Pablo Massa <[log in to unmask]> 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.

How did this "big hole" open up, then? And on what grounds are you accusing
Stockhausen of being an "artistic impostor"? Those are heavy words.  Art
develops, just like history, through and by the guiding force of its own
internal 'spirit,' if you will (to speak in Hegelian language, which seems
fitting here).

>That cap was called aleatory music, a true oxymoron;

I am of the opinion that aleatory music was developed by composers who
maintained a guiding principle similar to that of Heidegger in philosophy
-- i.e., to return to that primal moment at which the chaotic universe of
sounds first begins to resemble something like the inspired 'order' of/that
is MUSIC.  For Heidegger, of course, the goal was to attain that level of
awe which Aristotle mentions in the _Metaphysics_ -- an awe capable of
"giving one to think in the pure space of being." At the risk of making a
possibly false historical connection, allow me to simply suggest that the
almost simultaneous development of Heidegger's philosophy, Surrealism (for
example), and aleatory music may have been manifestations of a greater or
more over-arching historical direction or 'drive' than we are aware of --
being immersed in it, as we are.

In aleatory music, there is an attempt to achieve a realization of that
awe-inspiring moment, shared by both composer and performer alike, when the
musical work still lies in the future, but its suggestion hovers before the
creative mind like a divine presence.  Hence the derivation of our word
'music' from the Greek _musaios_ -- of the Muses.  And as Plato shows us,
in the _Ion_, inspiration (which is of the Muses) is not derived from the
human soul, but from an external source.  This source is divine.  In the
best aleatory music, then, perhaps the divine is struggling to make its
appearance in the carefully circumscribed 'recorded' space of a sonic
monument.

Again, just as beings cannot, according to Heidegger, come to know Being
except in the capacity of _Dasein_, so musical souls cannot come to know
the origin of music except in a creative capacity -- and such a capacity is
already musically involved, if you will.  And so aleatory music presents
itself as somewhat tragic, just like Heidegger's neo-Grecian philosophy.

These are, of course, just suggestions.

Peace,

Edward