Dave Lampson responds to Robert Peters:

>My definition of music is completely listener-centric: music is what you
>listen to as music.  Many dislike this definition, but so far it's the
>only one I've found that's universally applicable.  I may not Think the
>music that someone listens to is music, but I can't deny that it is music
>for them.

I'd agree that the listeners define for themselves what is music.  However,
I'd also include performers and composers themselves.  Nevertheless, as
Dave points out, a definition of music is in this case irrelevant, as is a
definition of beauty.  Both Robert and Dave agree that Ustvolskaya writes
ugly music.  They differ in that Robert thinks that ugly music is the most
appropriate for ugly things.

>>I think music must NOT contain an essential core of beauty to be music.

Perhaps it's a problem with words.  I don't believe music MUST be beautiful
to enjoy it, but I certainly don't reject beauty when I encounter it.  Yet
far more important than beauty vs.  ugliness, it seems to me, is art that
gets me thinking.  So, for me, art is not a matter of aesthetics only.  Art
becomes an object of contemplation for other things (I wasn't a Victorian
lit scholar for nothing).  What I hope to find in art is some revelation
or insight into my life (I'm not an egomaniac for nothing, either) or the
lives of others.

The argument that ugly subject requires ugly treatment seems easily
reducible to an absurdity.  A boring subject must be presented in a boring
way.  An incompetent character must be presented incompetently.  This
perhaps corrupts the ancient concept of mimesis.  It seems to me that
any work of art should exhibit competence, craft, and coherence at least.
Lear might be mad, but Shakespeare can't afford to be.  A work of art is
something made.  One doesn't aesthetically justify something badly made on
the grounds that it's suitable.

Again, unlike Dave, I do seem to like more modern and new music than most
other people do, but I'd never call what I like ugly (I haven't heard
Ustvolskaya).  Also, again, the opposition of beauty to ugliness isn't one
I normally make, simply because, for me, most works - even most great works
- are neither beautiful nor ugly enough to provoke those thoughts.

Steve Schwartz