1427. Astral music

One of the most striking features of the Aliens that arrived on Earth was their humility. They had gone to the trouble of learning our language (well, Spanish and Cantonese at least). They brought gifts of books of literature and science and CDs of music. They were intelligent, creative, and highly courteous. In short, they were wonderful ambassadors for their planet.

Of course, in the main, the Earthlings were not very impressed with them. The Alien literature wasn’t as good as Earth’s. Where was their Shakespeare? Who were their great scientists, such as Newton and Einstein? And as for their music… Oh goodness me! What incomprehensible nonsense!

What did the aliens think of Bach and Mozart and Beethoven? Wasn’t Earth’s music more heavenly? More expressive? Such a rich heritage!

The Aliens explained that their music was different for all sorts of reasons, but so as not to be arrogant, they were leaving three of their more notable pianists behind so they could study Earth’s classical music in greater depth. So stay behind on Earth they did.

The first thing the Earthlings did was to chop off nineteen of each Alien’s fingers. If you are going to play Beethoven properly you can’t do it with twenty-nine fingers.

935. An invisible epidemic

Octavia Pankhurst Gorring-Wilson had a mission in life. It was a calling; a vocation, if you wish. Octavia Pankhurst Gorring-Wilson was one of those relatively rare beings: a feminist musicologist. Her mission in life was to get banned every skerrick of music written in sonata form.

There was good reason for it. For too long Haydn, Mozart, Beethoven, and most composers since, had got away with blue murder. Not murder exactly; but they had disguised their misogynist bigotries in veils of invisibility.

Everything in sonata form – sonatas themselves, and most symphonies, concertos… – all followed the same course: they were designed for patriarchal subjugation and domestication of the feminine.

This may need a little explaining, but Octavia Pankhurst Gorring-Wilson delighted in explaining. A sonata has two tunes; each in its own key. The first tune is masculine and the second tune is feminine. BUT by the end of the sonata the feminine tune is in the same key as the male tune. The SHE has been vanquished. The female has been made to sing in the same key as the male. She has been made to stand henceforth at the kitchen sink. She has been cruelly subjugated by these composers who don’t and didn’t give a tiddlywink about women’s issues, but walk roughshod over the aspirations of half of society.

Octavia Pankhurst Gorring-Wilson was all for banning ALL music and starting again. Good luck, Octavia.

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