Satoshi Akima <[log in to unmask]> writes:

>When we today scream murder that a composer such as Stockhausen or
>Ustvolskaya writes in an allegedly 'unnatural' style, generally this means
>that the listener is unaccustomed to the dissonant musical 'language'.
>It really means not 'this is bad music' but rather 'I do not understand'.
>It would be considered bizzare that someone who does no

Oh, I think there are quite a few listeners who are accustomed to the
dissonant musical language (it's hard to avoid because it keeps getting
shoehorned into programs by a recalcitrant and tricky minority that is
for it);further, who understand it; and further still, who dislike it--
in part because they find that it sounds contrived and unnatural.  It's
perfectly sound aesthetics to dislike the atonal or the serial in music.
It's perfectly reasonable aesthetics to plead something is ugly because it
sounds unnatural.  Especially if it's been stipulated that the hexachord is
natural to classical music.

To be sure there's been innovation throughout musical history, and no doubt
quite a bit of it initially struck attenders as unnatural.  The test then
is, whether that sound remained perceived to be unnatural or whether, with
the passage of time, it became accepted by concert goers.  The serial and
atonal innovators have been at it for at least half a century and have
failed to gain broad acceptance.  It's time to go on to other things.

Denis Fodor