Jon Gallant replies to Karl Miller:

>>In my class in contemporary music, taken by most of the composition
>>majors, I had them listen to...Penderecki (at that time he was still
>>avant garde), Boulez, Stockhausen, Pousseur, Berio et al.  ...  I doubt
>>the person on the street these days, would be able to name any composer.
>>Similarly, it seems like we don't have icons anymore.
>
>Karl's list of avant garde composers tells us precisely why the general
>public no longer pays any attention to serious music, and why even the
>music-loving public stays away in droves from any concerts involving
>music by what was formerly termed "the avant garde".  Thanks loads Pierre,
>Karl-Heinz, Henri, and Luciano, not to mention al.

Guess what?  The general public stays away from classical music and
serious art in general.  Whom do we blame for that?

I just don't understand how music, so seldom heard and performed (except
for perhaps the past 20 years), caused all the trouble.  Was the avant-garde
as powerful as it thought itself, to the extent of ruining all serious
music for everybody?

It seems to me if nobody liked it, it wouldn't continue to be performed,
recorded, and, most importantly, bought.

>BTW, an article ("Music's Missing Magic" by Miles Hoffman) in the current
>issue of the Wilson Quarterly perceptively analyzes just what the "avante
>garde" threw away when it abandoned tonality in music.

Does he also perceptively analyze what it gained?

Steve Schwartz