From: roger@phoenix.Princeton.EDU (Roger Lustig)
Subject: Re: John Cage is Dead
Originator: news@nimaster
Organization: Princeton University
Date: Sat, 22 Aug 1992 23:16:26 GMT

In article <Bt958o.B6H@quake.sylmar.ca.us> brian@quake.sylmar.ca.us (Brian K. Yoder) writes:
>In article <2A904248.26806@orion.oac.uci.edu> jdooley@maemaster.eng.uci.edu (John R. Dooley) writes:
>>In article <Bt3xMp.xL@quake.sylmar.ca.us> brian@quake.sylmar.ca.us (Brian K. Yoder) writes:
>>>I'm all for letting people think whatever they want about Cage, and I happen 
>>>to think he produced garbage, and I am contempuous of him and of those
>>>pretentious "art lovers" who fawn at his feet (or grave as it were).  

>>Why?  Do you know him?  [Or anyone (or everyone) who enjoys his 
>>music for that matter?]   You certainly can dislike his music, but
>>why does that translate into contempt for the man.  

>How can you divide the two in a total evaluation of how you feel about his
>death?  

"I don't like Paul Newman's spaghetti sauce, so I'll be glad when he's
dead."  Huh?  What does a person's work have to do with personal like or
dislike?  

>Who knows, maybe Stalin was a really nice guy when he wasn't
>"at work", but that doesn't stop me from having contempt for him.  Since

Only because his work was evil.  Now, come on, Brian, and FINALLY tell
us where the evil in John Cage's work was.  "He destroyed music."  Tell
us what that means, Brian.  Tell us what music he destroyed.  Tell us
how, with Beethoven's popularity at an all-time high, John Cage could
possibly have affected it.  Tell us the horrible things that John Cage
did to a single human being.

Tell us why you chose Stalin, the murderer of millions, the enslaver of
a nation, for an analogy of a man whose witty compositions fascinated
some, amused others, stimulated yet others to compose, and infuriated a
few.  Tell us who was harmed by all those activities, and why they have
anything to do with Stalin's criminality.

If someone has a hairstyle you don't like, would you rejoice in their
death, too?  

>the only "relationship" I have with Cage is through his work, that is the
>only grounds on which I can base my evaluations.  Even is he was a kindly
>gentleman, his effect on the music world makes his overall impact on the
>world (and me in particular) quite negative.

But you can ignore it without even trying.  Nobody holds a gun to your
head and forces you to listen to Cage.  This is not the same as millions
killed, no matter how much you like such analogies.

>>From all indications
>>he didn't seem contemptible.  (It's easier to show the opposite of the
>>folly you make here.  Wagner's music is marvellous, but his views
>>make the man repugnant.)

>Actually, that's not a bad example.  If you just heard (obviously belatedly)
>that Wagner had died, would you feel good or bad about it?  Personally,
>I would have somewhat mixed feelings since his primary connection with me
>was through his (fairly good) music, but based on what I know about his
>political and personal habits, I would not shed any tears, nor would I
>send a boquet.  Would you?

Wagner is a bad example because he *did* do criminal things (lying,
stealing, cheating, etc.), and because he conjured up anti-Semitism and
eventually called for the mass suicide of the Jews, and, failing that,
for the Germans to take measures against them.

John Cage never did that.

>>>As >someone who has done more to destroy good music than 
>>			      ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
>>>almost anyone else this century, 

>>Cage composed music.  Are you saying that, because John Cage composed, 
>>other music was destroyed.  Beethoven's music still exists.  
>>As does Mozart's, Verdi's, Bach's, etc. etc.  I don't know how if
>>anything Cage did has changed our interpretation of older music.
>>I sorta doubt it though.  Thus, music has survived John Cage.

>Please read my discussion of this subject in my recent reply to Roger 
>Lustig.  

It made no sense there.  And you didn't answer my specific
questions about it, either.

>I should add though, that I can attribute the fact there have been no
>composers of the caliber of a Beethoven since the advent of this anti-musical
>movement arose, and I think that people like Cage are the cause.  Just look

Funny, many people see the causality reversed -- the new music arose
because talented composers didn't want to compose the old way anymore.

I might add that they have a lot of evidence for that view.

Now, what do you mean by "of the caliber of a Beethoven," I wonder?
Were there any such *before* Beethoven?  If not, I don't see why we
should expect there to be many more under any circumstances.

Do you mean "writing music like Beethoven's"?  Very few composers even
tried.

Do you mean "carrying Bethoven's ideas onward"?  Composers did that, but
weren't appreciated if they went too far.  The public wanted thingsthat
were just like Beethoven, and yet completely new, and THAT is why
composers gave up on the whole deal after a while.  They were being
torn apart by the tension between progress and the Beethoven tradition.

