Science and Composition

James Wat­son, the sci­en­tist who along with Fran­cis Crick dis­cov­ered the form of DNA, got into some polit­i­cal hot water recently. He implied black Africans were less intel­li­gent than white. Why make such a provoca­tive statement?

Sci­en­tists are charged with help­ing to cre­ate new schol­ar­ship, to con­tribute new knowl­edge. Hav­ing won a Nobel Prize in your younger years, what do you now do for the rest of your life? As Mar­tin Rees, the Astronomer Royal of the United King­dom and pres­i­dent of the Royal Soci­ety explains, sci­en­tists have three choices as they age. They can (1) become an admin­is­tra­tor or (2) con­tent them­selves with doing mediocre sci­ence. Or (3) they can go off the deep end and say some­thing offensive.

For­tu­nately for com­posers of con­cert music, this is not a prob­lem. As Dr. Rees states, “In con­trast to com­posers, there are few sci­en­tists whose last works are their great­est.” (See the New York Times arti­cle for more dis­cus­sion about this.) As com­posers, we are like fine wine, get­ting bet­ter and bet­ter with each pass­ing year. That’s some­thing to be cel­e­brated! All your best years and com­po­si­tions are still in front of you, so keep at it.

(Inter­est­ingly, I’m sure Dr. Rees did not have com­posers of pop­u­lar music in mind.)