Book on Genius Out.

The Wall Street Journal ^ | 23 Oct 03 | GARY ROSEN

[sbw123]

The Best and Brightest Charles Murray tries to quantify "Human Achievement."

BY GARY ROSEN Thursday, October 23, 2003 12:01 a.m.

In our age of overused superlatives, none stands in greater need of rehabilitation than "genius," a title that Leonardo now shares with such eminences as Warren Buffett and Eminem. Charles Murray's rough-and-ready test is whether an individual's work makes us ask, in wonder, "How can a human being have done that?" But he doesn't stop there. Incorrigible social scientist that he is, Mr. Murray wants to prove that supreme excellence actually exists in the arts and sciences. The result is "Human Accomplishment," a systematic effort to rate and rank the likes of Aristotle, Mozart and Einstein and to describe the conditions that have allowed them to flourish. Much of this brick of a book is devoted to explaining, in tiresome detail, just how Mr. Murray goes about quantifying the seemingly unquantifiable. His trick is to consult the experts--or, rather, to distill usable numbers from their encyclopedias, anthologies, general histories and biographical dictionaries. An individual making an appearance in at least 50% of the selected sources for a given field wins the label "significant figure." By Mr. Murray's reckoning, there have been 4,002 such "people who matter" in the period 800 B.C. to 1950. Each member of this Pantheon gets an "index score" on a 100-point scale, based on how much attention--pages, column inches, etc.--he receives in the specialist literature.

[Old Professer]

Actually, his father expected him to be a cleric like himself while his mother smothered him with excuses.

[per loin]

90

[Protagoras]

Maybe, depends on the question. It is a good answer though. It can me used in many instances, sometimes incorrect, sometimes correct.

I use it all the time. Usually for the $25,000 option.

[Protagoras]

Here's one. If each pork tenderloin costs $45, and you order two, how much for dinner?

[Protagoras]

Bonus question, if two cost $90, how much per loin?

[patton]

Cogito, ergo sum...

Microft Holmes.

[Protagoras]

Cogito, ergo sum... Microft Holmes.

Do I make you horny baby?.....Austin Powers

[patton]

No. I found that movie stupid. How about you?

[patton]

Besides, neither did Microft Holmes. Exist, that is. He was just a figment of your imagination... but you knew that.

Or maybe you did not...

[SamAdams76]

and Beethoven and Mozart in music

What about J.S. Bach? He was the greatest of them all.

[Freakazoid]

There is a really annoying "Public Service Announcement" that goes something like "Stupid kids are really brilliant- they just learn differently".

Like saying "All kids are fast - they just run differently"

[macamadamia]

I have to agree with you about Bach. I'll commit a bit of blasphemy by saying that Beethoven at times gets on my nerves and Mozart, here and there, is a little too sweet. But, Bach's genius never fails to make the hair on my neck stand up; I find it almost frightening at times. Not that I'm denying the genius of Beethoven and Mozart. Incidently, when I was young, I soaked up 19th century music, particularly late Romantic stuff and its culmination (IMO)with Mahler. But now I find myself avoiding it or being fussy about it. All in all, Bach is among a truly select few, one of the towering geniuses of the last 500 years, at least. His music makes me think too many others are sharing the label "genius."

[patton]

Do you remember "switched on bach"?

[macamadamia]

I'm not sure. Is that the PDQ Bach guy, Schickele, I think?

[Richard Kimball]

bump for later

[patton]

Nah, it was walter mooge.

[macamadamia]

Now I do, vaguely. The synthesizer guy, right? For a second, I was afraid you might have been referring to that period when classical pieces were discofied.

[patton]

It was the guy that invented the synthesizer.

[SamAdams76]

I came into classical music late in the game. I was 35 years old when I first gave classical music a serious try - I bought Beethoven's 9th, Mozart's Requiem and Bach's Brandenburg Concertos - those were my first three classical music purchases. Right away, Bach's Brandenburg's caught my ear. They were very addictive.

Six years later, I own over 150 recordings of Bach and I still haven't absorbed it all. His output was astonishing. Over 200 cantatas alone (not including all those that were lost). He wasn't just a genius, he was almost superhuman. How could a mere mortal create a body of work such as that? I honestly feel that his music will continue to be heard 1,000 years from now. Why not? It's now almost 300 years since his first compositions and they are more popular than ever.

I am listening to "Art of Fugue" as I write this. This is a very sublime work that rewards, or rather, requires, repeated listening. Some of Bach's works are immediately accessible while others you really need to work at to fully appreciate.

We are very fortunate to be living in this time as we can listen to Bach (or any of the other composers) virtually whenever we want. Many thousands of recordings are readily available to us on CD, MP3 or DVD. Back in Bach's day, you had to travel to a concert or play the music yourself in order to hear it. Bach himself walked nearly 100 miles as a young man just to hear a certain organist play (Buxtehude, I believe).

With all this access to music, it makes you wonder why there aren't any great composers of classical music today. Guess they are too busy listening to the music to find time to create any of their own! Also, there are so many diversions and distractions in modern times. Back in Bach's day, there was pretty much nothing for him to do except work with his music. He was able to focus on his craft day and night (when he wasn't making babies - he fathered something like 15 children).

I also like Beethoven a lot, I would place him second of all time, ahead of Mozart, who as you say, can be "too pretty" at times. I do like Mozarts operas and piano concertos for the most part but some of his symphonies, divertimentos and other orchestral music was clearly mailed in. He was passionate about the opera and his piano and that is where I think his best music comes from.

19th Century music leaves me kind of cold. I much prefer music of the Baroque from Monteverdi to Bach, including Handel, Vivaldi and Telemann. Classical music is pretty good too, up to about Schubert. I am not too fond of most classical music after about 1825, with the exception of Wagner, Verdi (great operas) and to a lesser extent, Mahler, who had some pretty interesting symphonies.

[macamadamia]

Interesting points. Your point about today's great composers is one I've been puzzling over for a long time. I think there have been great ones over the course of the previous century, but of the magnitude of Bach, I still don't think so. I tend to think that we have to look at blocks of time greater than centuries, which seems to be the tendency. Maybe 500 year blocks of time. I also think it might be a mistake for today's culture to assume we have our own Bach, Michelangelo, etc. There's no obvious reason to believe this. We might simply be in a time that has not produced a Bach. Maybe we've changed profoundly, such that we are not attuned to this kind of talent anymore. Who knows?

There's a fantastic chapter about genius in James Gleick's (sp?) bio about Richard Feynman. Its a chapter about genius and it raises the questions you have raised.