Pablo Massa writes:

>...  To "elevate the performer to the status of co-composer, blah, blah"
>was just an elegant theoretical cap built up in the mid 50's to cover a
>big hole at the musical inventive of Mr.  KH Stockhausen, one of the major
>artistic impostors of the XX century.  That cap was called aleatory music,
>a true oxymoron; it was a pretended reaction against total serialism, and
>its utile life was about 3 or 4 weeks.  Actually, I'm not sure whether he
>or some critics invented it.  Doesn't matter:  speeches like that provided
>(and still provides) a justification for both moron critics and sterile
>composers.

So by you Benjamin Britten is a sterile composer? After all, many passages
generated by chance techniques appear in his later music.  I'm always wary
of blanket statements about entire genres of music, particularly railing
against specific techniques.  Technique is neutral, I should think.  It
depends on how the technique is used.  I happen to like much of
Stockhausen, but not because of or despite his aleatorics.  Furthermore,
not all of Stockhausen is aleatory.

Steve Schwartz