Tchaikovski, Violin Virtuousity, and Transcendence

Yesterday I played the 2nd Movement of the Tchaikovski Violin Concerto in church. A friend made an audio recording of it on his smart phone and sent it to me. While I thought momentarily about posting it here (inevitable amateur glitches and all), it seemed that for those who may be unfamiliar with this exquisite piece of music it would be better to post a performance that is just as exquisite as the music itself.

So, here's what happens when one of the greatest violinists of the 20th Century, David Oistrakh, takes on one of Tchaikovski's more heart-rending compositions:




It's performances like these which enliven for me Hermann Lotze's case for including beauty among the pieces of evidence to be considered when assessing worldviews that posit something transcendent. I've quoted this before, but here's how Lotze puts it at the start of his Outlines of the Philosophy of Religion:

Then there are the...aesthetic feelings that yield themselves admiringly to the beautiful which they discover in the world, and by means of it are incited to form a picture of an ideal world. This they do without any egoistic interest in the consolation desired; but rather with the sure conviction that what is so fair and full of significance cannot be an accidental product of that which is without significance, but must be either the very Principle of the world or closely related to its creative principle.

Lotze couldn't have had Oistrakh's performance above in mind when he spoke of that which is "so fair and full of significance," but had he heard it I'm sure he would have pointed to it and said, "This."