Stirling writes:

>With the encroaching chaos of the first world war, with the playing out of
>the Victorian program to civilise the world, at least as they understood
>civilising, there came a deep void in the minds and souls of a generation.
>It was a generation that began to, inspired by Darwin and Freud, to ask
>where the origin of things came from.  It was a generation that invented
>they idea that the purpose of man's philosophy was to answer "the big
>questions" of "where am I going? where do I come from? what is my purpose
>on earth?" And to reply with a powerful authority that would alay these
>fears.

I'ts funny that you would mention this because I recently read a passage,
(stating quite the opposite), in Daniel Boorstin's new book, "The Seekers"
and I've been fascinated ever since by how it might be affecting
contemporary music and art:

   "In this long quest, Western Culture has turned from seeking the end
   or purpose to seeking causes--from the Why to the How.  Might this
   empty meaning from our human experience?"

There are a few things that I have mentioned before regarding Contemporary
CM scene.

1) Composers seem so self-conscious about those that came before them.
(Yes, I know but Brahms only had Beethoven.) Every piece has to be
ground-breaking because it's what made composers of the past stand out.

2) It seems as though in the last thirty years that we have more "doctors"
than "patients." In other words, the second half of the 20th Cent.  will
probably be recognised more for its quality of commentary on CM rather than
its quality of music.  (Stirling, just think how much music you and I could
have written in the time it took to write these postings.)

3) Since composers are now so enstranged from their audience, Critics
have become the midwives and middlemen of artistic creation--the result
being similar to pouring too much fertilizer over a plant.  (Critics,
terrified that they will be lampooned by future generations for being
too conservative, ie., Mahler's detractors in the Vienna newspapers;
end up overcompensating in the other direction.)

Don't all of these observations fit Boorstin's assertion that our
current preoccupation is with the How? Modern artists look to critics and
commentators for past *causes* that led to success, and then focus soley
upon repeating the formula.  Are the adjectives we hear about regarding
modern CM--"sterile", "better seen than heard", "written for a computer"--a
result of composers forgetting to tackle the question of *Why* and
therefore draining their art of meaning?

If there is one thing that people seem to miss in the line of contemporary
music most respected and initiated by Schoenberg--you know what kind I am
talking about), it would be whimsy; wonderment.  Nothing fires up the
imagination more than trying to answer Why--seeking our end or purpose.

Religious prophets and seers of antiquity, in pursuit of explaining Why,
are almost endearing in the way that they would add such fantasical stories
to their dogma as a way of closing philisophical gaps that the local
smartie pants would point out.  And composers, throughout the ages sure
had fun too!  Take Handel's "Israel in Egypt."

Do we simply know too much nowadays? I mean, its fun to write about a
plague with frogs and locusts, but who wants to write about test tubes and
viruses?

I think that the real problem is that not a long time ago, composers,
(as a voice of the Church or not), were prophets and "seers" in their
own way--explaining our ends and purpose, or lapses in experience and
understanding, with music.  The difference is that today composers seem to
have given up *seeing* for their fellow men and have instead endeavored to
become prophets and seers for their chosen art in and of itself.

Oscar Wilde once said that artists don't walk among the crowd, they are
the bystander that observes crowd.  I believe that many modern artists,
in search of the How, have taken it one step further--they have become
observers of the bystander.

John--blistered and bloody-fingered--Smyth