I don't make a particular distinction between 'high art' and 'low

Host: The night was warm, and the city hummed like a restless orchestra. Streetlights glowed through a thin veil of drizzle, their reflections dancing on the asphalt. A small jazz bar, half-empty, pulsed with the murmur of distant music—a piano, low and thoughtful, mingling with the soft clinking of glasses.

Jack sat by the window, his grey eyes fixed on the street, fingers tapping to a rhythm that wasn’t quite the one playing inside. Across from him, Jeeny cupped her coffee mug, her hair falling like black silk around her face, her eyes calm but bright with something deeper—belief, maybe.

Host: It was the kind of night that invited reflection, when the world outside seemed to echo what was happening inside—a quiet debate, waiting to be spoken aloud.

Jeeny: “Do you know what John Williams once said?”

Jack: “The composer? I know a few of his quotes. Which one?”

Jeeny: “He said, ‘I don't make a particular distinction between high art and low art. Music is there for everybody. It's a river we can all put our cups into and drink it and be sustained by it.’”

Host: Jack’s brow furrowed, the way it did when an idea both amused and troubled him.

Jack: “That’s poetic, sure. But too idealistic. Art may flow like a river, Jeeny, but not everyone drinks the same water. Some get the mountain spring, others get the polluted stream downstream. That’s reality.”

Jeeny: “You think beauty is only for those who can afford the best seat in the concert hall?”

Jack: “No. I think beauty—real, crafted beauty—takes work, discipline, genius. That’s what separates high art from the rest. Mozart isn’t the same as a pop jingle, Jeeny. Pretending they are is just... lazy egalitarianism.”

Host: The light flickered as a train rumbled beneath the bar, sending a faint tremor through the table. Jeeny’s fingers traced the rim of her cup again, slow, thoughtful.

Jeeny: “But that’s exactly the problem. When you divide art into ‘high’ and ‘low,’ you divide people. Music isn’t just for critics and scholars. It’s for the girl in the factory who hums to stay awake. It’s for the man driving home after a double shift, hearing something that makes him remember who he is.”

Jack: “That’s sentiment, not argument.”

Jeeny: “It’s both. You can’t separate them.”

Host: Jack’s eyes lifted from his cup. He leaned forward, his voice low and steady, like a man who’d rehearsed cynicism until it sounded like truth.

Jack: “Then explain this. If music is for everyone, why do only a few people get remembered for it? Why are symphonies preserved, while most songs vanish after a summer? Because not all rivers carry gold, Jeeny. Most are mud.”

Jeeny: “But even mud carries life, Jack.”

Host: Silence settled. Outside, a car horn echoed down the empty street, lonely and hollow.

Jeeny: “Do you remember when Beethoven wrote his Ninth Symphony? He was deaf—completely cut off from sound. And yet, he wrote something that still moves both the scholar and the street musician. Isn’t that proof that the river reaches everyone, even across time?”

Jack: “That’s because Beethoven was exceptional. That’s what I’m saying. He wasn’t a ‘man of the people’; he was a storm in human form. You can’t make that democratic.”

Jeeny: “But his music became democratic. It survived because people, not just elites, carried it forward. Soldiers, farmers, teachers—they sang his melodies. That’s the river, Jack. It doesn’t belong to the composer anymore; it belongs to the world.”

Host: The piano shifted into a slower tune—something wistful, almost fragile. Jack stared toward the musician, his jaw tightening slightly.

Jack: “You romanticize too easily. The ‘river’ you talk about—who controls its source? Record labels, studios, critics. They decide what flows downstream. Most people don’t drink from the river by choice—they drink what’s poured for them.”

Jeeny: “Maybe. But the river still runs beneath them. Even if they don’t see it.”

Host: Jeeny’s voice softened, but her eyes stayed firm. The air between them felt charged, heavy with the kind of tension that wasn’t anger, but longing—for understanding.

Jeeny: “When a child in a slum beats a rhythm on a tin can, that’s not low art, Jack. That’s survival. That’s expression. Isn’t that as sacred as a symphony?”

Jack: “Expression, yes. But sacred? No. Sacred implies transcendence—something beyond impulse. Art requires structure, not just feeling.”

Jeeny: “But what is structure without soul? A machine can follow form; only a human can bleed sound.”

Host: The rain outside thickened, blurring the streetlights into liquid halos. The world felt small, enclosed within the bar’s dim glow, as if time itself had paused to listen.

Jack: “You talk as if emotion alone creates art. But that’s chaos. Art is meaning carved out of chaos. It’s what separates noise from music.”

Jeeny: “And yet without chaos, Jack, you’d have nothing to carve.”

Host: The words hit him—not as an attack, but as a mirror. For a brief second, Jack’s expression faltered, and the mask of intellect slipped to reveal something raw beneath.

Jack: “Do you know why I don’t believe in this ‘river for everyone’ idea? Because I’ve seen too many people drowned by it. Artists who gave everything, who poured their souls into their work, and were forgotten. The river doesn’t sustain—it erodes.”

Jeeny: “Or maybe it carries them somewhere you can’t see. Maybe their work becomes part of someone else’s heartbeat, someone they’ll never meet. Isn’t that enough?”

Host: Jeeny’s voice trembled slightly, but it wasn’t weakness—it was the weight of truth pressing through emotion.

Jack: “You believe in invisible outcomes.”

Jeeny: “Because I’ve seen them. When my mother cleaned houses, she’d hum old Hindi songs. She said they kept her company. Those songs weren’t high art. But they gave her strength. They sustained her. Isn’t that the same river Williams was talking about?”

Host: The piano paused; the room fell quiet except for the steady rain. Jack looked at Jeeny as though seeing her for the first time—not as an idealist, but as someone who had lived her argument.

Jack: “Maybe... maybe you’re right about that part. Music doesn’t ask for permission before it heals someone.”

Jeeny: “And it doesn’t care if the person can read notes or not.”

Host: The light caught the steam rising from their cups, twisting upward like soft ghosts between them. The bar felt warmer now, quieter, the tension easing into something like peace.

Jack: “You know, when I was a kid, I used to sit by the old record player with my father. He’d play Bach, and I’d just... listen. I didn’t understand it, but I felt something. Maybe that was the river.”

Jeeny: “It was. And it still is.”

Host: For a long moment, neither spoke. The piano began again—this time, something simple, almost childlike.

Jack: “Maybe we overcomplicate art because we’re afraid to just feel it.”

Jeeny: “Maybe. Or maybe feeling it is the most complex act of all.”

Host: The rain began to slow, its rhythm syncing with the last gentle chords from the piano. Outside, the streetlights shimmered, and the city seemed to exhale.

Jack: “So... art is both? High and low, structured and raw?”

Jeeny: “Exactly. It’s not the height or depth that matters. It’s the flow.”

Host: A faint smile crossed Jack’s face, the first of the night. He lifted his cup slightly, as if in quiet toast.

Jack: “Then here’s to the river.”

Jeeny: “And to everyone who drinks from it.”

Host: They both raised their cups. The music swelled, gentle but vast, like the river itself—endless, ancient, belonging to no one and to everyone. And as the final note lingered in the air, it was impossible to tell where the song ended and the silence began.