As for the "Anti-musical movement," many people, including many
musicians, including many musicians you probably like (not that I've
ever  heard you express admiration for a performer or a piece of music),
find the same composers you insult to be quitre fascinating.  How do you
explain this?

>at the musical programs from your local symphony.  Listen to the people
>who make the selections for what will be performed.  I know that here in
>LA, the musical establishment resents the philistine tastes of the audiences
>who are enthusiastic about Mozart, Beethoven, and Tchaikovsky, but not for
>the more modern composers.  My impression is that this is not atypical.

Meaning what?  And how do you explain that later composers who didn't
progress much beyond the Old Masters don't do as well?  Their stuff gets
played once or  twice, and then nobody asks for it anymore.  Plenty of
composers write old-fashioned music; but  audiences want the *real*
classics.  

Oh, and Stravinsky, Bartok, and a lot of other composers you call
"frauds" are quite popular, even in LA.  My impression is that this is
quite typical.

>Do you disagree?

With what?  That the Board of the LA Phil is full of philistines?  It
wouldn't be LA if it weren't, but that's neither here nor there.

>>I'm unfamiliar with his abilities as a performer?  Did he ever perform
>>works other than his own?  Did he give a pathetic performance of 
>>some old masterpiece?  Is this how John Cage destroyed music?

>By redefining it in the eyes of the "academic world" as including non-music.

Huh?  The ACADEMIC world? Whom could you *possibly* have in mind? 

The academic world ignored Cage for decades and decades.  Only in the
1970's -- long after the "anti-musical trend" you describe began -- did
*anyone* give him any more than the shortest of shrift.  I can think of
only a few academic articles on Cage from before 1975, and most of those
were in specialized journals concerned only with new music. A good many
weren't even in musical journals.  The only book I know of that took
Cage seriously was by Wilfrid Mellers, and most people considered *him*
to be a kook.

Really, Brian, could you either give us a few examples of what you mean
or just lay off the wild claims?

>If I managed to get people to agree that "fruit" included not only small
>edible bits of vegetable matter, but transistor radios, stones, 
>thunder storms, spoiled milk, sweet tarts, and ball point pens, I would have
>destroyed the idea of "fruit" and going to a "fruit stand" would be a
>much different experience than it had been before the change.  Get it?

No.  Fruit is fruit, and its definition does not change over time.  The
definition of music is *constantly* changing, and has been changing for
centuries and centuries.  For a thousand years it has been true that
listeners at one time would not recognize the music of 100 years after
their time as music -- at all.  Occasionally they would go so far as to
call it very bad, dissonant, harsh, incorrect, etc.  Often, people have
written treatises on how the new music is destroying music, too.  They
have always been wrong to date; their prophecies have had the same
accuracy as Messianic ones.  And they are about as frequent.

The only constant in the definition of music is that it's what some
people play and others listen to.  And John Cage both played and
listened.

>>Or is his music parasitically displacing other music.  

>Indeed, the KIND of music he strove to make "acceptable" does push out
>other music, both in performances, and (more importantly) in the work
>and education of new composers.  

Then why are there more classical orchestras now than there have been in
60 years?  Howcome Bach and Mozart's performance rate has skyrocketed,
by at least 1000%  (one thousand percent) since the beginning of the
century?  What displacement has taken place?  

And why do many composers get their training without even hearing of
John Cage, and why do many others not study his music at all?  Have you
ever been near a composition class?  

>Imagine the reaction of the musical
>world today if a young Mozart or Rachmaninoff started to write their
>kind of music!  They wouldn't be considered serious composers, would they?

No, nor would a young person writing Mozartean music in 1830 been taken
seriously.  What's your point?  (Actually, such a person would have been
under far more pressure to write "modern" music than one today would
be.)

>How can you explain that the music of the old masters is what most people
>want to listen to, rather than the moderns?  Has there been a change?

Yes.  But John Cage came well after that change, and ahd nothing to do
with it.  In fact, the invention of radio, recording, and movies had a
lot more to do with it than any hundred composers did.

>What kind of people promoted this change?

Edison?

Actually, the change came *before* even Rachmaninoff wrote his first
masterpiece.  By 1900, German concert programs consisted to 80% of music
by dead people.  Obviously the moderns weren't in great demand, even
though the people had Strauss, Mahler, Saint-Saens, Faure, Debussy,
Rimsky-Korsakov, Reger, and all kinds of others to choose from.  John
Cage was 12 years from being conceived at that time, and Schoenberg was
writing Wagner-style tonal music.  (His _Gurrelieder_, composed in 1900,
were very popular when first performed, btw.)

>>> I would hope to see most music lovers applaud his passing.

>>This is sick.  

>No more sick than doctors applauding the passing of Dr. Mengele.

Brian, Dr. Mengele killed some of my relatives!  I don't take
comparisons like this lightly.  Isthe taking of human lives no different
to you from the taking of an attitude you don't like?  So much for
freedom, I suppose.

Roger

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