Champion Of New Music Fights Back

(Note: This post has been updated (1) as of 2:23 PM Eastern on 20 Jan. See below.)

Music critic, New Music composer, and weblogger Steve Hicken of Listen comments on two posts of mine (here, and here) wherein I wrote in the first:

Why is it, I wonder, that the dissing of Ms. Houlihan and her criticism, and the defense of "post-avant" poetry (represented here by the above quoted two "nonorganic" poems) and poets by their champions sound eerily the same as the dissing of the critics and criticism of so-called "New Music," and the defense of such music and its composers by their champions? Could the answer be that New Music and nonorganic, post-avant poetry are eerily the same; near-perfect analogues, each of the other?

And in the second:

That's my sense of the matter [of the difference between the mature instrumental music of Haydn and Mozart], at any rate, and I refuse to entertain any techie, 21st-century rationalist, or post-modern quibbling or carping on the business. Save that sort of thing for the New Music crowd and its products where it more appropriately belongs.

Writes Mr. Hicken in response to the first of these:

The lack of specifics in this rant is typical—no composers, pieces, or champions are named, so no response is possible. Mr. Douglas posts like this often enough that I wonder if he has a macro for it.

At any rate, both sides [tonal classic music and atonal New Music] in the style wars would do well to listen to a call for a cease fire.

And in response to the second:

Mr. Douglas fires up his macro again, as I was writing this. Who's going to tell the Bloggers?

As to my lack of specifics, none are needed in remarks on New Music such as both my above, for which remarks a macro serves most admirably. If specific composers, pieces, or champions are wanted by Mr. Hicken, let him paste a list of each on a wall, blindfold himself, throw three darts, and let them select the specifics he requires. Any will do for the purpose of comments such as my above.

And as to "style wars," my above quoted remarks have nothing to do with commenting on differences in style. They have exclusively to do with commenting on the difference between our great 600-year legacy of genuine music and the willfully concocted, quasi-mathematical modern systems of composition specifically devised to turn out a simulacrum of genuine music that owes little or nothing to that great 600-year musical legacy, and for the mere appreciation of which simulacrum one needs either written or spoken technical explanation and justification at tedious length, or a master's degree in contemporary music theory.

Style wars my ass.

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Update (2:23 PM Eastern on 20 Jan): Composer and weblogger Marcus Karl Maroney of Sounds Like New vents some spleen.

I should note that on the occasion of this contretemps I took some time to download from Mr. Maroney's website an MP3 of The Ever-fixed Mark, a short essay for orchestra by Mr. Maroney, and confess I liked it lots. It was most impressive indeed, and its subtle echoes, conscious or unconscious, of Bartok's Concerto For Orchestra delightful, and in no way merely derivative. I would have downloaded more examples of Mr. Maroney's work, but as I come in on a dialup connection the download time for MP3 files is for me quite onerous, and so I didn't. For those of you with a broadband connection those further examples of Mr. Maroney's work may be downloaded from his handsome website here (click on Audio Files).