From: jdooley@maemaster.eng.uci.edu (John R. Dooley)
Subject: Re: John Cage is Dead
Newsgroups: rec.music.classical
Organization: University of California, Irvine
Date: 22 Aug 92 19:18:29 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?  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.

Are you seriously comparing John Cage and Josef Stalin?  Are you
seriously comparing the effects of the "work" of each?  
FYI:  Josef Stalin murdered millions of people in his work.  I know
	of no people killed by John Cage.

>
>>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?  

Not knowing him I would feel little emotion.

>
>>>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.  

I have.  It's not convincing.

>
>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.  

Many people would argue that there has been no composer of the caliber
of Beethoven since Beethoven.  John Cage certainly has nothing to do
with the intervening years.  

And, if what you're looking for in a modern composer is Ludwig II, you
aren't going to find him and John Cage has nothing to do with that.  
Beethoven was a musical genius brimming with ideas.  The next composer
of Beethoven's caliber will not be dredging the same waters as LvB.
He'll be creating music, not recycling it.

>Just look
>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.  

I live in Orange County and I haven't noticed any such resentment on 
the part of the symphony here or the symphony in your fair city.  
They program the three composers you mention frequently.  The 
Pacific Symphony definitely has LvB and Tchaikovsky. 
(A year ago, Mozart seemed to be on every bill.)  But, no John Cage.  
But, I'll check the upcoming LAPhil schedule to see what composers
are programmed.  (My guess ... if it's heavily slanted in any way it
will be towards the Scandanavians, because of Salonen.)

Secondly, if modern composers works are not performed, classical
music becomes a dead art.  That an orchestra will occasionally 
bravely perform a piece that the audience is unfamiliar with 
is to lauded.

>My impression is that this is not atypical.  Do you disagree?

Yes.  Most orchestral programs are conservative.  Especially
now with the current economic problems.

>
>>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.
>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?
>

Yeah, I get your point.  You make yet another meaningless analogy.  
Living organisms have real biological needs.  As humans, we have real
nutritional needs.  Needs documentable by both empirical evidence
and proven, theoretical models.  All your argument shows me is that
you have trouble distiguishing art from science.

>>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, 

Again, I'll check the LA Phil schedule to see what '92-'93.  

>and (more importantly) in the work
>and education of new composers.  Imagine the reaction of the musical
>world today if a young Mozart or Rachmaninoff started to write their
>kind of music!  

Point 1:  It's a silly argument.  The music of Mozart and Rachmaninoff
has *already* been written.  When a great composer writes great new 
music, neither you nor I can imagine the result.  (If we could, 
we might be the next Mozart or Haydn.)  Their compositions will
not be Mozart II, LvBII, the Return of Rachmaninoff, etc.  It will
be new.  It will be creative.  It will challenge listeners.
Point 2:  If a great composer arrives today, conservative audiences
will probably only listen to it if it's on a program with old 
masterpieces.  (That's if any music directors are gutsy enough to
perform it.)

>They wouldn't be considered serious composers, would they?

Huh?

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

Wrong!  Most people listen to modern popular music.  Modern classical
music is more challenging to us, because it is less familiar to us.
It's easier for us to listen to the old masters, because we are familiar
with it.  It usually meets the majority of our expectations.  
(Note also:  with a few exceptions, the composers we like most today 
were controversial in their times.  Contemporary critics and
audiences often objected to their music as not music.)

>
>>> 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.
>

Dr. Mengele participated in genocide.  He performed experiments with
no scientific merit that increased the suffering of those he murdered.

Do you honestly consider a composer who writes music that *you* do
not appreciate comparable to a genocidal mass-murderer?  


John



Newsgroups: rec.music.classical