I reply here briefly to The Doctor's polemic abstract offered as message #41 above. As with iron, I may be getting rusty with old age; but I don't think I naturally share its rigid and brittle qualities (at least I hope not).

I wonder, however, whether The Doctor does? In noting his assertion...


I am worried by his confidence in "absolute standards of taste and discernment". Who, I must ask, sets them and monitors them? We do not have to look too far into history to see the decadence of this viewpoint either: instruments banned from use in early church services, glorious medieval carvings and ornaments hacked to pieces by the Puritans, a whole generation of Soviet composers persecuted because their art was adjudged to fall short of required standards, a complete ban of ALL MUSIC of any kind by the Taleban (with severe penalties for anyone found in possession of instruments, or declared guilty of making music upon them)...etc. etc.....

It is, I believe, intellectually dishonest to assert the existence of such absolutes, yet at the same time personally to step outside them as if they are somehow mere "natural orders" to which we must gladly succumb (in a state of innocent bliss).

We are eventually instructed that The Doctor's prescriptions (presented in the form of Minutes of a Committee Meeting) are reducible to three contingencies...


Yet these are the very qualities that today's composers still espouse! The fact that they are looking for newer, more contemporary means of creativity in no way belittles a continued search for "Man's creative spirit". Also, they still work with a malleable medium (and indeed seek to extend in newer ways such malleability), and they also envisage that the outcome of their labour will deliver a true Work of Art.

Furthermore, it seems clear to me that they are no less aware than The Doctor of what he writes here...


...although today we should be inclined to remove the gender resonances and use the phrases "a musical person" and "the world in which he/she lives". But the current world is a very different one from what it used to be: consider the buildings, the transport, the information super-highway, commerce, the age of digital recording and transmission, electronic musical instruments, MIDI interfaces, CDs, DVDs and CDRoms. If composers of THIS world simply ignored these as irrelevant to some predetermined "absolute standard of taste" they would simply not be in compliance with the need to be aware of the world in which they live! The challenge for them, I suppose, is to connect THIS world within which they live and work with an artistic spirit of enquiry and creativity. My purpose in starting this thread was to try and find out from them how they went about all this in such a different world.

I fully believe that today's composers - within their own world - are genuinely concerned to develop and express "Man's spirit" through coherent artistic creativity (just as older composers always did within their own very different worlds). I remain intrigued to learn from them how, in developing their own styles, musical languages and compositional techniques, they approach their work from a structural standpoint.

Baz

I passed on your suggestion. Please forgive me. And I do hope that you don't try to take me seriously: there are some things that are beyond each of us.

Your reply is fascinating. I don't think I've ever before seen such a concentrated demonstration of how to miss points and the use of cliches is stunning. Please forgive me, again, if I don't spend any more time replying.

S-S!

Yes. Or, to put it another way, to confuse percieved incompetence/ dishonesty on the part of a composer with real ignorance of/ unwillingness to grasp his or her intentions.

I regret that I was repelled by the same phenomenon and have withdrawn from this discussion - largely because it mostly resembles the Monty Python "Is This The Right Room For An Argument?" sketch

The theme is very worthwhile and needs discussion - but not "discussion" of this kind.  Maybe it should be restarted with a less incendiary title and a more constructive approach?  I doubt any worthwhile discussion will result from this particular thread continuing.

Humanity is a large thing. Some occupy some parts of it, others occupy other parts of it, perhaps with no overlap, and what connects them is all the other people in between who happen to overlap with both. That is why the collective judgment of Art enriches the individual judgment.

Those most likely to enjoy a Hinton work have a good deal of overlap with Hinton, and those without Hinton overlap will be left to their own devices (which doesn't preclude them finding some appeal). Those latter will have to be convinced that their remove from the Hinton arena (and vice versa) is responsible for the disconnect; they ought not blame the shape of the Hinton arena itself, unless the Hinton arena is preternaturally small, of course. "This Hinton fellow, no, I can't get on with his work. I've never been interested in triple fugues." or conversely, "This Hinton fellow, a shame he doesn't write more works inspired by The Clash. Oh well, to each his own."

In either case it does no good to condemn that arena, because humanity is a large thing. The individual composer as well as listener must acknowledge his/her own limitations in order to achieve a level of aesthetic awareness requisite to civil society. I'd think those limitations are necessary to get any work done at all.

Hm. Sorry, I think this is loopy but will post it anyway. Sydney Grew's use of the word "identical" got me thinking and I just wanted to give it some nuance.

No need for forgiveness, let me assure you; it was not a serious suggestion in any case.

No danger of that, to be sure.

Doubtless.

Thank you for your kind words.

Then you've evidently not looked at some of your own writings; however, perhaps you might care to illustrate examples of the point-missing and the cliché use to which you refer.

Best,

Alistair

This kind of discussion engenders two reactions on my part.

The first is a sincere admiration for the high degree of ingenuity that some manage to show in their attempts to provide logical reasons why so many find so much modern music so unpleasant.

The second is a sincere amazement that some seem to think that they know better than Mozart.

bws S-S!

A well-known quote, indeed - but, if I may say so politely, not particularly relevant to the point I made.