Arch rambles and ruminates:

>There is much excitement about Paul McCartney's attempts at writing
>classical music.  "Who needs it?" was one of the responses. ...
>
>Do we need new composers writing new music? I for one really don't!  ;-)

Well, I, for one, do.  We all need something.

>(1) I haven't heard all the works by composers whose work I really admire
>(and from whom I can expect music that I hope to admire in the future).

That's fine.  There are lots of composers dead and buried whose music, if
I never hear it again, will be no great loss to me.  The assumption that
you make, without saying it aloud, is that because *you* don't need it,
everybody doesn't need it.

>(2) Do we want to encourage new composers to make *them* happy, or to make
>*ourselves* happy?

False dichotomy, based on the erroneous unspoken assumption.  I encourage
new composers because many of them do indeed make me happy.

>Of course, on those rare occasions on which I have heard new composers,
>at least half the time I like what I hear.  But there are so *many* new
>composers!  If I get to hear them, good.  If I don't, that's good, too.
>But I don't *need* them.

If I never hear another Bruckner symphony - although I like Bruckner - I
wouldn't care either.  However, I don't really need to form an All-Bruckner
Ignorers' Club.

>One of the big problems I see with encouraging classical music is that it
>creates desires within young breasts of wanting to create new classical
>music.

God, how dare they!  What presumption!  Who the hell do they think they are
to waste our time?

I've always felt that sticking to one type or style or period of music very
easily becomes a bore.  The moment I feel I understand a composer is the
moment that composer tends to lose all interest for me.  I like new music
*because* it doesn't sound like Mozart, Bach, Beethoven, Brahms, Wagner,
Bruckner, or Mahler.  I like it for its own sake.  I don't feel the need
to compare to earlier styles, merely to assess its value.

Steve Schwartz