Monday, February 6, 2012

H.L. Mencken on L.V. Beethoven

Not sure if this quote made our new book, but Mencken did love Beethoven, and a lot of other Germanic things.  This quote comes from his writings related to the Scopes "Monkey Trial" (of course, Mencken became a key character in Inherit the Wind).  Here it is:  "His music survives because it lies outside the plane of the popular apprehension, like the colors beyond violet or the concept of honor.  If it could be brought within range, it would at once arouse hostility.  Its complexity would challenge; its lace of moral purpose would affright.   Soon there would be a movement to put it down, and Baptist clergymen would range the land denouncing it, and in the end some poor musician, taken in the un-American act of playing it, would be put on trial before a jury of Ku Kluxers, and railroaded to the calaboose."

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