Comments on: Highbrow, Lowbrow, Middlebrow

By: harold

harold — Wed, 28 Oct 2009 21:23:28 +0000

“Taste is like philosophy. It belongs to a very small number of privileged souls … It is unknown in bourgeois families, where one is constantly occupied with the care of one’s fortune”—Voltaire, Article on “Taste” in D’Alembert’s Encyclopedia.

By: Walt

Walt — Tue, 27 Oct 2009 21:35:40 +0000

What kind of half-assed arguing is this? The best defense of Adorno someone can muster is to clutch their pearls and bemoan the fallen state of Man? Adorno’s opinion of jazz was famously cretinous, almost as bad as that hilobrow site people keep linking to.

By: engels

engels — Tue, 27 Oct 2009 21:13:18 +0000

I am truly disappointed by the apparent near-consensus against Adorno on this blog.

Depressed? Yes. Disappointed? No. But after listening to the ‘Schiller to Hitler’ theory of German history expounded for the length of half a dozen posts, who really has the will to argue?

By: Henri Vieuxtemps

Henri Vieuxtemps — Sun, 25 Oct 2009 18:21:13 +0000

It’s Henri, with h muet. But yeah, I know, I know… I blame my mother, she just wasn’t determined enough.

By: harold

harold — Sun, 25 Oct 2009 18:14:50 +0000

I still think Peter Burke writes the best books about popular culture (though he writes mostly about the early modern period.)

Ironically, the Chinese and Soviets preserved and fostered bourgeois culture long after its demise in the West—I suppose bourgeois is not quite the same as “middle-brow” (a relative term), though. To my mind, the quintessential embodiment of middle brow is the New Yorker, whose good qualities (much derided at one time) became apparent as that magazine was about to go under.

Let us admit it, all three “brows” have their admirable and not-so-good aspects, and there is a continuous dynamic interchange among them.

By: John Emerson

John Emerson — Sun, 25 Oct 2009 17:49:15 +0000

You were so promising, too, Henry. I’ve never understood why you threw it all away.

By: Richard Cownie

Richard Cownie — Sun, 25 Oct 2009 09:40:18 +0000

“Jazz is lowbrow. It’s the middlebrows who took it over and declared it highbrow. Now it’s “America’s classical music.””

Swing is lowbrow. Bebop is highbrow. Preserving and reconstructing the ephemeral
jazz styles of 40 or 50 years ago is middlebrow.

By: Henri Vieuxtemps

Henri Vieuxtemps — Sun, 25 Oct 2009 09:35:34 +0000

Where I am from (a place where people live in small apartments) upright piano was the symbol of middlebrow. Grand piano in an apartment would mean that most likely a professional pianist lives here. My parents had an upright piano, I had to take lessons for 4 or 5 years, hated every minute of it.

By: Richard Cownie

Richard Cownie — Sun, 25 Oct 2009 09:22:54 +0000

If we’re discussing class and taste, let’s note that in England the upper class has always been
relentlessly philistine and middlebrow in its tastes, preoccupied with horses, dogs, drinking,
and sex, rather than any kind of intellectual pursuits. The Royal Family exemplifies this:
the Queen surrounded by corgis, Prince Charles lamenting that they don’t design buildings
like they used to, Princess Anne with her horses, and a host of embarrassing ex-spouses.
Not that there’s anything wrong with that.

By: harold

harold — Sun, 25 Oct 2009 06:01:32 +0000

Yes, my grandfather, with the first money he earned, bought his mother a player piano. Probably in 1910 or so.

I don’t remember if the Russian family in Derzu Usula had a piano, unfortunately. The book, by V.K. Arseniev, which I have in front of me, does not mention one.

What I miss about Bourgeois culture is how people used to sing all the time. Around the piano or not. In the car. Though by the time I was born my grandparents had given the famous baby grand piano that saved the family to my aunt, who majored in music education. My mother, who was not musical but loved music anyway, obtained a (cast off) upright and kept it in my room. She used to play and sing songs for me on it every night before bed. Twinkle, twinkle, Bach minuets and the like (her repertoire was limited). It was out of tune and she couldn’t sing, so I developed an ear for microtones. That wouldn’t happen now.

By: Substance McGravitas

Substance McGravitas — Sun, 25 Oct 2009 00:19:16 +0000

There’s a difference between stand-ups and grands though…

By: John Emerson

John Emerson — Sat, 24 Oct 2009 22:07:44 +0000

Harold, did I remember the piano right? It was such a stereotyped domestic scene, but maybe the piano was edited in by me.

By: John Emerson

John Emerson — Sat, 24 Oct 2009 22:06:47 +0000

Around here in Wobegon a lot of people learn piano, organ, or singing strictly for church reasons. It’s not especialy bourgeois or highbrow.

By: harold

harold — Sat, 24 Oct 2009 21:41:32 +0000

Dersu Uzula is one of my favorite movies.

By: harold

harold — Sat, 24 Oct 2009 21:40:09 +0000

You had to play the piano to get a job as a school teacher. It had a practical economic function for women, to whom other jobs were not easily open.

(Personally, I think it might be as good or better than having a video game console, though playing shoot ‘em-ups might get you a job as a “drone warrior” (hired hitman),