The great period of English musical composition and especially vocal music, ended with Henry Purcell's death in 1695. After that England gave up to the German Italian composer Handel who wasn't very good at composing in English so he chose very simple texts. Before that you had Dowland and Campian and a whole flowering comparable to the German Lied in the 19th century. Consider these two texts from Dowland.
I saw my lady weep, And Sorrow proud to be advanced so, In those fair eyes where all perfections keep, Her face was full of woe; But such a woe (believe me) as wins more hearts, Than Mirth can do with her enticing parts. or better still: Can she excuse my wrongs with Virtue's cloak? Shall I call her good when she proves unkind? Are those clear fires which vanish into smoke? Must I praise the leaves where no fruit I find? No, no; where shadows do for bodies stand, That may'st be abus'd if thy sight be dim. Or Purcell's I attempt from Love's sickness to fly in vain, Since I am myself my own fever and pain. No more now, fond heart, with pride no more swell, Thou canst not raise forces enough to rebel. After that you got great German Italian music for cheap and overly simple English lyrics that go basically nowhere or are just gross: "And tho worms destroy this body, yet in my flesh shall I see God." Handel's greatest "English Operas" are in Italian. But he invented the simpler musical form of the Oratorio ostensibly because he didn't like all of the stage stuff but in reality, he wasn't very good at it, it was expensive and double entendres and layered meaning were only musical for him and not linguistic ala Shakespeare or the whole English tradition. England kept their word theater. Cheap. Word theater doesn't cost much to keep up relative to orchestras and singers who are very expensive to maintain. (Anyone watch "Slings and Arrows" on cable?) So he did away with the cost of painting, lighting (candle power) and outdoor tricks, in favor of the enclosed acoustics of a concert hall and just the music and simple words. They even called English "Baroque" because of the "ideal" of simplicity. Bad English! With the exception of the reversal in Gilbert and Sullivan (simple music/difficult text), English song and opera has never recovered. When Purcell was the final bloom of great English musical subtlety John Locke was busy writing away on the constitution of the principles that would lead to the four directional cycle of (East) Adam Smith to (South) Bentham, to (West) J.S. Mill and cold of the North in William Stanley Jevons and the collapse of serious art in England other than the theater. It was easier for the English to buy their personal identity than to create it themselves through their complex art. Recently there was a revival of complex Art in England with a flowering of small opera companies and wonderful large ones. Thought the typical stereotype was recently escaped it is now back with a vengeance in the current government where the Jevons cycle on Mill's utility is once more supreme. Poor English. Which came first? The economists or the finish of complexity in the Art of English psycho-physical values? Was economics an expression of artistic collapse or a cause? European America is and has always been, especially since the rise of the industrial eras, a cultural desert. In America it seems clear that mercantile economics and the rise of the Robber Barons was a cause for the death of any Artistic identity flowering on these distant shores from mother Europe. In spite of the scam of the CIA in the cold war and all of that money put into European culture to outcompete the Russians. Once there was no longer any need, the curtain came down and the Wizard went home for lunch in his house trailer. REH -----Original Message----- From: [email protected] [mailto:[email protected]] On Behalf Of Sandwichman Sent: Monday, November 15, 2010 2:18 PM To: RE-DESIGNING WORK, INCOME DISTRIBUTION, EDUCATION Subject: Re: [Futurework] The working world of tomorrow It's an economists' fantasy. The second part of the question can be answered by looking at the long history of attitudes toward usury. Economics is essentially an apology for usury. When compound interest became the law, the gift -- as the nexus of human exchange -- was thrown in the dustbin. On Mon, Nov 15, 2010 at 10:42 AM, Ed Weick <[email protected]> wrote: > Is it an economist's fantasy or has it always been there? > > > ----- Original Message ----- > From: "Sandwichman" <[email protected]> > To: "RE-DESIGNING WORK, INCOME DISTRIBUTION,EDUCATION" > <[email protected]> > Sent: Monday, November 15, 2010 12:16 PM > Subject: Re: [Futurework] The working world of tomorrow > > > Ought to be a law that anytime anyone talks about "production" they > preface it with "everything is a gift." People think they deserve for > "discovering" stuff that is "just there" and then "making" it into > something of "value". What hubris. It is ALL a gift. Those who receive > a gift have a responsibility to return a gift or else they will > destroy the relationships that brought about the gift. How can > economists fantasize they have found a way around the most fundamental > rule of life? > > On Mon, Nov 15, 2010 at 8:27 AM, Ray Harrell <[email protected]> wrote: >> Good comments. One quibble. Everything is a gift. The environment, the >> sun, the water, the air. >> >> >> >> Whether we use it with intelligence and respect is the question. Whether >> it's dead and an object or alive and a learning organization that has to >> be >> related to. The earth gives freely. The sun gives freely. Everything >> is given freely, even the death of the plants and animals and ourselves >> for >> food. >> >> >> >> That we are uncomfortable with who we are and what our intent is in this >> life gives rise to pathologies that causes us to demean and destroy the >> web >> of existence and to objectify everything. Thus we have to create stories >> about why we do it and how we are OK for doing it. >> >> >> >> Agriculture did not create a better human but created the rise of disease. >> The industrial era was a cancer on the face of both human competence and >> the >> earth. If we had chosen the way of respect and careful integrated >> growth rather than the windigo wildness of the woods, we might have built >> a >> great civilization made up of cultural modules and all of the life forms. >> Instead we chose the way of war and the way of war will destroy us. >> >> >> >> >> >> >> >> From: [email protected] >> [mailto:[email protected]] On Behalf Of Keith Hudson >> Sent: Monday, November 15, 2010 4:13 AM >> To: RE-DESIGNING WORK, INCOME DISTRIBUTION, , EDUCATION >> Subject: [Futurework] The working world of tomorrow >> >> >> >> The human race, so far, has been through two almighty revolutions -- >> agriculture and industry. They both involved access to an entirely new >> form >> of solar energy, whether contemporary or fossilized. This is the only >> "free >> lunch" we have. Everything else has to be worked for. However, it must be >> said straight away that, although economists are prolific in reminding us >> that there are no free lunches, they themselves seldom think about energy >> per se. In their training, student economists never learn about the basic >> necessity of energy and that it permeates everything we do -- in peacetime >> or wartime, for goods production or the supply of services. >> >> Because energy, and its sister subject, thermodynamics, is taught to all >> student scientists as the very core of their various disciplines then, for >> the time being, the subject of economics will continue to dangle in the >> air, >> neither a science nor an arts subject. However, economists in, say, a >> couple >> of centuries' time, might well see energy in an entirely different light >> (solar!) because, by then, fossil fuel energy will be exorbitantly >> expensive >> and we will almost certainly be accessing the bulk of our basic energy in >> an >> entirely different way. >> >> It will be by the production of hydrogen. Unlike coal, oil or gas which >> brings up underground radioactivity and scatters it everywhere on the >> surface, damaging the DNA of life-forms, including ourselves, hydrogen >> will >> be the perfect non-polluting fuel. It will only be derived as part of the >> natural organic recycling processes which already takes place on the >> surface. >> >> The total amount of energy that will be able to be derived from solar >> power, >> via bacterial hydrogen, is prodigious -- at least several hundred times >> greater than all the energy that we presently produce from fossil fuels >> and >> other minor contributing technologies such as solar cells, wind power or >> nuclear power (which all have to be subsidized by governments for cost >> reasons -- and probably always will be). >> >> The commercial prospects are so enormous that, in America, Craig Venter's >> Institute and many other teams in academe and the US Department of Energy, >> as well as many other teams in England, Germany, China and Singapore are >> seeking a bacterium of minimal genetic size which will produce hydrogen as >> its main by-product (along with daughter-cells, of course!). A custom-made >> bacterium, fed with water, a few trace minerals and energized by sunlight >> would be able to make hydrogen all day long -- that is, all daylight day >> long! >> >> Because the commercial, as well as the humanistic, benefits of hydrogen >> are >> so fantastic then you can be sure that the search for the bacterium with >> the >> right blend of genes is already intensive. It isn't easy, however. >> Although >> there are many hundreds of different types of naturally occurring bacteria >> which already produce hydrogen for their own internal processes there are >> none as yet which, as it were, produce hydrogen free to air. >> >> One approach is to take an existing natural bacterium and trim its genes >> away one by one until all it can do is to produce hydrogen (and daughter >> cells from time to time!). The problem with this is that genes never act >> on >> their own but only in association with others. If an apparently >> unnecessary >> gene is trimmed away it might also stop another vital process. Another, >> entirely opposite, approach is to find a natural bacterium with the >> smallest >> number of genes and then to add new ones. But, once again, the addition of >> a >> new hydrogen-producing gene might also cause other gene associations which >> will do something quite different and will absorb all the energy received >> from the sun and crowd out the hydrogen production. >> >> Complex though the problem is, the hydrogen-seeking geneticists are aided >> by >> a major fact of evolution. All the genes in a hydrogen-producing bacterium >> are found in all other life-forms (together with many more genes, of >> course). Thus there are hundreds more teams of research biologists which >> are >> also researching the same genes, albeit incidentally and in different >> contexts. There is constant feedback between all researchers in genetics. >> A >> discovery of one particular gene made by a "hydrogen team" in a lab on >> side >> part of the world might supply a vital piece of knowledge required by a >> team >> researching a human cancer on the opposite side. >> >> As a layman who takes an interest in genetics I can't possibly give an >> informed opinion of when the first hydrogen-producing bacterium will be >> realized. But the general tenor of opinion among biologists is that it >> cannot be far away, despite the complexities that are involved. It might >> be >> anytime from now onwards. I would guess that it is highly likely to be >> achieved within 10 years and certainly within 50. >> >> Just like agriculture 10,000 years ago or industrialization 300 or so >> years >> ago the new biological era of energy will not come overnight, despite its >> overwhelming advantages. And, like the previous two eras, it will in due >> course probably bring about the most radical transformation in the way we >> work and live. My breakfast is calling me urgently so I won't attempt to >> try >> and discuss this further here. Suffice it to say, however, that because >> energy will be able to be produced anywhere on earth with a respectable >> amount of sunshine, then the new energy technology is likely, in my view, >> to >> cause a long-term dispersal of habitations and work places out of the >> concentrated urban settings we have today and towards smaller communities >> again. >> >> Keith >> >> _______________________________________________ >> Futurework mailing list >> [email protected] >> https://lists.uwaterloo.ca/mailman/listinfo/futurework >> >> > > > > -- > Sandwichman > > _______________________________________________ > Futurework mailing list > [email protected] > https://lists.uwaterloo.ca/mailman/listinfo/futurework > > _______________________________________________ > Futurework mailing list > [email protected] > https://lists.uwaterloo.ca/mailman/listinfo/futurework > -- Sandwichman _______________________________________________ Futurework mailing list [email protected] https://lists.uwaterloo.ca/mailman/listinfo/futurework _______________________________________________ Futurework mailing list [email protected] https://lists.uwaterloo.ca/mailman/listinfo/futurework
