for one, would rather have my life's work superficially glossed by Malcolm Gladwell in an artfully-written and wildly popular book than have it sit in a trunk unread until someone throws it away.