Jocelyn Wang replies to me:

>>Technically speaking, it isn't cacophony any more than it's noise.
>
>On that point, we agree.
>
>>It's simply music you don't happen to like.
>
>On that point, we do not.

Well, then answer me this.  How come there are people who passionately like
the "musical plague" you abhor, indeed who don't treat it as essentially
any different from other music they like -- say, Brahms? Are they simply
trendmongers? I doubt it, since the trend is now "your" way.  It's been,
after all, at least 20 years since the atonalists have had anything like
the power they enjoyed from the Fifties through the Seventies.  Most of
the commissions I read about are for tonal (extended tonal) composers
and post-minimalists.  Are they delusional? If so, why do they like a lot
of the music you like? I really don't understand this impulse to raise
personal likes and dislikes to the level of universal aesthetic principle.

Steve Schwartz