Ludwig van Beethoven's Triple Concerto Performed by the Chung Trio and Sudwestfunks Symphony
Above, something from 1984 to accompany this appalling news — Most US students think Beethoven is a dog. These are "young Americans entering university this year," mind you, who also "can't write in cursive."
Labels: America the Beautiful, Classical Music, Corea, Decline and Fall, Deutschland, Miseducation
5 Comments:
It is pretty sad that the dog movie is better known. Yet Beethoven's music is used in several movies a year (a notable recent use was in the Nicolas Cage movie "Knowing"). I think one problem may be that kids are pressured to "learn" music before they learn to love music. They get turned off by the difficulty of classical music. Just a guess.
Is there any correspondence with incoming college kids in S. Korea? Or is this just an American thing?
I wasn't mature enough to "get" much classical music until I was out of college. So, I wouldn't despair of these youngsters yet.
No correspondence with kids in S. Korea. Although most of them don't like or get classical music, they at least no who Beethoven is, and probably would recognize "Fur Elise" as least.
Many of them do like classical music, though. I once had a non-credit presentation skills that dwindled down to about five male students at the end of the semester, all of the science and engineering grad students. One of them did a 25-minute presentation (for no credit mind you) on Glenn Gould's two radically different recordings, in 1955 and 1982, of J.S. Bach's Goldberg Variations. An impromtu 50-minute discussion of classical music followed. One of the most amazing classes I ever presided over, and I didn't prepare a thing.
That is a beautiful story, Josh. I've sorta been there myself in other ways.
The best, I guess, we can ever hope for as profs is to merely "preside".
Cheers and pints galore. Come to NYC already!
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