(As my employer is the home of the Nemmers Prize, and as Knussen arrives for his first of four Nemmers residency weeks on Monday, I think I'll sit this one out, at least in public.  But it's a fascinating read, Ian.  Thanks for posting it.)

Actually, I take that back.  I do want to chime in in response to this:

"Within music, however, [minimalism] has a more overtly political function as a vehicle for neo-conservative composers to rebrand or resuscitate tonality and restore musical materials or forms that objective historical processes of development have already superseded. The frequently repetitive nature of such music, projected in a simplistic harmonic and rhythmic soundscape, aids its easy assimilability and placement in conventional concert programming contexts. It is also ideal material for marketeers and publishers seeking to widen the audience for their products in order to gain market advantage."

I feel that it's absolutely crucial to make a distinction b/t the minimalist music of the late 60s and early 70s and the sort of music that Gordon is critiquing.  Adams' recent music (of, say, the last decade or so) really has very little to do w/ minimalism.  I'd argue that the earliest minimalist experiments were quite revolutionary, and that they were quite vehemently shunned by the academy and by major arts institutions makes Gordon's argument a bit hard to accept.  On a perceptual level (or at least one that moves beyond a very brief excerpt into larger time spans), there's nothing remotely simplistic or easily assimilable about, say, Piano Phase, Music in Fifths, or the work of someone like Tony Conrad.

I think all that business about prizes is fairly unimportant. More seriously, though I find Adams' music empty, weak and emotionally exploitative (with one or two exceptions, but I can't even remember what they are), I think it's highly exaggerated to think of him as "the enemy", when the real problem is a system of cultural values which conistently places glossy and superficial stuff like that above music which proposes a more active involvement on the part of listeners. One would think there's room on the planet for the widest possible diversity of musical expression, but the fact is that most of that diversity is ignored or suppressed, including, be it said, the music of Gordon Downie himself, which is rather interesting, although it would be missing the point to say it's "right" where John Adams is "wrong".

It means nothing, stuart. It's just wind. But this sort of talk makes some people happy and there's no real harm in it.

bws S-S!

Sure. Whilst I have slightly different views on the relationship between certain varieties of aesthetic approach and political ideals, Downie is nonetheless talking about 'aesthetic politics' without necessarily making any inferences as regards the personal politics of the composer. It's the work, not the individual behind it, that counts.

Perhaps I was unclear. The reason I said it meant nothing is because it is irrelevant to the music. I doubt there are many of us who would have warmed to Wagner's personality and, based largely on last week's programme on the TV, I now find it difficult to feel anything other than antipathy towards Tschaikovsky's apparent selfishness. But that doesn't mean that I can't appreciate that the two of them wrote some wonderful, inspired - and inspiring - music, which I, and many millions of others, enjoy playing and listening to.

They were human beings, of course, with the flaws of nature and character that, as humans, we all have to greater or lesser degrees. "Let him who is without sin cast the first stone". That, in spite of their humanity, they also had a particular gift of writing wonderful music is, like so many things in art and nature, one of life's many miracles and to be treasured.

So, and perhaps to an extent because of this, politics and music are not, in my opinion, merely uneasy bedfellows: they are incompatible bedfellows. They are irrelevant to each other. That is NOT to say that the daily/social circumstances in which a composer finds himself composing are irrelevant, although they are perhaps less relevant to his music than some would wish to think.

I have mentioned before on here that I think the habit of searching for some sort of devious political motivation behind everything one meets up with in life is not just counter-productive, it's plain daft. It seems, unfortunately, to be an obsession from which those on the extremes of right and left cannot manage to refrain.

Now I am getting confused. I had thought that you (or not necessarily you personally, Ian, but those who use this 'Frankfurt School' type of language) did think that musical conservatism more or less equalled political conservatism. That was, very roughly speaking, why you objected to it. 'Conservative' music was performing a conservative political function and you were against it because you objected to the latter. Or, going a step further, 'fascist' music (which seemed to include some of Stravinsky) was objectionable because it implied fascist politics.

Have I misunderstood? And that when you talk about 'right' and 'left' in music you are not implying anything about 'right' and 'left' in the sense they are used in economic/political theory after all?

I have to say that makes much more sense to me. The idea that writing tonal music is itself a political act furthering a particular view on who should own the means of production, distribution and exchange does, um, take quite a bit of swallowing. But I had thought you were making some connection along those lines, albeit more subtly than that obviously.