Satoshi Akima wrote: >Although I am one those who have been blacklisted as being a nasty avant >gardedist I agree with the praise that David gives to Stirling. I would >strongly encourage others to listen as well. > >There was a BRIEF period when I too was a militant avant gardedist. I >used to regard all contemporary tonal composition with contempt. I loved >the hard hitting rhetoric but now it all seems rather old fashioned. This >was the sort of thing people came up with in the 1950's and 60's. I still >tend to regard Boulez in particular as the most important of all post-war >composers, but passionate disagreement is welcome. I think by now it has been established that I was using irony to make a point - that extremism begets extremism. We have come to accept extreme viewpoints in defense of the status quo rather too easily, vice begets vice. But more importantly, those who make up the classical music audience need to be aware of who the outside world sees as their spokesmen. And right now, the quality is, unfortunately, pretty dismal. Are we well served by classical radio which implies that JC Bach was the most important member of his family? Are we well served by books which, alternately, imply that triads are wicked - or that Berg's violin concerto is distant from the center of classical music? Are we well served by articles which neglect the fertile and important relationship between jazz and classical music - or which, worse, belittle jazz as "folk music"? By critics that call for contemporary at any cost - or demand that "what the audience wants to hear is the past"? Are we well served by articles like Griffiths which ignores most of what has gone on in music - or Teachout's which claim that tonality and only tonality is important. I thought this might be because of lack of anyone who could do any better, but looking through many of the more obscure corners of the printed world and the internet should convince anyone that this is not the case. What is needed is a passionate defense of ideas, rather than a partisan one. It would have been easy enough to write an article praising Boulez' accomplishments - as conductor, composer and administrator - and making the case for his work, without making stupid claims or implying that the world revolves of new music revolves around him. - - - What is ironic - to me anyway - is that my music isn't tonal in the strict sense. A quick Schenkeran diagram will show that most of the movements don't have an Background line based around what Schenker would have called "tonal" construction. Saltzer openly said that there were works - such as the Sonatas of Hindemith - where the "contrapunctal structural" elements overwhelmed the tonal. To take a more explicit statement - there is no functional cadence which the work is an expansion of. Instead most of the music that is on my page at mp3 is modal - that is it is centered around the question of creating a pitch class, and identifying a fundemental tone which is heard as the "goal tone" of the melody. At the end of the 19th century there was a perception that the "tonal" system had broken down. In fact, it had not, Busoni put his finger on it - it was that the modal system of major and minor had broken down. No longer could everything be fit into the "Major-Minor scale system". Which is part of the reason that there was an active search for new scale systems - the whole tone scale, the magic scale and others. In itself this is nothing revolutionary - after the end of World War II Schoenberg identified "modal" influences in composers - and theorists such as Volek spent their lives dealing with the innovations of composers such as Janaceck. What is different here from many other composers who have sought solace in modality - including the minimalists - is the relationship between fragments and the harmonic tension. The works are capable of shifting modes because of this relationship. Because the fragments are based on shapes, rather than chords, any note can be heard as the inflection for another. Perhaps the most extreme demonstration of this is something that sits in my private archives - a rock improvisation on "In Heavan towards Anacreon" known to American listeners as the tune for the "Star Spangled Banner". stirling s newberry [log in to unmask] http://www.mp3.com/ssn