The Following is taken from Milan Kundera’s essay, “The Curtian:”
“HISTORY AN D VALUE
Let us imagine a contemporary composer writing a sonata that in its form, its harmonies, its melodies resembles Beethoven’s. Let’s even imagine that this sonata is so masterfully made that, if it had actually been by Beethoven, it would count among his greatest works. And yet no mater how magnificent, signed by a contemporary composer it would be laughable. At best its author would be applauded as a virtuoso of pastiche.
What? We feel aesthetic pleasure at a sonata by Beethoven and not at one with the same style and charm if it comes from one of our own contemporaries? Isn’t that the height of hypocrisy? So then the sensation of beauty is not spontaneous, spurred by or sensibility, but instead is cerebral, conditioned by our knowing a date?
No way around it: historical consciousness is so thoroughly inherent in our perception of art that this anachronism (a Beethoven piece written today) would be spontaneously (that is, without the least hypocrisy) felt to be ridiculous, false, incongruous, even monstrous. Our feeling for continuity is so strong that it enters into the perception of any work of art.”
I found similarity in the way society perceive yonder era of music, art, craft, and architecture—as Kundera stated above—we tend to value the old but not the new. I came from Chinese background, and a Chinese painting that came from previous eras priced highly above the same “style” and “quality” of the work. I put quotation around “style” and “quality”, because, for example, the quality of a silk gown nowadays might be more perfect in today consumer standard; however, it was made with mass production or with aid of human advanced technology. Perhaps because since the beginning of time, we earned our pay with our sweat, we understand better or too well how it makes us feel when fruit is ripped through the persistence of physical labor and extensive length of time, we would tend to weigh that piece of work higher values. Yet in fact, both the creator of the ceramic vase of today and yesterday might have just invested as much efforts and level of emotion attached as the other. The work of a musician might have more music tools to assist its creation—better instrument, sound recording techniques, better concern room, more refine notation, etc—yet because exactly because of that, our expectation become higher, and there is more pressure on musician to transcend beyond the past. I always bear in mind that nothing is new, but there is always new way to group, arrange, and improve the current knowledge of ours, to embrace a new way of thinking or presentation, while utilizing the better of two worlds—old and current. To me, regardless of which genre and era the work belongs to, it is more important to compare the works of musicians over a period of time. All musicians are unique in its own way, be it its style or its deliverance, but the progress of musicians workmanship attract me to explore more. And in this sense, I feel the value of music is whole. Music is a personal journey of culture and reflection. To evaluate a single piece of music of any musician, I do not feel we justify our analysis of the merit of the musician’s works. After all, we each are still developing who we are and what we would become until we are in the grave. It would not be fair to conclude our conduct in life without a fair consideration of the progress we made; the same applies to analysis of a musician’s merit.
