Music Makes us not lonely Philosophers have said much about music, and among the various classes of the arts they often refer to it in particular for their highest praise. I will take here just one passage from Hegel. Hegel said: "If we can generally regard the activity in the field of beauty as the liberation of the soul, the process of getting rid of restrictions and inhibitions, because art, through the image to be observed, can soften all the most intense tragic fate and make it an object of appreciation, then it is music that puts this freedom to its highest point." This is Hegel's praise of music, in his "Lectures on Aesthetics". Schopenhauer, an equally important contemporary thinker, also regarded music as the highest among the various classes of art. Nietzsche had this view as well. Therefore, I have always thought that if we are to have a deep experience of our civilization, our history, our nation and even the destiny of mankind, we should have at least three kinds of cultivation: the cultivation of music, the cultivation of philosophy and the cultivation of poetry. These are the three highest spheres of human spiritual activity, and nothing is higher than them. In Western classical music, we can also feel the fate of intellectuals. What is the concept of "intellectual"? In the West, intellectuals are a group that, after the decline of the church in the middle century, replaced the church and took charge of the spiritual interpretation of the world. They used their theory or art to express the fateful process of the development of a new society.

They experience this destiny in a personal way. Many of the details, twists and turns of their personal lives are actually of universal significance, because they are genuine, they live their lives, and they are not ordained by society. They know where the society is going, so they can fight for the truth and do it. They used their personal destinies to experience and express the destinies of the peoples of Europe. This is also in a sense an important stage in the history of experiencing and expressing humanity. Thus, their world has not only a personal significance, and their biography has not only the significance of recording the daily trivialities of a great man, but also a universal projective significance. Like Nietzsche, many of the ups and downs and pains of his life were actually experienced on behalf of the whole European civilization in modern times, and he had a unique way of pre-experiencing the nihilistic symptoms of modern European civilization. His greatness is in this sense. He did not give the Europeans the truth, but he experienced their pain in advance. This is how we should look at Nietzsche, and this is how we should look at European classical music and its authors. In literature, too, why did Tolstoy suddenly leave home in his later years? Rather than looking for many individual causes, Tolstoy had been experiencing Russia's destiny through his own life when he began to write consciously. Modern European intellectuals experienced the fate of nations in their respective fields. Do such intellectuals still exist today? For this alone, we should look back and mourn. For today's people, there has been no universal spiritual value for us to pursue and strive for. So we have to admit that postmodernism tells the truth of the matter in a cruel way. We now listen to music by personal light, and think philosophy by personal light. In listening and thinking, we should not miss great works. They are the nourishment that makes it possible for our minds to be enriched and perhaps empowered. I think it is impossible to regenerate great composers in this day and age. Our age calls for great performers. Of all the players, the most important is the conductor, who performs the whole orchestra. These great conductors are great, because it is they that make the great works continue to live, live in our contemporary hearts. That's why I admire Celibidak so much. I had never heard a recording of his work before, only Karajan's. I used Karajan's ear to hear all the symphonies. Now I find that I have been taken to a higher and deeper level by a man named Celibidak. The sense of tragedy that he brings out is irresistible. Brahms's Fourth Symphony is a great tragic work, whose tragic character, under the baton of Celibidak, becomes an irresistible force that permeates everything around it.

Music Makes us not lonely Philosophers have said much about music, and among the various classes of the arts they often refer to it in particular for their highest praise. I will take here just one passage from Hegel. Hegel said: "If we can generally regard the activity in the field of beauty as the liberation of the soul, the process of getting rid of restrictions and inhibitions, because art, through the image to be observed, can soften all the most intense tragic fate and make it an object of appreciation, then it is music that puts this freedom to its highest point." This is Hegel's praise of music, in his "Lectures on Aesthetics". Schopenhauer, an equally important contemporary thinker, also regarded music as the highest among the various classes of art. Nietzsche had this view as well. Therefore, I have always thought that if we are to have a deep experience of our civilization, our history, our nation and even the destiny of mankind, we should have at least three kinds of cultivation: the cultivation of music, the cultivation of philosophy and the cultivation of poetry. These are the three highest spheres of human spiritual activity, and nothing is higher than them. In Western classical music, we can also feel the fate of intellectuals. What is the concept of "intellectual"? In the West, intellectuals are a group that, after the decline of the church in the middle century, replaced the church and took charge of the spiritual interpretation of the world. They used their theory or art to express the fateful process of the development of a new society.

They experience this destiny in a personal way. Many of the details, twists and turns of their personal lives are actually of universal significance, because they are genuine, they live their lives, and they are not ordained by society. They know where the society is going, so they can fight for the truth and do it. They used their personal destinies to experience and express the destinies of the peoples of Europe. This is also in a sense an important stage in the history of experiencing and expressing humanity. Thus, their world has not only a personal significance, and their biography has not only the significance of recording the daily trivialities of a great man, but also a universal projective significance. Like Nietzsche, many of the ups and downs and pains of his life were actually experienced on behalf of the whole European civilization in modern times, and he had a unique way of pre-experiencing the nihilistic symptoms of modern European civilization. His greatness is in this sense. He did not give the Europeans the truth, but he experienced their pain in advance. This is how we should look at Nietzsche, and this is how we should look at European classical music and its authors. In literature, too, why did Tolstoy suddenly leave home in his later years? Rather than looking for many individual causes, Tolstoy had been experiencing Russia's destiny through his own life when he began to write consciously. Modern European intellectuals experienced the fate of nations in their respective fields. Do such intellectuals still exist today? For this alone, we should look back and mourn. For today's people, there has been no universal spiritual value for us to pursue and strive for. So we have to admit that postmodernism tells the truth of the matter in a cruel way. We now listen to music by personal light, and think philosophy by personal light. In listening and thinking, we should not miss great works. They are the nourishment that makes it possible for our minds to be enriched and perhaps empowered. I think it is impossible to regenerate great composers in this day and age. Our age calls for great performers. Of all the players, the most important is the conductor, who performs the whole orchestra. These great conductors are great, because it is they that make the great works continue to live, live in our contemporary hearts. That's why I admire Celibidak so much. I had never heard a recording of his work before, only Karajan's. I used Karajan's ear to hear all the symphonies. Now I find that I have been taken to a higher and deeper level by a man named Celibidak. The sense of tragedy that he brings out is irresistible. Brahms's Fourth Symphony is a great tragic work, whose tragic character, under the baton of Celibidak, becomes an irresistible force that permeates everything around it.