This is not about the Capulets and Montagues, with the sad story of love between opposing tribes. My 1887 home here in Colorado, even has a “Juliet Porch” (literally) which is a small second floor porch where Juliet supposedly can speak to her lover below. The Victorians used Shakespeare to name their porch! No, this is about music, and the comparison between two pieces of classical music, both with the same title, and that is an Overture to Romeo and Juliet. The two are as far apart, as is paper money and gold today. The first written was by Peter Ilyich Tchaikovsky, who lived between 1840 and 1893. The second and much later, is by Sergei Prokofeiv, who lived between 1891 and 1953. Both were Russian, so the huge difference is not because of different nationalities.
Tchaikovsky wrote majestic, wonderful music, and his Romeo and Juliet can bring on goosebumps. It is so splendid, harmonious, and dramatic, that it can make one weep with joy from the overwhelming beauty of the piece. The Prokofeiv Romeo and Juliet, Suites one and two, are a clashing, banging, dissonant, clamorous, anger producing, abuse of musical instruments. The Prokofeiv makes one sick just to listen, at least to me anyway, and the Tchaikovsky is breathtaking in its sheer beauty and harmony. If you ever go to symphony concerts, you’ll always notice that the Tchaikovsky, Brahms, Beethoven, Mozart, Bach, and the like, are always after intermission, and the garbage dissonance is in the first part. Why? because if the dissonant, clashing, ugly, modern music were played after intermission, no one would stick around for the the second half! They’d leave after the beauty, and ignore modern composers’ lack of anything beautiful.
Picture the American scene during Tchaikovsky’s time. The mid 1800’s were glorious! We were prospering beyond anyone’s imagination, even though we lost 620,000 men in Lincoln’s War. We were inventing, manufacturing, exporting, and becoming more wealthy with the passing of each year. We had gold coins, silver coins, and gold backed dollars. We had few taxes, and microscopic debt. We were beautiful. True, the South had been butchered, but both the North and South were building wealth far faster than any nation on earth.
Then, look at America after Prokofiev died, and up to now. Has anyone written any really beautiful music since the turn of the century, other than Puccini, and Rachmaninoff, who are marvelous exceptions? Puccini’s operas are most wonderful of music, and Rachmaninoff’s piano concertos 1,2,3, and 4, are incredible. Today’s music is ugly, and beyond description, it is so gross, filthy, and talentless. Today, we have debts that couldn’t be imagined in Tchaikovsky’s day. In Tchaikovsky’s day, there had been no World Wars, and in Tchaikovsky’s time, the telephone, light bulb, motion picture, elevator, internal combustion engine, and a host of other things were invented. In his time and before, the great composers lived and turned out hundreds of supremely beautiful symphonies, concertos, and operas. Authors wrote great works of literature, and artists created timeless paintings.
Even in my church hymnbook, the hymns composed in the last fifty years can’t compare with those written in the 17th and 18th centuries. Rossini lived from 1792 to 1888, and composed many operas, including William Tell, whose overture introduced The Lone Ranger for decades. Berlioz lived from 1803 to 1869, and among his compositions are the opera Carmen. Saint Saens, born in 1835, wrote grand piano concertos, plus his Organ Symphony, is probably my favorite, since it has huge pipe organ parts. Modern composers such as Stravinsky, Bela Bartok, and Arnold Schoenberg, wrote music which to me is “noise,” which I define as ’unwanted sound.’
Old time economics, with gold and silver coins, and which were Constitutionally made during the period when great music was written, seem to me to be almost synonymous. As time moved on, civilization decayed as did music composition, morality, and all of the things which used to make America the most marvelous, prosperous nation on earth. America did have Arnold Copeland, who copied Indian melodies nicely, and Leonard Bernstein, who wrote the score for West Side Story, but their other works scream with dissonance. How did I get started on this? We went to Salt Lake City last weekend, as we love to do, and as usual, went to see and hear the Utah Symphony, which had as its first selection, the Prokofeiv Romeo and Juliet number. Ugh. My ears were ringing. Protect yourself with gold and silver, and by all means, collect the music of the great composers, who, with the exception of maybe two, all lived between the 1600’s (Bach, 1685-1750), and the late 1800’s.
P.S. Arizona, with the world’s second highest kidnapping rate, and other atrocities committed by millions of illegals, has signed into law, a statute making their presence illegal. Go to it guys! Hallelujah for one state. Is Texas next? It should be. The bumper strips I send out tout “Perry-Palin in 2012.” The Perry is Texas Governor Rick Perry, who would be my candidate for President. Since Texas and Arizona are separated by New Mexico, why don’t both enact Arizona’s law? Then the illegals could further pollute California, which will soon be called “Mexifornia,” if the trend continues.
P.S. to P.S. Another observation in my years of concert attendance: When gross, modern stuff is played, the vigorous applause comes from people I consider ultra liberal. You can recognize males with their beards, pony tails, blue jeans, and glasses. Honestly, I really do believe you can tell a person’s politics by their appearance!