by Kurt Knecht | Oct 20, 2011 | cars, Chevy Nova, Crown Victoria, Tampa, Uncategorized, Volkwagen Rabbit
When we started dating, I had a white ’76 Chevy Nova with mag wheels. The car fit my personality like an over-sized jacket, and I had to stretch out my machismo just to get my hands past the cuff links. When my dad first bought the...
by Kurt Knecht | Oct 19, 2011 | Uncategorized
The reprise of my own idiocy has struck again in what is becoming an all to familiar litany of stories. I could be an idiot-savant if I could just get the savant part down. This time it occurred as follows:I was playing for several members of a horn studio...
by Kurt Knecht | Oct 18, 2011 | cheesecake, Dalhaus, J.S. Bach, Picasso, Stokowski, T.S. Eliot, Uncategorized
So the big question that has to be answered is: Is form separable from content in an art object as St. Augustine seems to suggest. I confess that I haven’t been able to puzzle out all of the questions in this problem. There is somewhere that Carl Dalhaus (I...
by Kurt Knecht | Oct 17, 2011 | Blanchot, Heidegger, Iyer, St. Augustine, Uncategorized
My good friend, Brian McMillan passed along a lovely passage today. It is from Lars Iyer’s book The Birth of Philosophy in Poetry: Blanchot, Char, Heraclitus. It’s a nice alternative to the art object as a vehicle for carrying content theory.”As for...
by Kurt Knecht | Oct 16, 2011 | Uncategorized
In anticipation of the upcoming premiere, I’m continuing some translating work for the programs. This is the first text in the new Rilke song cycle from his Stundenbuch. The poems are written from the perspective of a medieval monk.Ich lebe mein Leben in...
by Kurt Knecht | Oct 12, 2011 | church music, John Calvin, St. Augstine, Uncategorized
In one of the more famous passages of the Confessions, St. Augustine’s brings his “coffee cup theory of art” (which you can read about here) to church with mixed results.“Yet again, when I remember the tears I shed at the Psalmody of Thy Church, in the beginning of my...
by Kurt Knecht | Oct 11, 2011 | aesthetics, art, coffee, St. Augustine, Uncategorized
St. Augustine’s views of art will take some time to tackle. He was certainly one of the most powerful and influential minds for the shaping of Western thought. In general, he tends to borrow much of his language and starting points from the neo-Platonists and Plotinus...
by Kurt Knecht | Oct 9, 2011 | Uncategorized
I had the lovely surprise this weekend of discovering that the UNL Chamber Singers under the direction of Dr. Therees Hibbard were performing an older work of mine on a concert. As always, they sang with beautiful expressive intent. Thanks for creating such a...
by Kurt Knecht | Oct 8, 2011 | Barrett, Cornell West, Feynman, Plotinus, Uncategorized
Whilst traversing the modest byways between two Universities on Lincoln’s adequate public transportation system, I have been re-reading some of Plotinus’ Ennead. I am certainly struck by the profound and detailed supernal vision he describes. It is easy to see why St....
by Kurt Knecht | Sep 24, 2011 | Uncategorized
Plotinus (c. 200-270 BCE) was a neo-Platonist that developed the first real metaphysic of beauty. As you might expect, his ideas about beauty are wrapped up in Platonic ideals. The true beauty is found in the Ideal, and the concrete object gives us a reflection of the...
by Kurt Knecht | Sep 19, 2011 | Aristotle, conductors, flute, Ke$ha, Uncategorized
In Politics, there is a passage where Aristotle spends some time on what sort of music we should include in the education of children. He takes some wonderful pot-shots at the flute and flutists in general. Some of my favorite gems include: “…the flute is not an...
by Kurt Knecht | Sep 13, 2011 | Uncategorized
In the Poetics, Aristotle gives us one of the first (if not the first) introduction to the idea that there is an economy in works of art. He says, “For that which makes no perceptible difference by its presence or absence is no real part of the whole.” I don’t believe...
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