What Europe gave to the world?

@helenS
1 what?
2 analyze this
3 who cares
4 wtf who cares
5 whoopty Doo
6 make my ears bleed
7 gag
8 useless.

😂

@SW-User Ignorance is not a European virtue. 😐️

@helenS 😄 ooch

@helenS Beethoven. Well, he did write one opera so you're covered.

@alan20 Mozart wrote 22.

@helenS Or the same one 22 times (unfair). Did you know he invented a system where a multitude of thematic snippets could be combined in any random order and always emerge as "music"?

@alan20 isn't that what music is?

@SW-User No. Its something you express your heartbreak and anguish through.

@alan20 lol, what about happiness and joy?

@SW-User That's possible too. All kinds of things are, depending on what you're momentarily open to.

@alan20 That snippet thing is a myth.
The Magic Flute does not consist of "snippets".
🤬

@alan20 "Its something you express your heartbreak and anguish through.
— I beg to disagree.

@helenS My friend, I played about with it for a while in music college. It's not specific to his operas. The Magic Flute is largely about Freemasonry symbolism. I prefer Don Giovanni; Enjoyable when he gets dragged down to the fires of hell by his victim's ghost.

@alan20 Music was not given to us to merely express our heartbreaks. Its essential purpose is to express the beauty of the universe (and maybe its creator?).

@helenS It was not given to us. We made it up. I don't believe it has one purpose. I wouldn't deny beauty, but its not the primary purpose of Debussy's La Fille aux Cheveux de Lin (yearning), the 3rd. movement of Rachmaninov's 2nd. Symphony (home-sickness), the 1st. movement of Malcolm Arnold's 6th. Symphony (tantrums of a teenage daughter), a sexy Offenbach operetta..... I may be too decadent for you.

@alan20 You're not decadent. I am an admirer of contemporary music.

@helenS Listen to that Arnold piece after the 2nd. Symphony slow mvt. They'll grow on you. He was a schizophrenic who kept pulling his trousers back up.

@alan20 I need a source.

@helenS I'm not very computer literate. I listen mainly via cd's and streaming from Primephonic but it can be got free via Spotify. They don't usually break into classical tracks with their cursed ads. Try last movement of Arnold's Clarinet Concerto2 and see if it produces a smile or gets your foot tapping. I'm currently hooked on Sym7/mvt1 but it takes time to grow on you. If you fancy desolation, English lyricism, isolation - try Sym2/mvt3. His 3-hand piano concerto reminds me of Poulenc - English wit as opposed to Gallic. Please don't send me psychiatrist bills. Go to it girl and give it a chance.

@alan20 "Go to it girl and give it a chance.

— Ok Sir, I found symphony No. 1, No. 2, and No. 5 on Apple Music. I'll listen to it and tell you what I think.

(PS Of course we did not "invent" music. We didn't invent language either.)

@SW-User It must have been disappointing to your parents for you not to finish high school. 😏