Stirling Newberry's post brings up an interesting point:

>While the particular music, or agenda, [traditional vs.  "hard" new music]
>that is supported differs - the common fact reported by all is the sense
>of being imposed upon, being suppressed.

It's the same problem with every facet of the so-called "serious"
culture - literature, painting, as well as music.  There's the feeling
of powerlessness and the sense of being imposed upon.  And there's also the
sense that Someone Is To Blame.  Radical Feminists rail against the Dead
White Male Patriarchy, Conservatives against mainly academia.  And, despite
the excesses of the objects of blame, it's pretty obvious that none of them
really have the power sufficient to transform the entire culture.  Clearly,
very few feel at home in the culture.

Stirling suggests a philosophic program, which I'm not bright enough to
comment on.  I can, however, describe the way things seem to me.

The alienation seems to me born primarily of insecurity.  Notice how
many people seem to want to be able to tell what a great work is with
an immediate, single confrontation.  There is the extraordinary notion
that all art *should* do this.  The corollary:  Art which doesn't do
this is worthless.  To some extent, it's the same model of reaction as
the commercial one.  At times, I wonder very much whether the commercial
culture has colonized our expectations - the gratification of a commercial
object must be immediate, "universal," if not necessarily lasting - but
I realize I have no evidence.  Perhaps I should state why I think the
attitude is wrong.  Obviously, very few works, even very few great works,
have been able to conquer immediately.  It took years before Beethoven's
Ninth became a work so popular, they use part of it as theme music to quiz
shows.  It always had its adherents and it became a cultural icon rather
quickly (at least for a few), but it hardly won universal acceptance among
those who listened to That Kind of Music right out of the box.  I doubt
whether an opera like Don Giovanni or Die Walkuere will ever become as
popular as La Boheme.  If we accept this model, then we doom ourselves to
the limitations of our likes and dislikes.  If we can't say there's great
work we dislike or which does nothing for us, then we limit ourselves to a
depressingly narrow range of expression.

Rather than finding someone to blame, however, I'd prefer to ask the
question why the attitude pervades.  To some extent, it strikes me as a
quest for certainty - the inner knowledge that we ourselves would not have
denied Christ.  In saying that, I think that the superficially aesthetic
notion becomes inextricably mixed with religious ones, including the rather
dangerous Romantic one of Artist as Priest or Demigod.  This culture sees
the artist as talking about his feelings and those feelings equate somehow
with cosmic truth.  The artist is a special creature, a visionary spirit
plugged into the way the universe works.  It wasn't always the case.
Classical artists (by which I mean primarily Greeks) thought that an artist
differed from others not because he was especially insightful or a greater
soul, but because he was more skillful.  That is, what separates Mahler
from you or me is that he had certain skills and talents you and I lack.
I confess I find this notion far more attractive and, what's more, closer
to my experience.  Think of how many great artists have been real jerks
or ethical midgets (supply your own examples).

Notice, however, that this is a far cry from saying that the artist
is simply applying skill in a completely abstract way or in some total
aesthetic vacuum, with no reference to the outside world.  Today, at
any rate, an artist usually does feel compelled to write by inner need,
especially when there's almost no way to make a living from creating the
art - especially for a composer.  Writing music - just the act of putting
the lines and dots on the page - is pretty tedious work, even with
notational software.  For any composer reasonably intelligent, the drive
has to come from emotions other than a mere need for fame and honor
(Milton's "Fame is the spur"), since the odds for those are fairly long as
well.  Very few "serious" artists - even painters - make enough to live on
from their art alone.  The needs to create for its own sake or to work out
psychic pressures have to be very strong.

The art, therefore, does represent in some way the psyche of the artist.
We can accept this without necessarily exalting that psyche.  Furthermore,
the art in some sense stands apart from the artist.  First, no artist
realizes, or perhaps even knows, his complete intent, unless that intent
is fairly trivial.  Second, especially in a superficially abstract art
like music, no listener is guaranteed a complete mind-meld with the artist
through the work alone.  Indeed, one can argue that a great work engenders
a variety of reactions to it.

In this view, we have come very far from feelings of certainty.
Historically, the notion of Artist as Priest rose as the power of the
formal priest declined.  There are problems with the idea, and I think
we're seeing them play themselves out, particularly the feeling of being
powerless and cast adrift.  Artist-as-Priest is a further loosening of
"every man his own priest" of the Reformation.  Even today, a serious
Methodist and a serious Presbyterian have serious disagreements with each
other as well as with, say, a serious Roman Catholic.  In short, each has
his own continuity of doctrine, and that continuity provides the certainty
of their position.  In Artist-as-Priest, that continuity is gone, and
rightly so.  There is no communal aesthetic or moral check on an artist's
psyche and in most cases that's a good thing.  The more varied the
expression and the ideas expressed, the larger and more varied the
conversation.  I've always felt that looking for The Truth in art is a
misuse of it, though it's imperative to use art to look for truth.  If you
read Shakespeare or Dickens or Dante or Sophocles or Goethe for them to lay
down the Truth of the Universe in the narrow compass of their works, you
misuse them.  To me, reading is a conversation, rather than a catechism,
between you and an author.  You not only say, "How true," but also "This
is bullshit" (hopefully, not of the same part).

A similar conversation applies to music.  As you read as widely as
possible, you listen to as many voices as you can, because one of the
values of art is that it speaks to all parts of life, not just to the
exalted parts.  As great a composer as Bruckner or Wagner is, both speak
to limited emotional or spiritual states.  Neither is, for example,
particularly charming or witty or even fun.  Neither displays much psychic
balance.  The composers who do are limited in *that* way.

Conversations are by nature free-wheeling and run counter to the certainty
of orthodoxy.  Free conversation puts the certainty of ideas at risk.
There's always the possibility of changing one's mind.  For me, orthodoxy
is far too dangerous.  One denies Christ in a lot of ways, and these
include orthodoxy as well as dissent.  In short, by locking up the gates to
the Temple of Art, you may keep out something wonderful, and to me that's
worse than letting in the unworthy.  Make up your mind that you're probably
going to do both, that you too will shout for Barabbas and more than once,
but don't stop looking.  In the meantime, enjoy the conversation.

Steve Schwartz