Contemplating the end of the world, as one is bound to when watching Donald Trump on TV, I fell to musing what single thing I would want to be preserved as a token for the rest of the universe, of what the human race had been capable of at its best. Not the Bible or the Koran – too wrong-headed; no great buildings – all razed to the ground; not King Lear – too deeply resonant of humanity’s failings; and obviously not Fox News. It would have to be a piece of abstract music. My choice would be Mozart’s Sinfonia Concertante, K364. The little green men would listen to that, and weep for the loss of a race with so much promise, and yet stupid enough to throw it all away out of capitalist greed, blind faith, paranoia, and the sheer ignorance of the majority of Americans who will have voted for Trump. When all else is gone, Mozart will justify us. In the last resort – and it will be the last resort, quite literally – that’s why ‘art’ is important.
