> Most of it just makes the audience feel anxious and confused, if they even are able to pay attention.
Yeah, I didn't go into it as optimistic as you, but I remember thinking about Ligeti's "microtonal fugue" music: that just sounds like a swarm of depressed bees. At best it works as a one-off joke.
But then it felt like they were unaware and indifferent to each other's gimmicks as well. Feels like I've heard "striking a tamtam then quickly dipping it in water" (boinng!) from an awful lot of "original" modernist composers .
I agree that American minimalism is the main part of conservatory-guarded prestige music where there's actually something interesting - although it, too, started in some dubious and awfully arrogant theorizing.
Yeah, I didn't go into it as optimistic as you, but I remember thinking about Ligeti's "microtonal fugue" music: that just sounds like a swarm of depressed bees. At best it works as a one-off joke.
But then it felt like they were unaware and indifferent to each other's gimmicks as well. Feels like I've heard "striking a tamtam then quickly dipping it in water" (boinng!) from an awful lot of "original" modernist composers .
I agree that American minimalism is the main part of conservatory-guarded prestige music where there's actually something interesting - although it, too, started in some dubious and awfully arrogant theorizing.