Steve Schwartz wrote:

>... There is indeed music that has its adherents - Reger, Alkan, Josquin,
>Ockeghem, Obrecht, Satie, Koechlin, Thomson, Shapero, Piston, Fine,
>Holmboe, Schmidt - which seems the property of a very small group.  Yet,
>it doesn't occur to anyone - at least I haven't heard it here - to
>denigrate this work as Snobmusik. General recognition is as much a matter
>of luck as anything else, and people seem to understand this with respect
>to all music except what's generally called "atonal." I have yet to figure
>out why aesthetically this music constitutes a special case - why people
>should get so much hotter over this than over other music whose appeal is
>equally limited.

This is interesting.  Frankly, it never occurred to me that someone
might think that this is what it's all about.  From my perspective, it's
not that modern classical music is unpopular or has a small cadre of
proponents.  This seems self-evident.  The point of contention comes when
grandiose claims are made by this cadre such as "a modern Beethoven is
among us but we're too stupid/lazy to find him/her", "all tonal systems
are equal", "this is the music of our time" or, especially, "there is
only one valid art music style for our time".  Likewise somewhat vexing is
the idea that this music really has a large following.  Achim's otherwise
well-argued posts sometimes seem to make this claim, for example (but
maybe I'm just misreading).  Add to the list the apparently inevitable non
sequiturs, and ahistoric claims that things have always been this way, and
you have a full-scale brush fire on your hands.  But Stirling's right:
both sides have their extremists.  It's important to keep the politicking
to a minimum.  How to do that and still have a discourse is the challenge.

The issue of how many people like a certain composer only seems to have
relevance when discussing who's popular, or perhaps "important".  For
instance, if someone was to claim that Alkan was the most important
piano composer of his generation, there might be some vigorous mention of
other, more likely candidates.  It's somewhat the same when speaking of
modern composers.  Let me construct a little straw man to beat upon for
demonstration purposes only.  Messiaen is the greatest living composer.
The very thought is rather sad.  Boulez composes music of great beauty.
Even worse.  And so it goes.  For many, and not just some small sect of
classical music lovers, there is a disconnect on a very basic level about
all this.  It's not necessarily about being right or wrong, as far as I'm
concerned.  It's about understanding why and where the disconnect is.

The reason the discussion becomes so heated is not a mystery to me though.
It's simply a reflection of how much each of us cares and how deeply we
love our music.  That's very cool.  I think there's a lot that we can learn
by discussing this, though the crossfire of political rhetoric does get
heavy at times.  It's my belief that if we can get some idea where we are,
we might be able to start looking to the future of this music - we have
to know where we are before we can know where we're going sort of thing.
Perhaps this is not necessary.  Perhaps in the end it will work itself out,
whatever that might mean.  Right now it's a bit confusing.

Dave
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