I'll take plaudits where I can get them, Peter  - thanks for the plug for
State of Independence.

>         In real life it may not be like that. Some of us, for instance,
> without considering that we have gone reactionary in middle-age, consider
> that most of the "great experimenters" of this century (Joyce, Pound,
> Stein, Olson, Zukofsky, Burroughs, Stockhausen, Cage, Picasso,
Duchamp....)
> led their own work into horrific barren wastelands which do nothing but
> threaten current creative enterprise with death. 
> 

Well, broadly speaking, I agree that just about all of them ended up in a
mess. That however does not invalidate the good things they achieved at
earlier stages in their careers, viz:

Joyce - Ulysses
Pound - Mauberley, first 30 cantos and (maybe) the Pisan Cantos
Stein - er can't read her, so I give in here
Olson - Kingfishers
Zukofsky - some wonderful short poems
Burroughs - Naked Lunch
Stockhausen - ok as long as it's before 1955, but I might make an exception
for the piano works
Cage - only the piano music, and maybe percussion pieces  (the methods he
used fall apart when used by an orchestra). I'm not sure about the writings
...
Picasso - a disaster after about 1935
Duchamp - I suspect he's the odd one out. I'll keep him, if I may.

The problem surely is (based on my own very subjective responses listed
above) that once you've started experimenting / pushing back the boundaries
the idolaters and powers-that-be and critics want you to keep going. If you
don't you're toast in critical terms: XX is just repeating his old groove
etc. This is true whether you're a poet, a jazz musician, a 12-tone
composer, painter, whatever. Thus Picasso gets all the plaudits and Braque
is forgotten, although the latter produced good, if repetitive, work up
until the 50s at least. I happen to think Picasso's genuine achievement is
probably greater than Braque's but Braque should still remembered and his
work after 1916 should be appreciated on its own merits and not on a scale
of innovation - itself immeasurable and very hard to see straight when it's
happening anyway.

You see, Peter, I don't mind that Finnegans Wake is an unreadable game,
that the last 30 years of the Cantos were a waste of time, or that the last
3 volumes of Maximus are chewed up bits of undigested library reading. I
don't mind, because I assume that everyone - even Beethoven, Michelangelo
and Shakespeare - produces the odd bummer. If you're restlessly pushing the
boundaries, the chances are you'll produce more than the odd one. If you
get a severe case of messianic fervor and self-belief, a la Pound, you'll
produce a hell of a lot more. I'm still happy with the Cage keyboard works
(and have 30-odd CDs of it to prove it), with Pound from Cathay to a Draft
of XXX Cantos, with Olson pre-Maximus, with Picasso from blue & rose up to
early neo-classical. 

You left out Schoenberg, I notice, and he's a classic case. The rot sets in
after the wonderful Gurrelieder, and is alleviated in only brief flashes
thereafter. I still reckon Gurrelieder and Pelleas & Melisande make him a
Significant Creator, and that's fine with me. I'd like more of it, but I'll
make do with what I've got. I shall now avoid all dedecaphonic barbs heaved
in my direction. (As an aside to the above, I recall with some amusement
going to the second performance of Penderecki's opera Das Verlorene
Paradies (i.e. Paradise Lost) back in 1979, in Munich. I thoroughly enjoyed
my evening: good singing, good orchestra, excellent production, even if the
opera itself was not the composer's masterpiece and he himself was confused
at that time about the direction his work should go. The next morning's
Sueddeutsche Zeitung, trashed the opera - not the performance - on the
grounds that it did not quote "challenge the audience sufficiently"
unquote. I've wondered ever since what empirical measure the critic would
have used to assess the sufficiency of the challenge .....)

In some quarters the above opinions would make me very reactionary indeed.
I'm always happy to be persuaded that I'm mistaken, but I'd rather not have
to accept too much pain along with the persuasion, please. And I'm going to
listen to some early prepared piano pieces by Cage tonight, followed by
Ligeti chamber work for wind instruments, all of which presses the pleasure
buttons.


Tony



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