Jocelyn Wang to Satoshi Akima:

>>Talking about whether one likes or dislikes "atonal" music is rather like
>>asking if one likes modal music.  The answer should be that it depends on
>>the composition.
>
>Not at all.  Since the entire process of atonal composition is inconducive
>to producing anything resembling beauty, it does not take a leap to dislike
>every last one of them.

What's this "entire process of atonal composition"?.  I thought that
there was a lot of them.  But surely you're right:  perhaps Berg, Webern,
Lutoslawski and Messiaen couldn't reach "anything resembling beauty"
because all they composed the same music using the same method.  That
becomes clear when one listen the "Quatuour pour la fin du Temps":  it
sounds exactly like Webern's Symphony op.  21.  But don't worry, Jocelyne,
they were bad musicians, not as you and me.  They surely didn't finish the
exercises of the first book of Hindemith.

>>The term "atonal" is also rather too vague to mean much.
>
>It is generally taken to mean "without tonal center," which is specific
>enough.

Yes, it's highly specific:  it can be applied equally to Ars Antiqua and
to the works of hundred different composers of the XX century.

>>If you can listen to late Mahler, Bartok, Strauss, and late Shostakovitch
>>(especially the late string quartets) then it really shouldn't present
>>much problem to you.
>
>This is a bit like saying, "If you like orange juice, then gulping down
>this nice glass of sulfuric acid really shouldn't present much problem
>to you.

What's wrong about a nice glass of sulfuric acid?.  I love the smell of
sulfuric acid in the morning.  It smells like...victory.

(Try this site: www.rhetorics.org)

>It's the old atonalists' mantra: Hardly anyone likes what you
>want them to like, so that means they haven't heard enough of it, are
>closed-minded toward it, etc.  SNORE!

You missed the last verse of the mantra:

"...they don't know what are they talking about, etc. SNORE! "

Pablo Massa
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