We've talked recently about the words "Baroque" and "Impressionism" -
noting that both began as words of invective hurled at an artistic style,
which became adopted to decribe it.  One could add "Romantic" to the list,
as well as "Modernist" - first used as an ism by those who derided the idea
that the 20th century required a new rationale for art.

In the world of pop there was a band fronted by a would be opera singer,
who released an amazingly successful single that was a mini-drama - titled
in a way to reference classical music.  Rolling Stone's critic described
them as "The Mormon Tabernacle choir, on quaaludes, backed by a million
guitars." It was part of an overall scathing review which clearly was
intended to torpedoe the band, and the entire glam rock movment post David
Bowie - then very post glam himself.

The description was rapidly taken up by the fans of the band, and became a
catch phrase.

- - -

This is prologue to the comments that follow.  The supporters of Scelsi
here have fired off crass inveective, disingenuous non-replies and
references to their writings on the composer previous, which are
quasi-incoherent dissertations on why Scelsi fits in as a modern - and
yet avoid managing to describe the work.

The supporter of a composer or artist often makes this mistake.  He
is busy trying to prove to himself, and others, of the validity of his
support, he is busy finding himself in the work of the composer, he is busy
trying to catalog, classify.  He is busy trying t prove that he pattern of
the composers support meets some cureve that can be presented to match one
of the meta-narratives of acceptance - the "unsung genius", the "forgotten
pioneer", the "golden boy", the "revolutionary who has gathered a large and
growing following" - whatever is the case.  Inconvenient facts are quickly
swept under the rug.

The attacker faces a problem.  If the composer has a following - he either
must deride that following or not admit it.  Instead, sooner or later, he
must come back and talk about the work and give some short handle with
which to dismiss it.  Often this technique backfires, because as soon as
the work - as opposed to its social political implications - is the topic
then a particular effect takes hold.  Very seldom are the prominent
features of a work in question, it is whether they create an artistic whole
that is.  Very often the very feature which the critic abhors is the very
feature that will attract others.

Consider the description of "Eroica" as a "dragon ... which suddenly wakes
and beats its tale." Eroica certainly has shown itself to be a dragon, and
the image of a dragon was one which was, perhaps unbeknowst tho the critic
- gaining, not loosing cache.  It conjured up a realm of castles and
knights, warriors and - heroes.

Or the critic who described "Verklarte Nacht" as "the orchestra tried to
play Tristan unde Isolde and got lost." Read the poem the work is based on
and compare the narrative with Wagner.

 From the discussion it is fairly clear that ther eis a very hard core
Scelsi underground, and the names are relativley much the same names that
we saw the last time the composer came up.  The differene is, of course,
that MTT has been playing the works to a much broader public - broader
than the composer has received to date.  What they've offered here is very
dissappointing as a defense - arguments over "how many orchestral works"
and blufs such as "we've all described this before" - these are not going
to convince people to listen who have not listened.  Nor are they going to
get ideas before a public that has not read them before.

Instead they come across as an almost Staasi like attempt to get a critic
who has strayed from the party line back to orthodoxy.  An orthodoxy which,
as I pointed out, has been off and on in place since the 1950's - that
Scelsi was one of the giants of the post-war musical period.  It's an
inconvenient fact only if one is trying to rpesent him as a neglected
genius who has not been discovered, and only if one is trying to disguise
the rather ham handed social pressure being brought to bear.  There is
nothing wicked in being one of the chosen few of a powerful movement -
unless one is busy denying there was a movement or that it had any power to
begin with.

No true artist deserves to have this happen to the work - after all, I'm
fairly sure that Scelsi, himself, is not singing the joys of silencing
others.  Don't laugh, there are composers making very good livings now who
do.  Nor is he, in all probability, singing the praises of disinformation.
Don't laugh, there are composers who are making very good livings now who
do.  Italy, after the war, was a hotbed of composers who took pen in hand
identifying Modern stylistic creation with anti-facsism.  Not difficult to
see why.

So once again I challenge these supporters to come up with what he does
stand for - in a positive sense.  Because so far all they have done is
shown that he has supporters willing to attack and slag anyone who doesn't
like his work.  Which even a cursory examination of his catalog would seem
to show is *not* his primary artistic thrust.

Or is there so little content that that is all that the music is about - a
marketing campaign run by people of similar style to one Ernesto Cortazar
- who share the characteristic of being equally quick and brutal in their
attacks on anyone who dares question the master?

 From here he sounds like someone obsessed with repeating a single note
endlessly, and so far, his supporters seem to adopt this as their principal
of discourse.

Stirling Newberry <[log in to unmask]>