Steve on 20th-century music:

>This isn't a war, and yet war is the dominant metaphor.  In 20th-century
>music (and later) music alone do we find the eager creation of mutual
>enemies.  At any rate, I don't know of people fighting with the same
>passion over the worth of early Romanticism.  I think we would all be far
>better served by a clear-headed discourse explaining what we liked and
>disliked about the music itself and why.

Perhaps the fatal difference is in the way opposing camps have labeled
themselves, (or have been labeled), then and now.  To be a Wagnerite or a
Brahmsian suggests a belief in the musical voice of the individual.  (Or to
be an Italianite or a Francophile suggests a belief in the musical voice of
the people.) This is not threatening.  To be a Modernist or Avant-gardist
suggests an entirely different.

Let me paraphrase Daniel Boorstin in his essay, "The Cultures of Pride
and Awe:" he suggests that, while science marches *forward,* art marches
*outward.* Contemporary science corrects and replaces old science, while
contemporary art hardly replaces the old--at its best, new artistic
innovation serves to heighten the meaning of art from the past.  There
should be no direction in art.  To assess the "progress" of art in the
same way that one assesses the progress of science is a big mistake.

To me, labels like Modernist--with its time sensitivity--not only cause
people to tend to erroneously believe that their art somehow leads in some
sort of proper direction; but it also suggest that such art "corrects" or
"replaces" what came before it.  It would be sad if a "war" was fought
based upon beliefs that were completely wrong--this would be worse than a
war fought based upon national pride.  To be a modernist implies that the
music one believes in is the most intrinsically appropriate and worthy for
the people of modern times--there's no room for individual taste, which can
move all over the spectrum and changes from minute to month the year.  To
like anything else is to embrace the obsolete, the inappropriate--it's no
wonder this causes strife!

No? Another food metaphor then: I didn't like onions until I was 17.  Had
I overheard my mother whisper to my father years before: "Honey, all the
other boys are Alliumcepaphiles--what's wrong with our boy...?" I would
have been horrified and angst-ridden--either pretending to like onions,
or turning my back on them forever; as I was made to feel ill-equipped and
weird for not appreciating such standard and appropriate fare.  Such is the
power of labels and words that carry subjective baggage.  I would imagine
that a similar angst caused Bax to call himself a *brazen* Romantic.
(brazen=unapologetic=apologetic) Why apologize for embracing a style that
may be old, but by definition, can't become obsolete? What is a person if
he is not a Modernist?

This side of the 20-century, I would consider it odd if I heard people
describing themselves as post-war Brittenites, pre-chamber symphony
Schoenbergians, or Barberians, and I think this is very telling about our
current state of affairs.  I believe that such preciseness would take an
edge off of the threat and angst that some people feel--composer and
listener alike--if they find themselves straying beyond the conventional
umbrellas, whether momentarily or permanently.

John Smyth
Sacramento, CA
http://facelink.com/j66560