Stirling lets fly the bombs:

>Paul Griffiths, resident Goebels of the New York Times writes:
>
>Imagine this for a moment: no Pierre Boulez. Not only would we be
>without some of the most fascinating music of the last half-century,
>but everyone else's music would also be different, for Mr. Boulez's
>influence as a composer has been ubiquitous.
>
>In the sphere of performance, nobody would have been encouraging the
>Vienna Philharmonic to discover Webern as its birthright, the Cleveland
>Orchestra to take Ravel and Messiaen as its own. Nobody in modern
>times would have been pushing for a firm place for contemporary music
>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.
>
>These two paragraphs point at the heart of the problem in the discussion
>of art - blatant, objectively disproveable statements put forward
>as truth, axiomic and pure.

No problem here.  I agree entirely with Stirling, who provides a brief
history of the support of contemporary music.  Griffiths is symptomatic of
US writing about music - journalism, and intellectually lazy journalism at
that, rather than real criticism.  The hell of it is, he's considered one
of the best around, and he writes for the NY Times, one of the few U.S.
venues for writing about classical music.

>Nobody in modern times would have been pushing for contemporary music?
>What about the guy they named the tanglewood shed after? Doesn't he
>count? Or the entire New York School of Symphonists - Hanson, Piston?
>Griffiths should chekc his encylopedia - Stravinski, Britten, Prokofiev,
>Schostakovich, Rostapovich all lived in the 20th century, all, last I
>checked, were big supporters of 20th century music.  Clearly he says
>"contemporary" when he means "avant garde".  Lie number two.

It's not a lie, so much as it follows from a very narrow definition of
"legitimate" contemporary music.  This, too, rankles with me.

>If the avant-garde supporters on this list want to know where fore much
>of the anger is directed at them, realise that you are judged by who you
>choose as leaders.

This is where Stirling and I disagree.  I didn't choose Griffiths.  I
don't know anyone, outside of an editor, who did.  I'm sure he has his
supporters, but I'm not one of them.  Why should my musical taste (I happen
to like some things by Boulez) be judged by the writings of somebody I
don't even know, particularly when I don't agree with those writings?

This seems to me a muddled way of going about things.  This isn't a war,
and yet war is the dominant metaphor.  In 20th-century music (and later)
music alone do we find the eager creation of mutual enemies.  At any rate,
I don't know of people fighting with the same passion over the worth of
early Romanticism.  I think we would all be far better served by a
clear-headed discourse explaining what we liked and disliked about the
music itself and why.

>Reading his *disinformatzia* is an affront, and what is more it is an
>affront that many who support avant-garde music take advantage of by its
>prominence.

I fail to see what advantage I or anyone on this list has taken.  At least
I can't recall having seen anyone else supporting the avant-garde mention
Griffiths's name, let alone appeal to him as an authority.  Andrew Porter
maybe, but not Griffiths.  I haven't checked the archives, but I'm not
consciously lying (just to forestall the accusation).

>I have been preaching truce, clearly this is stupid of me - the
>avant-garde and its art is based on lies, because it chooses a
>dishonest version of history as the support for its existance.

This isn't a sound conclusion.  The art and the history, the art and the
artist, are different things.  You can show some disreputable artists.
You can show some reputable ones.  I don't believe one judges a person's
character by the style of art that person produces.  As far as I know, one
judges a work of art and a person by different criteria.

>Clearly the only hope for art is to erase it down to the bed rock, and
>perhaps, in a century or so, people will rediscover it, this time divorced
>from its propoganda, and treat it as art, rather than as excellent raw
>material for tank treads.

Take ten slow, deep breaths.

Steve Schwartz