No, there most likely isnt an objective basis for the claim, since most people making the claim would only be those who listen to classical music. Most people consider the genre of music they most listen to "the best." And while actual data may be had to what is most popular, trying to solidify an objective claim to what is "best" seems more difficult.
Eh. Michelangelo's
David is a masterpiece, period. If you think it is ugly, your taste needs to be trained. We can say the same things for pieces of classical music. Regardless of establishing criteria, in the same way some sermons are better than other sermons, clearly there is a sound basis of aesthetic judgment. In the same way one athlete's form is objectively superior to another, so we can evaluate music and feel strong grounds for doing so. Just like one woman or man is more beautiful than the other; one equation more elegant and simple than another; one dance more tightly choreographed than another; one story more resolutely and skillfully plotted than another, etc. . .
Taylor Swift or Bach? It isn't a contest.
Some good things have been said here, my favorite empiricist, David Hume:
https://home.csulb.edu/~jvancamp/361r15.html
After speaking of a sommelier who noticed something in the wine, demonstrating his superb taste:
"Though it be certain, that beauty and deformity, more than sweet and bitter, are not qualities in objects, but
belong entirely to the sentiment, [and metaphysically, Christians wouldn't even say that, but read on ] internal or external; it must be allowed, that there are certain qualities in objects, which are fitted by nature to produce those particular feelings. Now as these qualities may be found in a smaller degree, or may be mixed and confounded with each other, it often happens, that the taste is not affected with such minute qualities, or is not able to distinguish all the particular flavours, amidst the disorder, in which they are presented. Where the organs are so fine, as to allow nothing to escape them; and at the same time so exact as to perceive every ingredient in the composition: This we call delicacy of taste, whether we employ these terms in the literal or metaphorical sense.
Here then the general rules of beauty are of use; being drawn from established models, and from the observation of what pleases or displeases, when presented singly and in a high degree: And if the same qualities, in a continued composition and in a small degree, affect not the organs with a sensible delight or uneasiness, we exclude the person from all pretensions to this delicacy. To produce these general rules or avowed patterns of composition is like finding the key with the leathern thong; which justified the verdict of SANCHO's kinsmen, and confounded those pretended judges who had condemned them. Though the hogshead had never been emptied, the taste of the one was still equally delicate, and that of the other equally dull and languid: But it would have been more difficult to have proved the superiority of the former, to the conviction of every by-stander. In like manner, though the beauties of writing had never been methodized, or reduced to general principles; though no excellent models had ever been acknowledged; the different degrees of taste would still have subsisted, and the judgment of one man had been preferable to that of another; but it would not have been so easy to silence the bad critic, who might always insist upon his particular sentiment, and refuse to submit to his antagonist.
But when we show him an avowed principle of art; when we illustrate this principle by examples, whose operation, from his own particular taste, he acknowledges to be conformable to the principle; when we prove, that the same principle may be applied to the present case, where he did not perceive or feel its influence: He must conclude, upon the whole, that the fault lies in himself, and that he wants the delicacy, which is requisite to make him sensible of every beauty and every blemish, in any composition or discourse."
If you can be validated making aesthetic judgment on empirical grounds,
how much more, might a Christian, who has the metaphysics to back it up.
Yes, and it's not hard. I'll let others more versed in music theory approach it from a technical angle. I acknowledge David's point that "better" is often glossed as meaning what I like, but that is not properly the meaning. Nor are all evaluations of better or worse purely subjective, postmodernism notwithstanding. It's helpful to remember C. S. Lewis on all these points. He had a good breakfast; he enjoyed that (which is also good); enjoying a good breakfast did not make him a good man.
Classical music contains a rich tradition of deep thought, profound feeling, intense innovation, and demands of exquisite technical excellence. Whether you like it or not is irrelevant; it takes a tremendous amount of cultural capital and hard work to attain those heights, and instances of staggering genius are not uncommon. There are some good things that are only attainable through rigor in multiple dimensions. Concentrations of intelligence, skill, and excellence in the service of beauty are good. Many pieces (not all) furthermore express some excellent quality: like the heroism of the Egmont overture.
Of course the world of classical music is filled with sinners; at times depravity shines through, you have people who desire to subvert or destroy it, you have empty and pretentious types, etc. That's true in all the arts, as the sale of the duct-tape banana piece demonstrates adequately. It can happen that when high culture has been hollowed out and diseased, folk culture has more health. In our day, of course, folk culture faces the challenge of being commodified and mass-produced in new ways which can denature its folk character. Inevitably there are liminal cases. Regina Spektor is better than Alban Berg, and it isn't even close.
If God is the "overflowing fountain of all good" then the aesthetic good, the beautiful, is also found in God. In our oddity of a world under a curse, the aesthetic and the moral good do not always go together. And when a choice must be made, the moral good is to be preferred. But our capacity to respond to beauty is not immoral, nor is its cultivation. The aesthetic goodness of God is reflected in various degrees and in different ways in different elements of creation and their use (1 Corinthians 15:40-41). It's to be expected that some works of art, musical or otherwise, express that goodness in a particularly concentrated or elevated degree. Anything else would be an egalitarian anomaly in a world marked by differentiation.
really well said, well said.
