Deryk Barker responds to me:

>>in the regular orchestral repertory. There would be no ensembles for
>>new music, since it was Mr. Boulez who invented the idea in the early
>>1950's. Wagner interpretation would not have been revitalized. ...
>>
>>Before the 1950's Schoenberg formed a society for contemporary music.
>
>Schoenberg founded a society, not an ensemble.  I presume PG is referring
>to the Domaine Musicale.
>
>>I can think of two string quartets that formed expressly to play new
>>works: one for Bartok's quartets and another for Shostakovich.  Boulez
>>didn't invent the idea.  Lie number one.
>
>a) they were string quartets, with consequent limitation on the repertoire
>they could perform and b) from what you say they were formed to play
>specific music.

Glad to see Deryk ever being the defender of the status quo.  Especially
because the status quo is particularly troubling.

You see, Jazz is contemporary music.  Even taking the most narrow of
legalistic of tortured definitions which Deryk takes, the various jazz
bands of the 1920's and 1930's have to qualify as being "contemporary music
ensembles".  Last I checked Jelly Roll Morton was not a contemporary of
Haydn.

Why is it that these people don't count with Griffiths? Because they many
of them are Black people? Because, as the New York Times recently printed
"jazz is folk music?" and Ellington "a folk composer"? This is absurd, Jazz
- certainly by 1950 - had a theory and practice which made it an art music.

Deryk implies that anyone who has a strong criticism for the status quo
is, ipso facto, not objective.  Under this argument Watergate was merely a
liberal conspiracy to bring down Nixon, because the charges they published
against him were quite strong.

- - -

Steve says that he didn't pick Griffiths.  Let me ask him a question, let
us suppose that a major party nominee, which everyone he belongs to, picked
a well known racist as his press secreterry.  The job is not elected nor is
it constitutional.  Would he be as comofortable then? The editor of the New
York Times picked Griffiths because he knows that Griffiths will, reliably,
draw the support of a particualr group of individuals.  As Deryk so ably
points out, people who are not in agreement with the avant-garde world view
don't count in criticising him.

By the silence of the supporters of avant-garde music, Griffiths, because
of his reach and prominence, is one of the de facto spokesmen for the
avant-garde view point.  The silence of those who support him amounts to
tacit consent.

A particular viewpoint *is* responsible for what *allows* by its consent
to be said on its behalf - this because it is only when people who hold
the same viewpoint desert a particular spokesman, is it likely that that
spokesman will notice, or others who employ him will take notice.

stirling s newberry
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