Imagine that a ghost arrives on Earth who erases all music of the past. Every score, every recording, every history book, every performance of every single piece of music written in the past is suddenly and mysteriously vanished. You can recall names of great composers (e.g. Mozart, Handel) but you can recall nothing of their artistic contributions. What is now available is only music of the present day in October 2020.

First, discuss any ethical implications of playing music exclusively of the past. Then please write about the music you would then perform on your instrument and include any links to this music, if possible. Why are you including the music you select? Finally, offer your cogent opinion on this quote from Nietzsche:

If you are to venture to interpret the past, you can only do so out of the fullest exertion of the present. Only when you put forth your noblest qualities in all their strength will you divine what is worth knowing and preserving in the past. Like to like! Otherwise, you will draw the past down on you.

 

Playing music exclusively from the past completely disregards the human development of art. Realistically there is nothing so significant or special about the past to warrant musical worship and the halting of creativity in the present day. If we stuck to only playing music of the past we would have never gotten such great strides in musical understanding like we had in the renaissance and baroque eras. Ethically we must allow for the further diversification of music for art to truly evolve and maintain its relevancy in the modern day.

An artist’s music I would perform that is from the modern day is the music of Jacob Collier. His newest album released this year has two songs in particular that I would love to play for people to help diversify the musical palate of today’s popular music. The two songs in question are Time Alone With You (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2qUCyW7ewPs) and He Won’t Hold You (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OnA5po3ASyI). The first being a wonderful example of playing with tonality and our interpretation of even temperament and the second having a spoken word interlude that challenges how we expect lyrics to sound in our present day pop music.

The quote speaks about the idea that in order to interpret and learn from the past you must first understand the present. Without a proper point of reference to what is today, you can never truly see what was the past. Furthermore if you just look the past without comparing and relating to the present day you are doomed to see only one perspective and have the contents of the past consume you. This sentiment is extremely relevant to artists who’s work is a reflection of their world surrounding them.