Leslie Kinton ([log in to unmask]) wrote:

>About ten years ago, the father of one of my students, a professor of
>classics, came by my studio while I was playing a CD. He had strong
>opinions about many things, and almost as soon as he set foot into the
>room, he started on tirade against the "unmitigated ugliness" of modern
>music...
>
>There's a problem: this was not a piece by Lutoslawski or Ligetti (both of
>whom I love, by the way), but rather the "Credo" from *La Messe de Nostre
>Dame* by Guillaume de Machault (ca.  1300 - 1377).  When I pointed

Interesting.  I know people whose musical tastes consist solely of music
before about 1800 and music after 1900.

I've also read that musically-savvy people who've never heard the Grosse
Fugue tend to attribute to Bartok...

>I wonder which composers he associates with Edvard Munch? Or Paul Klee?

I've long (and I mean long, maybe 30 years) wondered why it is that people
who can appreciate and even love the most abstract or "unpleasant" art
(somebody mentioned Guernica earlier, but how about Goya's "Chronos
devouring his children"?) have a hard time with "modern" music.

My only thoughts so far are that music is harder to "avoid".  You can turn
away from a painting, but it's much harder to shut out sound.

A more recent thought revolves around the fact that hearing is (supposedly)
the first sense to develeop and the last to fail.

Deryk Barker
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