The composer is the only one of the creators today who is denied direct access with the public. When his work is done, he is thrust aside and the interpreter enters, not to try to understand but, impertinently, to judge it. Not finding in it any trace of the conventions to which he is accustomed, he banishes it from his programmes, denouncing it as incoherent and unintelligible
It is true that, in response to public demand, our official organisations occasionally place on their programmes a new work, surrounded by established names, but such a work is carefully choosen from the most timid and anaemic of contemporary production, leaving absolutely unheard the composer who represents the true spirit of our time
-Edgard Varese-
It's just recently that I've tried to become even more aware of this other side-the life side of music. I feel I'm just beginning again...music is a reflection of the universe, like having life in miniature. You just take a situation in your life or an emotion you know and put it into music.
-John Coltrane-
They hurt you at home and they hit you in school
They hate you if you're clever and they despise a fool
Till you're so fucking crazy you can't follow their rules
Keep you doped with religion and sex and tv
And you think you're so clever and classless and free
But you're still fucking peasants as far as I can see
-John Lennon-
He is probably the first composer to list a specailized knowledge of acoustical sciences and electronic instrumental technique among his educational credits as a composer, rather than the diploma in piano or cello which composers used to boast in the past.
-Liner notes from CBS Odyssey release of Stockhausen's Nr.5 Zeitmasse for Five Woodwinds-
Posted by joe at January 4, 2004 08:00 PM