Richard Halley's Concertos

[Kate Sams]

This is how Rand describes Halley’s Fourth Concerto.

all quotes from AS:

> The Concerto was a great cry of rebellion. It was a "No" flung at some vast process of torture, a denial of suffering, a denial that held the agony of the struggle to break free. The sounds were like a voice saying: There is no necessity for pain-why, then, is the worst pain reserved for those who will not accept its necessity?-we who hold the love and the secret of joy, to what punishment have we been sentenced for it, and by whom?... The sounds of torture became defiance, the statement of agony became a hymn to a distant vision for whose sake anything was worth enduring, even this. It was the song of rebellion-and of a desperate quest.

ideas of torture, defiance, rebellion, struggle, pain, a desperate quest and distant vision of something better.

not only did Halley personally go thru a struggle, but Dagny did too. maybe that’s one reason she liked this concerto.

here is how Rand describes Halley’s Fifth Concerto.

> She sat listening to the music. It was a symphony of triumph. The notes flowed up, they spoke of rising and they were the rising itself, they were the essence and the form of upward motion, they seemed to embody every human act and thought that had ascent as its motive. It was a sunburst of sound, breaking out of hiding and spreading open. It had the freedom of release and the tension of purpose. It swept space clean, and left nothing but the joy of an unobstructed effort. Only a faint echo within the sounds spoke of that from which the music had escaped, but spoke in laughing astonishment at the discovery that there was no ugliness or pain, and there never had had to be. It was the song of an immense deliverance.

reaching the end of the desperate quest from the Fourth Concerto. release from the struggle. nothing left but the joy of an unobstructed effort. there was no ugliness or pain, and there never had to be.

what causes ugliness and pain?

i think it has to do with faking reality and trying to live in contradiction. like with Dagny, her contradiction is that she wants a world of ability and clear, rational thinking, but then at the same time she supports the opposite world. she does her best working/thinking/creating and evil ppl like Jim benefit. she’s propping them up. that’s the contradiction which is causing the pain and struggle for her. not only does it not have to be that way, but it never had had to be that way. she eventually figures this out.

so i guess with this part from the Fourth Concerto:

> -we who hold the love and the secret of joy, to what punishment have we been sentenced for it, and by whom?

is the “by whom” = ourselves?