Chris Bonds replies:

>(1) What can you point to in the finished product that could be considered
>evidence of a "moment of nirvana"? (2) Would it be how you yourself felt upon
>hearing some unexpected feature of the work? (3) That cannot be used as
>evidence that the composer was feeling the same thing.

1) Nothing.  I was talking about the process of composition, and the
"finished product" does not necessarily shows it.  The term "nirvana" is
perhaps wrong, and must not be read literally.  "Abstract experience" (a
term used by Morton Feldman) seems a much better one.

2) No, I felt it composing (and sometimes even dealing with counterpoint
exercises...).

3) Of course not.

He also wrote:

>In any creative work the creator is going to hit on an idea as if
>by accident.  Later on, a different faculty--the critical faculty--is
>brought into play to decide whether to leave it alone, revise it, or delete
>it. This critical faculty has a large component of previous experience.

?Are you sure?.  That's a romantic thought.  This way of thinking was
promoted to the category of universal rule after Poe, Flaubert (and
Beethoven in music): every work "must" have (as a moral imperative) an
enormous charge of deliberate mental, spiritual, and even physical effort
(perpetual revisions, long time of composition, suffering, pain, etc),
otherwise it becomes "poor of substance".  The classical conception of
craft (at least until the late quarter of XVIII century) is quite
different.  It helds, at least theorically, that the artist works through
a sort of undivided effort.  The subsequent application of that "critical
faculty" (to delete or revise too much an idea) means a fail or a lack of
craft.

>I don't think the process is so mystical as to deserve the "nirvana"
>appellation.  To say a composer like Bach didn't know what he was doing at
>times sounds a bit like he was in a trance state, doing some automatic
>writing.

I think that Chris misunderstood my point (however, it's my fault): I
described certain state of mind which is not rational, nor emotional, nor
mystical, but of pure, concentrated and intense pleasure.  This state of
mind is often the result of a long and high concentration on the materials
of composition, and is not related to emotional purposes or reactions.  It
has nothing to do with "mystics".  A composer may not always knows exactly
what's he doing, but that doesn't means that he must be in "trance" or
"inspired by the gods".  There's no alternative between "rational" thought
and "mystical trance"?.  That's precisely my point: I don't believe in
such opposition.

>Maybe another way of looking at the difference between craft and genius
>(is this not what we are really talking about?) is to suggest that
>genius involves the new becoming necessary.  A DIFFERENT prof of mine
>(mis-?)quoted Picasso as saying a genius aims at a target that no one
>else can see--and gets a bulls-eye.

Another romantic myth.  Haendel speaking with God is, indeed, a vulgar
cliche, but I think that the "new becoming necessary" belongs to the
same category.  "Progress" It's just a translation of "mystics" into the
History.Teleology provides, then, a meaning to the genius: according to
this conception, we call an old composer "genius" just because, in some
way, he created the present state of things, and we call a modern composer
"genius" because he is creating the future state of things.  It's just a
matter of verbal moods.  Well, but what about Mozart?.  What target did he
aim that other composers didn't see?.

Pablo Massa
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