That could be argued, yes, but that presupposes that any reaction on the audience's part would be one in which the immediate emotional response outweighs the parallel, contemplative and indeed rational response, and this is probably a matter for the listener rather than for the composer. It could also perhaps be argued that the experience of the work itself is supposed to (and I think often does) act as a starting point for thinking about the issues involved, rather than an excuse to escape thinking about them.

I'm not sure whether the Aristotelian concept of "catharsis" even applied in the time of Greek tragedy to the extent that he thought it did. Euripides' "Trojan Women", for example, written in the aftermath of the Greek massacre and enslavement of the Melians (who had tried to remain neutral in the war between Athens and Sparta), was surely intended to draw the Athenians' attention to this war crime rather than expiate their guilt for it. Note that I'm not making specific reference to Britten's War Requiem, which I've never heard. An emotional reaction to real-world events is often the spur to the kind of thinking that leads to action. The extent to which music can mediate this process is another matter, but I wouldn't necessarily be scornful of attempts for it to do so.

No, I'm not going that far, was just responding to your hypothetical worries! Actually, I simply think there are certain works that latch themselves onto something one 'has' to feel sorry about rather too easily, so as to displace attention from other aspects of the music.

At the risk of depoliticising your thread for a minute, Ian, how much even of a composer's musical intentions are wasted on his audience? Things he has laboured over for days go by in a flash; many listeners are never going to be aware of inverted themes and such like: how less likely is it that deeper questions embedded are going to be revealed to the majority of listeners?

It does sometimes seem very difficult to win in your world, Ian  .

If you write something as a response to some appalling event you first have to have undergo a check of your motives to establish (but how exactly?) that nothing untoward appears on the screen. ("I'm sorry, sir. I'm getting an ambiguous reading on 'Cashing in on emotional capital' here. And there was a very slight blip on 'Subconsciously hoping to get at least one performance with all the wealth, status and social acclaim that brings'. I must ask you to undergo a few further psychometric tests just to check your hidden motives are fully acceptable." )     

If you get through that then you are passed on to the appropriate inspectors to ensure that your emotional response, even if apparently genuine, is correctly calibrated relative to context. ("We have reason to believe you did not calculate correctly the historical and systemic economic circumstances which led indirectly to the event and that you failed to apportion blame and/or empathy in the authorised proportions. Would you mind stepping this way, sir.")

And if you manage to get through that one too, there's a Catch 22 coming up next.

'Were you thinking of makng any reference to the unfortunate event in the title of your work, sir?'

(a)  'Er, yes, .....a bit.'  "I'm very sorry, sir, but the event in question is one which everyone is predictably 'expected' to have a response to. The quota for that particular event has already been filled. A further self-promoting display of emotionalism would merely divert attention away from other unacceptable features of the world, almost certainly for discreditable neo-reactionary motives, and would hinder an active critique of the underlying structures which lead to such events." "But it's only one performance in the Conway Hall on a Sunday afternoon, officer." "I'm sorry, sir, the effect can nonetheless seep throught into the public consciousness at large and we wouldn't want to do anything to hinder the free progress of ultimately inevitable dialectical processes would we? I must ask you to step this way, sir."

or, alternatively

(b) "Er, no,.....I was thinking of calling it Parapluie...non....IV". "Oh dear, oh dear, oh dear. An unprincipled retreat into the shallow faux-sophistication of unengaged aestheticism, eh? I'm afraid I must ask you to come with me, sir."

It's quite an obstacle course 
       

It's a fair cop, officer. Another way of looking at it would be: there would be something unnatural and possibly somehow dishonest to carry on one's work as an artist without (admitting the possibility of) external events impinging on that process in any way, even in a more or less intangible way, so an acknowledgement of that situation, with all its possible contradictions, might be a more appropriate response than an attempt to deny it.

Well, 40 years is not a long time in history. (The Holocaust, which continues to generate new works, ended 62 years ago). But in fact, I'm very sympathetic to the idea of lament. After all, so much of early 20th Century English music was a lament for "the world we have lost", music that is regarded by some not so much as ambulance-chasing as backward-looking. I just hoped that someone (such as yourself) would throw a hissy fit when one of his own sacred cows got herded into Ian Pace's political corral.

 Quote from message 41 - I just hoped that someone (such as yourself) would throw a hissy fit when one of his own sacred cows got herded into Ian Pace's political corral.

What on earth are you talking about ? You do get out of your pram for no reason don't you ? You tried the hostile act on the Philippe de Vitry thread I remember.

Just WHAT IS YOUR BEEF TELEPLASM ?