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Beethoven's relevance to music for all time has its own reasons--his majesty
engulfed humanity's universe 200 years ago, and man's passioned fear of beauty
hasn't changed. Reasons have, technology has, and, in turn, ways of doing things
have changed, but what we do hasn't.
I thought for a couple of weeks of what to say about Beethoven. Hardly
anybody I know listens to him, maybe because they can't play him on the guitar.
I listened again to his Ninth Symphony, a few sonatas and his last string
quartet pieces, and a few days later I started to wonder if music is really
relevant to people or if it just supports a fashionable movement. Today's
protest song is tomorrow's bumper sticker and so on, never ending. Next decade
there may be a religious craze, and to save face we'll have to sing gospel songs
to keep it ethnic and funky, not to offend our own past. No communication, just
part-playing--read the charts and fit in.
That's what's so funny to me about our new revolution--on both sides of the
white dollar--part-playing. It has to be cultural to be successful, not
religious or political but personal.
You, alone--like Beethoven's deafness, like
Beethoven's genius, the same genius that lets us fall in love--alone, only
yourself and what you're good for alone, no banners. Then maybe you can let John
Coltrane fit into your life style. Eric Dolphy, then a cop siren. Prokofiev, a
six-pack of beer. Ray Charles, a subway noise--or a riot in the streets.
Tolstoy's soul on ice. A bulge in walking pants--hell, it's your festival of
legs and breasts.
Black man do the monkey rub while white man gouge out the crocodile eyes--but
with a spoon.
But this is a bit too dull for New York. You always need fresh blood to suck
and forget, and it's always quick with you, this ego massage. Somehow I always
wonder if you ever feel, or if it's all part-playing. So until I trust you I'll
hear Beethoven's sonatas in your streets, Fred Astaire around 50th Street on
Sunday, a black waltz in Harlem, Stravinsky in airplanes, Harpo Marx in the
garment district, and Bud Powell's Requiem in the Bowery.
I think of our culture like I think of bacteria. Rock 'n' roll keeps the
traffic moving to an adolescent pulse. Politics, prime-time TV, Danny Thomas and
the game shows--it's all bought and sold and planned out to get a response, and
the response is planned in order not to get in the way of the next one. But
man's music--his bout with the gods--has nothing to do with the latest crimes.
It's too personal to isolate, too intimate to forget, and too spiritual to sell.
Of course Beethoven would have been the perfect pop star. His entourage would
be a bit too expensive to take on the road, of course. But if he were around
today, Rex Reed would be his road manager, Broadway his toilet, and he wouldn't
jam the Blues.
Well, at least Rex would hold his own on the talk shows. But no matter. A
classic of any kind is put away on the shelves, is always called a classic and
is never read or listened to or talked about at parties. Beethoven is just a
classic and not relevant today--all because you can't understand him.
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