Wednesday, January 26, 2005
The Gift That is Not Free
If what we know about Jacqueline du Pré, who would have been 60 today, is true, it suggests that being a prodigy does not come without a cost--in being cut off from people your own age, in loneliness, and in stunted emotional development and an inability to have "normal" relationships. But, then, there is the music which touches and provides joy for millions. Is that a fair tradeoff? It's human nature to want to know more about the lives of famous people but in the end does it really matter that DuPré remained forever a child, that Britten was a twit, or that Grainger was a masochist who liked being beaten to within an inch of his life? Or, even that Wagner was an antisemite? Great art doesn't care who makes it; it has a life that is larger than the individual.
posted by Jerry Bowles
8:57 AM
|