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: 25 Aug 92 20:35:43 GMT

In article <BtH12G.Brz@quake.sylmar.ca.us> brian@quake.sylmar.ca.us (Brian K. Yoder) writes:
>
>I don't think that John Cage has SINGLE-HANDEDLY
>destroyed music, but he has done more in that regard than any other single
>person I can think of.
>

1. Music has not been destroyed.  Period.  
2. You don't like modern composers.  Fine.  But there's no need 
to find a scapegoat and assign blame.  Certainly, John Cage has
not had enough influence to commit all the crimes you accuse him of.
3. 8) If we're really looking for destroyers of music I vote for
the clown who invented MUZAK.  Now there's something I hear 
everywhere and I always want to turn it off.  Admittedly a
subjective opinion - for all you MUZAK fans. 8)

>
>I doubt Cage would go over too well in Orange County, but the "anything goes"
>concept of what is considered "good" by modern composers means that none
>of THEM is producing anything worth listening to.
>

You state this objectively having listened and studied all works by
all modern composers.  (I admire your diligence.)

>I have also heard some pretty disgusting interviews with the folks 
>running the LA Opera about the philistine tastes of the public for not
>enjoying discordant music and about the need to revise the classics to
>make them more sensitive to racial and sexual concerns.
>

And, if memory serves, the LA opera is performing 
LaTraviata, Turandot, The Magic Flute, among others, this season.
Note if you want more opera standards the Pacific Opera has
LaBoheme, LaTrovatore(sp?), Romeo and Juliet, and the Marriage
of Figaro.  I'm sure some of these will satisfy your needs
for opera you can appreciate.  

>
>>Living organisms have real biological needs.  As humans, we have real
>>nutritional needs.  Needs documentable by both empirical evidence
>>and proven, theoretical models.  
>
>And humans have real intellectual and psychological needs.  Don't you agree?
>If that is the case, do you think that some of those needs are satisfied by
>good art?
>

Yes.  But there is not a daily recommended amount of Beethoven.  If you
listen to John Cage you will not die.   

>>All your argument shows me is that
>>you have trouble distiguishing art from science.
>
>Art and science are not the same thing, but both can be rationally evaluated.
>Do you disagree?
>

Not in the same way.  Unless your in the habit of putting art in a petri
dish or running a simulation on it.  (Note I am aware that some computer
analsis is done on some art and literature.  I am unaware of any,
however, that evaluates the quality of the art.)

>"Challenge" them?  That seems to be a euphemism for "disgust" as I usually
>hear it used.  

Maybe you're disgusted by being challenged.  I don't consider them 
synomous nor do I consider "challenge" euphemistic for "disgust".

>Newcomers to classical music are not more familiar with it, and they seem to
>reject the moderns too.  How can you explain that?

Please read the r.m.c f.a.q. and see how much classical music 
newcomers are familiar with.  Right now 90% of this country is
familiar with Copland's "Hoedown" because it's in a beef commercial.

>  On what grounds could you make such a judgement unless you thought
>there were objective values in art?

I admit when I make an "artistic" judgement it is subjective.  Even
if try to find "objective" measures for that judgement, I can admit
to myself that the process of defining those measures is subjective.

>>Do you honestly consider a composer who writes music that *you* do
>>not appreciate comparable to a genocidal mass-murderer?  
>
>I would say that a mass-murderer is WORSE than a bad artist, but both are
>BAD.  Regarding your use of "genocidal", as I see it, genocidal
>mass-murderers are no better or worse than any other kind of mass-murderer,
>but those who think there is an important difference between the two are
>expressing a racist sentiment (ie. that killing a "race" is worse than
>killing all of the people who are of that race).
>

Well, if calling Dr. Mengele a "genocidal mass-murderer" is rascist,
I stand accused.

John D.


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