Steve responds to my post:

>>If there is one thing that people seem to miss in the line of contemporary
>>music most respected and initiated by Schoenberg--you know what kind I am
>>talking about) ...
>
>Not really.  But Schoenberg has become a bugbear - one of the most hated
>and least heard composers in all of music.  If you're talking about
>difficult, dissonant music, a lot of it has nothing to do with Schoenberg.

I want you to understand that I do like Schoenberg, and his followers but
only those who, like Schoenberg, saw themselves as prophets and seers for
their fellow men as well for other artists.

>>..., it would be whimsy; wonderment.  Nothing fires up the
>>imagination more than trying to answer Why--seeking our end or purpose.
>
>Then I would suggest that people aren't listening to the right contemporary
>composers, if that's what they want.  ...  Isn't Hovhaness still writing?

I was worried that my points were kind of moot.  I like Adams, Knussen,
Varese etc.  And I'm very happy many 20th Cent composers who chose
to microevolve are enjoying renewed respect.  But enough punctuated
equilibrium!  And the more pressing question is, "when is Hovhaness
going to *stop* writing?" (Both extremes have their problems.)

>Believe it or not, most composers want an emotional response,
>just as earlier composers did.  ...

Many 20th Century composers of course want a response--but one more akin
to rioting in the streets or mass booing, (MTT discusses a performance of
Reich's "Four Organs") because that's what the audience did for Stravinsky
and if a=b and b=c then....

>I ask what makes us any different from our ancestors in this regard.
>Why should we be any less bewildered by the unfamiliar? As we all know,
>"sterile," "mathematical," and "paper music" were applied to many composers
>of the past we now revere.  Sure, we like Beethoven and Brahms.  Perhaps
>our progeny will like Webern and Carter.

Stereotyping works both ways.  There were many groundbreaking works of
the past that were embraced immediately.  Take Debussy's "Prelude..." Many
other works met bewilderment at first but were "cracked" so to speak within
months to a few years of the premiere.

>>Oscar Wilde once said that artists don't walk among the crowd, they are
>>the bystander that observes crowd.  I believe that many modern artists,
>>in search of the How, have taken it one step further--they have become
>>observers of the bystander.
>
>What you've described is the critic, not the artist.  If that's your
>point, then you haven't heard what modern artists are telling you.
>Besides, if they're trying to avoid sounding like anybody else (as you
>contend earlier), they can't be taking from the "bystander" now.  The
>position contradicts itself.

Great quote huh?  If you use it you better give me credit!

I *am* talking about the artist.  It's not that they're taking sounds from
the artists of posterity, (unless they are one of the "Pastiche" composers.
 Ha!  More evidence of preoccupation with the How!) but that they are
trying to *clothe* themselves in the social, mental, and cultural garb of
the artists of antiquity in order to recreate their success.

1) Wagner builds his own opera house--Boulez builds IRCAM
2) Bruckner was spiritual--Taverner always has crosses everywhere.
3) It's 9:00 and I'm arguing with strangers on a computer and ruining my
chances of "gettin any" with real people so I'm going to stop typing now.

John Smyth