Open thread for discussion and questions related to the fourth of the six-part series.
The Sixties and Seventies. We will look at the high-water mark for stylistic pluralism, freewheeling experimentalism, and the collision of primitivism and high complexity. Primary currents in the music of George Crumb, Gyorgi Ligeti, Harry Partch, James Tenney, Iannis Xenakis – as well as in the birth of pulse-driven tonal minimalism.
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4 comments:
John,
is it possible for us to have a list of the music you play in each lesson? I'd like to be able to listen to more of some of it. Or perhaps I'm missing where it's listed on the site?
thanks
Jill
Of course...in class four, we heard excerpts of:
Harry Partch - And On The Seventh Day Petals Fell In Petaluma
Conlon Nancarrow - Studies for Piano Player
Pierre Boulez - Le Marteau Sans Maitre
Olivier Messiaen - Oiseaux Exotiques
Karlheinz Stockhausen - Stimmung
Karlheinz Stockhausen - Kontakte
Luciano Berio - Sinfonia
Gyorgy Ligeti - Atmosphères
Iannis Xenakis - Orient-Occident
George Crumb - Music for a Summer Evening
Other lists posted at each session blog page.
Here is the quote of John Cage's that I read, an excerpt from the introduction to his "Lecture on the Weather" from 1976;
Our leaders are concerned with the energy crisis. They assure us they will find new sources of oil. Not only will earth’s reservoir of fossil fuels soon be exhausted: their continued use continues the ruin of the environment. Our leaders promise they will solve the unemployment problem: they will give everyone a job. It would be more in the spirit of Yankee ingenuity, more American, to find a way to get all the work done that needs to be done without anyone’s lifting a finger. Our leaders are concerned with inflation and insufficient cash. Money, however, is credit, and credit is confidence. We have lost confidence in one another. We could regain it tomorrow by simply changing our minds.
The desire for the best and the most effective in connection with the highest profits and the greatest power led to the fall of nations before us: Rome, Britain, Hitler’s Germany. Those were not chance operations. We would do well to give up the notion that we alone can keep the world in line, that only we can solve its problems. More than anything else we need communion with everyone. Struggles for power have nothing to do with communion. Communion extends beyond borders: it is with one’s enemies also. Thoreau said: “The best communion men have is in silence.” Our political structures no longer fit the circumstances of our lives. Outside the bankrupt cities we live in Megalopolis which has no geographical limits. Wilderness is global park. I dedicate this work to the U.S.A., that it become just another part of the world, no more, no less.
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