Summary:
As the title suggest, this section introduces the reader the topic of this book: musical taste. It begins by framing the notion of “musical taste” not as an objective standard, but as an ultimately subjective judgment—even if commonly accepted. A thorough, technical definition of “musical taste” is then offered. The introduction ends with a brief summary of the sections ahead, as divided into musical chapters and extra-musical interludes.
Supplements:
( Another example of anti-Beatles criticism )
Among other striking early criticisms of the Fab Four cited in Shaw’s article include that by William F. Buckley, an avid music fan and talented harpsichordist: "The Beatles are not merely awful, I would consider it sacrilegious to say anything less than that they are god-awful. They are so unbelievably horrible, so appallingly unmusical, so dogmatically insensitive to the magic of the art, that they qualify as crowned heads of anti-music."
( Fuller quotation of the anonymous English writer on “good taste” )
After quoting an essay on painting by Daniel Webb, a disciple of Hume – “Taste is a facility of the mind to be moved by what is excellent in art.” – the anonymous author continues:
“The standard of music is easily pointed out. That is the best music, which is composed with a view of exciting in our minds the noblest emotions, and which attains its object most effectually. No emotions are so noble and sublime as those that are connected with the adoration of the Supreme Being. Tried by this test, Handel is the greatest of composers whose works are familiar to an English ear.”
The only variable, therefore, is the degree to which “taste” is cultivated by a given listener – divided here into 3 levels: the lowest, “to whom nature has vouchsafed a music ear, but have entirely neglected its culture and improvement”; an intermediate, “whose characteristic is a vitiated or false taste… enamored of the dazzling and theatrical”; and the highest, “infinitely less numerous… which comprehends the only true judges of the art… who can distinguish in the instant propriety from extravagance, grace from affectation, and gold from tinsel.”
Principal Bibliography :
Nicolas Slonimsky, Lexicon of Musical Invective: Critical Assaults on Composers Since Beethoven’s Time (New York: W. W. Norton, 2000)
Matthias R. Mehl and James W. Pennebaker, “The Sounds of Social Life: A Psychometric Analysis of Students’ Daily Social Environments and Natural Conversations,” Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 84, no. 4 (2003)
Peter Rentfrow, “The Role of Music in Everyday Life: Current Directions in the Social Psychology of Music,” Social and Personality Psychology Compass 6, no. 5 (2012)
David Hume, Essays Moral, Political, Literary , ed. Eugene Miller (Indianapolis: Liberty Fund, 1985)
External Links:
On Beethoven and Musical Invective