John Smyth wrote:

>Stirling on the agenda:
>
>>This precise process - of attempting, by argument and invective, to deny
>>the other side a place at the table is precisely what has been going on for
>>the last 90 years.  It is precisely the intent of the Griffiths article.
>>If having the money and power to print justifies printing whatever you
>>like, then it also justifies saying whatever is necessary to humiliate the
>>powers that be.
>
>Ah.  This is the statement I was waiting for.  Do you think, Stirling,
>in reality, that what you say is really true? I posted Camellia Symphony's
>wonderfully inclusive but balanced season to show that the Emperor you lash
>out at, in fact, has no rows.
>
>Steve Schwartz has mentioned that he is not too happy with the meat and
>potatoes programming of his local orchestra.  But comparing the music of
>our different orchestras, to me, shows that *all* styles are "allowed"
>somewhere.

But not all ideas are allowed. And that is the problem.

The confusion in your argument comes from what I am accusing people like
Griffiths of doing - not hegemony, but entrenching a useless conflict by
propogating it.  As long as the artistic divide is down "tonal" versus
"avant-garde", or whatever terms you care to use to label the two sets of
tropes - discussion does not move from one place.  Those that benefit from
a static rehashing of old tropes have no reason to resolve the conflict,
and every reason to continue it.

Your formulation of "outward" is an apt one, with a caveat.  Older styles
of art do, indeed, become obsolete, as their social use becomes obsolete.
I doubt many people here could do a Pavanne or Galliard, though most people
here have heard both musical forms, though the later under the name of
Gigue in most cases.  I doubt all that many people here could do a minuet,
though the number of musical examples of each of these in a good size
collection runs to hundreds.  Even the Laendler or waltz is not what it
once was.  Perhaps swing dancing styles would fare a bit better, but still,
not current.

Art progresses, because our range of needs does, because our range of
materials does.  But to learn what is new, it must also forget some of what
is old.  Tensions in music or art, which would have been very alive to our
predessors are now invisible to us.  The old changes, because even what we
preserve, we preserve in an altered form.

stirling s newberry
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