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A Little Music
Jay Nordlinger, in an article in New Criterion, quotes William Fedkenheuer. Fedkenheuer is a classical violinist, fiddler, teacher, and consultant for individuals, groups, and organizations. Referred to as a “badass,” he uses his unique style to empower musicians.
Inspired to Impact Music Education
Mr. Nordlinger quotes Mr. Fedkenheuer at length, before expanding on it himself:
“From the folk music idioms hidden within Mozart’s “Dissonance” Quartet to the Spanish influence in the Castelnuovo-Tedesco and the outwardly bold Boccherini Quintet finishing with the “Fandango” movement—what an adventure!
Boccherini throws in the sistrum (an ancient Egyptian musical instrument) and the castanets to keep us all on our toes.
Having grown up in Calgary, Alberta, Canada—a region filled with cowboys and fiddle music, similar to my home state of Texas these days—I am thrilled to hear the rhythms and flirtatious themes that I experienced in country-western music showing up in the classical music to which I have dedicated my life.
While our world can be so separate and divided, how rich and diverse is classical music as it weaves us through time, cultures, and a global landscape, bringing us all together on a grand tour of the world.”
Anti-Humane
Mr. Nordlinger asks, what is culture without “appropriating?”
Without borrowings and leavenings and influences? Art is meant to cross borders. An insistence that art be confined within borders, or tribes, is anti-artistic, and I would say anti-humane.
Michael Dirda is a literary critic. In late July, shortly after the Miró Quartet concert, Mr. Dirda had this to say in The Washington Post, where Dirda works:
[T]he evolution of literature and the other arts, their constant renewal over the centuries, has always been fueled by what is now censoriously labeled “cultural appropriation” but which is more properly described as “influence,” “inspiration” or “homage.” Poets, painters, novelists, and other artists all borrow, distort and transform. That’s their job; that’s what they do.
That’s what they do, and may it continue.
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