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From: mfs@mhuxr.UUCP (SIMON)
Newsgroups: net.music,net.music.classical
Subject: Re: Progress, the Arts, and Razor Blades
Message-ID: <262@mhuxr.UUCP>
Date: Wed, 27-Feb-85 17:16:38 EST
Article-I.D.: mhuxr.262
Posted: Wed Feb 27 17:16:38 1985
Date-Received: Fri, 1-Mar-85 07:25:11 EST
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> >>	2) Is there 'progress' in the arts? 
> >>Of course not.  Arts are made by people, and people never change.
> 
> >Are you for real? 
> 
>     Is the music of Olivier Messaien, John Lee Hooker, or Iggy Pop more
>     emotionally moving than that of Josquin Dez Prez or Monteverdi? Are the
>     paintings of Matisse or Piet Mondrian more effective than those of
>     Vermeer?
> 

However, the arts to evolve, progress if you will, in that past conventions
are discarded, modified or replaced by new conventions. The rhythmic
drive and unconventional harmony of an Ornette  Coleman DOES represent
progress over the unaccented 4/4 of a Louis Armstrong. This does not demean
the colossal genius of Armstrong, but Coleman has clearly traveled further
down the road of musical discovery. If that's not progress, then I don't
know what is.

>     The arts, of course, must change in response to the techniques and
>     fashions of the time, as well as to the natural creative drives of
>     artists who feel constrained by the past. And sometimes, when we are
>     lucky, the genius of the past is recreated in a new image.
> 
Genius is never recreated. It is built upon by new genius.

> -michael

Marcel