Beautifully said.
(The human experience has so much potential. It is a shame we are so destructive, given what we are capable of creating)

Also glad to hear my lack of appreciation of Mahler may be justified.

Miles Davis is one of my favorite jazz musicians (among many), and I keep encountering music critics who rave about his, “Bitches Brew” double album. I bought the CD. I played the 1st song. It was awful. I played the 2nd. Same thing. I fast forwarded within songs. Same thing. I put it on a shelf. About 10 years later I was about to go on a long, car trip through an area of the country with poor radio reception. I remembered the “Bitches Brew” CD (and had since read several other, glowing reviews of it) and thought this would be a good opportunity to listen to the entire album. Surely it was great, I just wasn’t able to discern its greatness in the brief, 10 minutes I had listened.

On that car trip I listened to the entire album. It actually got worse as it played on. I wonder if any of the jazz critics who wrote glowing reviews have ever listened to the whole thing. Emperor’s New Clothes, indeed.

I am a great fan of jazz and I also like the stuff that gets cataloged as “The American Song Book.” I definitely hear some of that in Debussy. I’m not sure who, or what the “Moderns” are vis a vis Classical music, but Debussy was definitely experimenting with chord structures that became popular in many types of jazz music.

Old-fashioned ballets from previous centuries have storylines that reflect those centuries and their sensibilities, about gender and otherwise. Much like opera or novels from previous times.

But the male/female differences in ballet are baked into the cake of the physical differences in the male and female body. The physiology (flexibility, strength, pelvis shape, etc.) is very different, and the choreography reflects this. It’s not an equal opportunity politically correct matter.

There are tons of Asian and Hispanic dancers in the US. Black dancers, less so. That is at least in part because, for many reasons, black children just don’t tend to take ballet at the very young ages necessary. Ballet is a game of numbers; only a few make it to the top, so for there to be a pool of excellent ballet dancers in a certain group, a LOT of dancers of that group must take lessons, because the vast majority will be winnowed out, black or white or purple.

What’s more (and this isn’t talked about too much), although there are many black people with bodies suited for ballet, the necessary or ideal body type (especially in the hip/pelvis area, for perfect turnout) is less common among black women. So that makes it a bit harder, although not impossible.

I saw Dance Theater of Harlem many times, from its inception, and enjoyed it. See this for a short documentary.

Wonderful post. I enjoy your posts about dance.

I just attended my first ballet – saw Joffrey’s Swan Lake about a week ago …. simply breathtaking and sublime.

I’m new to this art form and while “google researching” on it I stumbled on this: http://aballeteducation.com/2014/10/28/some-of-the-ugly-truths-about-ballet-and-then-some/

What do you think, neo-neocon?

Rufus – Mahler might be the naked emperor. I suspect that one day everyone’s going to admit they don’t like him. Is Debussy a Romantic – Debussy is Debussy. I think that he thought about music completely differently from anyone before him. Stylistically, he’s probably got more in common with the moderns, but that’s only an analogy.

The Romantic composers are hit and miss with me. I really like Liszt, Chopin, Debussy (was he a Romantic?) and Beethoven has some amazing stuff (but some of his stuff is too Romantic, Wagnery, for my tastes). I keep thinking I should like Mahler, but every time I try to listen I’m bored.

Mozart was truly brilliant. I probably listen to Mozart, Bach, Vivaldi, Tchaikovsky and Rossini most (I tend to like the fast-paced, joyous stuff).

My favorite composers are a little idiosyncratic, and somewhat ballet-oriented. I do like Bach very much, but the others are Handel, Tchaikovsky, Chopin (I LOVE Chopin), Dvorak, and Janacek. Note the two Czechs, the Pole, and the Russian. Heavy on the Eastern Europeans, for some reason.

The contemporary appraisal of classical composers is always changing, and I do think that Tchaikovsky’s stock is going to surge in the next few decades.

Every debate about who is the greatest composer revolves around three or four names. (Bach, Mozart, Beethoven, and sometimes Wagner.) There are moments listening to the first three at least where you think “there is no better music than this”. I think there are moments in Tchaikovsky with the same feeling. I don’t think Tchaikovsky is quite up there with Bach and the others, but I wish more people would think of him that way. It seems like he’s a generation away from being held in that level of regard.