From: diarmuid@uniwa.uwa.edu.au (Diarmuid Pigott)
Newsgroups: rec.music.classical
Subject: Re: Manners, children please...
Date: 23 Aug 92 03:53:45 GMT
Organization: University of Western Australia

roger@phoenix.Princeton.EDU (Roger Lustig) writes:
: 
: Perhaps.  My friends disagree.
: 
I'm sure they are write, I was a mite peremptory.
: 
: THAT is rude, and I responded to just that rudeness.
: 
which sums up the reason I did it.

: >The fact that I like his Sonatas for Samueal Marchbank's Fairy Piano is
: >neither here nor there. While he was poncing about a music studio trying
: 
: Gay-bashing, eh?  
: 
Poncing as a would pre-dates gay-pride and gay-bashing. It implies
Louis-XIVing. I have two people beside me who are "friends of dorothy"
and neither takes offence". In fact "gay" is no longer p.c. (so I'm told
by one of the readers over my shoulder). 

[can I put in a plug here for the Corigliano Symphony - please listen to
it, buy it, support it...]

: And *I'm* rude...

Yes, we've established that...

: >to get rid of the noise of his pulse rate, 
: 
: Did he do that?  

Yes he did. According to an interview with Nigel Butterley played on ABC
last week, that is one of the prime inspiration for 6'9". Of course if
he had a zen-like approach to the truth...
: 
: >people like Havergal Brian
: >were in desparate straights because Cage-ism and anti-Cage-ism were
: >messing up the bandwidth.
: 
: I find that hard to believe.  Even if it's true, it sounds like envy;
: but I doubt that the vast majority of listeners who have never engaged
: in either side of the debate around Cage would have rushed out to buy
: more Brian records or tickets if the debate had not been going on.  

The problem with Brian was there were no concerts or records. ditto for
George Lloyd, and all the other people who fought to preserve a
tradition that may or may not have been worth preserving.

: 
: Of course, Cage's music and ideas influenced hundreds of other
: composers, too, even Benjamin Britten.  Shall we excoriate *them*, too,
: for "messing up the bandwidth"?  

Cage influenced them to be sure - he influenced me! I am not about to
excoriate myself, or my music, which does not own a jot to Cage...

And may I point out the semantic baggage attached to the word "even"
before Benjamin Britten? Are you letting your petticoat show and saying
(shock, horror) "even [...real composers like...] Benjamin Britten"?
You'd better be careful, Brian Yoder might be watching.

...now may I politely and with respect due to the passing of a great man
ask: in what compositions did Cage purport to be writing music that
could be evaluated outside of the bounds of his aesthetic?

Or should credence be given to the (possibly apocryphal) that Cage told
his harmony instructor, on being told he had no grasp of the nature of
tradional harmony, that there seemed to be a wall there, that Cage
replied "I'll bash my head against it until it caves in"?

(quoting from memory here...)

And finally, wouldn't you admit that 6'9", has been used (correctly or 
incorrectly) as an to suggest there has been a symbolic end to the great
Austrian tradition of symphonic form? 

(I refer you to quotes on the net like "you still writing them
things" and "you still writing for orchestras". I also point to the hostility
shown to people who wish to continue that tradition -  Dreyfuss, Mills 
and Vine in Australia quite recently, Corigiliano in NY)