In reply to what Don Satz and Steve Schwartz wrote (being too lengthy to
quote):

First, you need to understand that these comments are coming from someone
who doesn't think very highly of Mozart.  Anyway, obviously the first time
I wasn't clear enough in what I was trying to say.  In my opinion, there
are two ways composers can write music:  from their heads and from their
hearts.  Music from the head is very structured and controlled, yet lacks
the warmth, heart, nobility--call it what you like--that music from the
heart has.  Music from the heart isn't allo unorganized heart-on-sleeve
stuff, although that is one way that it shows it self.  Music from the
heart can be just as organized as the other kind, but like I said, it
has a warmth and depth that music from the head lacks.  Mozart is a good
example of music from the head.  A lot of what he wrote was very organized
and constructed.  Yet Mozart as a composer was so talented that you could
give him a melody and he'd polish it all up, write it down, and that would
be that.  It was only later in his life that he started to 'think' about
what he was writing, and put what he meant into his music.  Which brings
up another diffence between the two styles of composition.  Music from the
head can be written by the composer yet the composer doesn't necesarily
believe what he's writing.  Music from the heart is the truth, the whole
truth, and nothing but the truth.  In Mozart's music, that trait began to
show itself late in life.  For example, the 40th symphony and the clarinet
concerto.  If he'd lived another 20 years or so he'd probably have become
the greatest composer ever.  By the time he figured this out, he had only
a couple of months to live.  Beethoven (as well as most of the composers
of the romantic period) is a good example of music from the heart.  The
majority of his works are written they way he meant them.  Part of the
difficulty of listening to the 9th symphony is that it was written
entirely from Beethoven's point of view--it was a direct transplant from
his soul.  In it he skips around in ideas, and at points is sketchy yet he
successfully transmitted the idea was trying to bring across.  Why? Because
the music doesn't lie about his intentions (giving leeway to the fact that
composers can never wholely get from their head to paper).  Just like
everyday languages, music is a language, and in it, a composer can lie.

Now regarding John Cage and all the other experimental composers (ie.
12 tone, microtonal, etc).  Their language is still in their works, so in
effect, they're still speaking jibberish.  Their musical language hasn't
yet been refined.  You can call it music, but if someone were to write a
200 page book entirely of non- sense words with mixed puntuation etc would
you call it fine literature? I don't think so.  The same holds true with
these composers.  Granted they're breaking new gound, but I'm critical
because of the lack of descrimination in this music.  They mix with mature
with the infantile.  You can't base an entire song on one ostinato, it
mesmerises and forces the musical idea on the listener.  Likewise there
can't be so much change the listener is lost.

Call me communist.  Call me biased.  Call me whatever you like, yet what
I said holds true.  Until the style of writing becomes mature, it will be
difficult for the composers to write their music the way they mean it--that
changes everyday.  So I conceed somewhat, it's *partially* not the
composers fault.  It took the previous style (tonal music of the diatonic
variety) hundreds of years and through several variations (modal music,
plainchant, equal temperament) until it came of age.  Everything composed
after the renissance and baroque ages were changes in fashion, but not in
the basic building blocks.  Now with a shift in the building blocks, in a
couple hundred years we'll see what the results are.

Joseph Sowa
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