History is the Commonly Accepted Lie

it takes a PhD in philosophy to "try" to say something sensible about this topic...

thallo wrote:

you need a PhD in philosophy to "try" to say something sensible about this topic...

Voltaire was probably right

Jokes aside, true history is lived by men; the history we read, instead, is written by men... who do not move solely for the sake of truth. There are interests at play regarding this, and it is not guaranteed that finding the truth is beneficial

thallo wrote:

you need a PhD in philosophy to "try" to say something sensible about this topic...

i would add, for the sake of music history, that my opinion is that "truth" has nothing to do with history. It is a limiting concept toward which one can at most strive, but as far as I am concerned, even no... this does not mean that everything that is not "truth" is a "lie". Historical concepts—those of fact, testimony, and document—are far from "truth"

There is also the "commonly accepted" [part/view] that leaves me a bit like this, it provides that there is also awareness ... but on whose part?

excellent observation, Abate. The idea that history is a conscious scholarly construction is also wrong for this reason. The issue is complex and requires looking at the ways in which men understand, communicate, and learn. History is an automatic reduction, conveyed by narratives, which are, themselves, reductions. But that's the language, baby

It must be said that some things were and will be built after the fact.

Think of Area 51

To go to the history of music, and to more complicated scenarios, think of Sibelius. In his lifetime he was hailed as a genius, especially by the "market", and in Anglo-Saxon countries + USA he has been played uninterruptedly by the greatest orchestras. Then in the '50s Leibowitz writes an essay in which he defines him the worst composer of all time, Boulez increases the dose and almost the entire avant-garde forgets him, hailing composers of little success like Webern. Now, those who studied music history in the '90s, for one, probably read a lot of Boulez, a lot of Leibowitz and a lot of "post-Darmstadt", and perhaps they could have easily asserted that Sibelius was an unimportant composer. With statements like these, reality itself changes, because those who studied during that period might today decide the seasons of the great theaters. Berio taught at Juilliard in New York and practically acted as a filter for the reception of contemporary Italian music. He chose what to make people listen to and it stopped there... How to say, even without international conspiracies, there are normal activities of thought, choice, opinion, that greatly change the perception we have of history

...it took Voltaire to understand it...bless him!!!

Truly interesting topic, which I had missed.