Another gentle corrective for McLarenist blather....

Although his recent bit of windy "argumentum ad populum" is as amusing
an edifice of self-justification and invective as ever, I just thought I'd
pick out one particularly wonderful section of Brian's most recent ah...
offering from digest 827 and offer a little light instead of heat. It would
appear that Bill Alves has already taken Brian to task for his habit of
being alternately obsequious and insulting to the academics here, so I
can perhaps leave the heavy lifting to others.

>Thus it's clear why Cage developed such a close
>relationship with the composers at Darmstadt:
>Stockhausen and Cage were attracted to one another
>as irresistably as two psychic surgeons at an AMA
>convention. One whiff of the meaningless jargon
>spouted by Cage, and Darmstadt knew he was one
>of their own.

I think a more interesting comparison of the relationship between
John Cage and the European Modernist tradition would actually be
afforded by that horrible man Pierre Boulez : -). In addition to
dissing him, Brian could have shored up his delusional edifice by
linking Boulez to IRCAM and the Freemasons in the next paragraph.
Unsurprisingly, *that* rapprochement isn't precisely as Brian
describes (surprise, surprise) - and in Boulez' case, we've got a
record of it, which you can all take a look at for yourselves (thus
avoiding either Brian's biases or mine). I cannot imagine that
a similar split wouldn't have developed with KHS as well (although
Brian manages to try to convince us that the Stockhausen who wrote
Stimmung is the same KHS who gave us the beautiful Gesange der
Junglinge - another oversimplification. I'll merely commend this
volume to your attention, should you wish to inquire further into
a life of the mind without the patented Brianblinders. I quote:

The Boulez-Cage Correspondence
Edited by Jean-Jacques Nattiez (Cambridge University Press)

Between May 1949 and August 1954 the composers Pierre Boulez
and John Cage exchanged a series of remarkable letters which reflect
on their own music and the culture of the time. This correspondence,
together with other relevant documents, has been edited by Jean-Jacques
Nattiez and appears here for the first time completely in English. At the
time, Cage and Boulez were great friends and these amicable letters
reflect their differing ideas on the course new music should take.
Professor Nattiez has written a full introduction to this collection of
documents and the meticulous annotation of every letter makes this a
volume of extraordinary value for our understanding of the development
of both Cage and Boulez and the music of their time. 'The book's contrapuntal
portrayal of the widening chasm is quite fascinating. It is a necessary book;
an invaluable document of its time.'
-The Guardian

I invite the curious to form their own opinions.

With regards,
Gregory



_
I would go to her, lay it all out, unedited. The plot was a simple one,
paraphrasable by the most ingenuous of nets. The life we lead is our only
maybe. The tale we tell is the must that we make by living it. [Richard
Powers, "Galatea 2.2"] Gregory Taylor/Heurikon Corporation/Madison, WI



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