|
Coming back from an all-Ives concert we’d attended in
Connecticut, Minna Lederman said that by separating
his insurance business from his composition of music
(as completely as day is separated from night), Ives
paid full respect to the American assumption that the
artist has no place in society. (When Mother first
heard my percussion quartet years ago in Santa
Monica, she said, “I enjoyed it, but where are you
going to put it?”) But music is, or was at one time,
America’s sixth-largest industry — above or below
steel, I don’t remember which. Schoenberg used to say
that the movie composers knew their business very
well. Once he asked those in the class who intended to
become professional musicians to put up their hands.
No one did. (Uncle Walter insisted when he married her
that Aunt Marge, who was a contralto, should give up
her career.) My bet is that the phenomenal prices
paid for paintings in New York at the present time
have less to do with art than with business. The lady
who lived next door in Santa Monica told me the
painting she had in her dining room was worth lots of
money. She mentioned an astronomical sum. I said,
“How do you know?” She said she’d seen a small
painting worth a certain amount, measured it,
measured hers (which was much larger), multiplied,
and that was that. |