Arguing for Music, Arguing for Culture by Samuel LipmanReview by: Kent DevereauxNotes, Second Series, Vol. 51, No. 2 (Dec., 1994), pp. 624-625Published by: Music Library AssociationStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/898901 .

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NOTES, December 1994 NOTES, December 1994

authors view substance abuse disorders very much in a societal framework, em- phasizing an individual's experience of alienation on both the societal and inter- personal levels.

MICHAEL H. THAUT Colorado State University

Arguing for Music, Arguing for Cul- ture. By Samuel Lipman. Boston: David R. Godine, 1990. [xii, 448 p. ISBN 0-87923-821-6. $35.00.]

Samuel Lipman, master of musical in- vective, unleashes another volume in his series of essays culled from the pages of the New Criterion. Lipman, practitioner par ex- cellence of the argument ad hominem and paralipsis in the service of reactionary crit- icism, never fails to elicit a reaction from his readers; one might best consider Lip- man the music world's equivalent of Rush Limbaugh.

Entertaining as Lipman's invective can be, one can't help pity so mean-spirited a man; Lipman is quick to lavish criticism while offering little supporting argumen- tation. Composer Robert Erickson's music is derided as "music to enjoy hot tubs by," (p. 33) for no stated reason other than the fact that Erickson calls San Diego, Califor- nia, his home and, by implication, is thus incapable of composing little else. (Geo- graphically disadvantaged, I guess?) Peter Maxwell Davies composes in a "pallid, in- ternational style" (p. 80). Toru Takemitsu and Tison Street, are branded composers of "movie music of a mid-forties vintage" (p. 80). Fred Lerdahl pens music with all the "rhythmic interest of an anarchic fu- neral procession" (p. 81). Morton Subot- nick is labeled "a cult hero of the old avant- garde" (p. 82). Frederick Rzewski's entire oeuvre is "essentially simple-minded" (p. 88). The Kronos Quartet perform "defi- nitely trivial and nasty-sounding music" (p. 69). John Cage is simply "the grand master of irrelevancies" (p. 115). Even the audience fails to escape Lipman's caustic barbs as he bemoans the "increasing ill- educated and unsophisticated ... vacant minds" that populate classical music con- certs. Clearly, these people-"the men tie-

authors view substance abuse disorders very much in a societal framework, em- phasizing an individual's experience of alienation on both the societal and inter- personal levels.

MICHAEL H. THAUT Colorado State University

Arguing for Music, Arguing for Cul- ture. By Samuel Lipman. Boston: David R. Godine, 1990. [xii, 448 p. ISBN 0-87923-821-6. $35.00.]

Samuel Lipman, master of musical in- vective, unleashes another volume in his series of essays culled from the pages of the New Criterion. Lipman, practitioner par ex- cellence of the argument ad hominem and paralipsis in the service of reactionary crit- icism, never fails to elicit a reaction from his readers; one might best consider Lip- man the music world's equivalent of Rush Limbaugh.

Entertaining as Lipman's invective can be, one can't help pity so mean-spirited a man; Lipman is quick to lavish criticism while offering little supporting argumen- tation. Composer Robert Erickson's music is derided as "music to enjoy hot tubs by," (p. 33) for no stated reason other than the fact that Erickson calls San Diego, Califor- nia, his home and, by implication, is thus incapable of composing little else. (Geo- graphically disadvantaged, I guess?) Peter Maxwell Davies composes in a "pallid, in- ternational style" (p. 80). Toru Takemitsu and Tison Street, are branded composers of "movie music of a mid-forties vintage" (p. 80). Fred Lerdahl pens music with all the "rhythmic interest of an anarchic fu- neral procession" (p. 81). Morton Subot- nick is labeled "a cult hero of the old avant- garde" (p. 82). Frederick Rzewski's entire oeuvre is "essentially simple-minded" (p. 88). The Kronos Quartet perform "defi- nitely trivial and nasty-sounding music" (p. 69). John Cage is simply "the grand master of irrelevancies" (p. 115). Even the audience fails to escape Lipman's caustic barbs as he bemoans the "increasing ill- educated and unsophisticated ... vacant minds" that populate classical music con- certs. Clearly, these people-"the men tie-

less," the "women bejeaned" (p. 116)-are not those with whom Lipman would care to share the concert hall.

No one is more the target of Lipman's vituperation than those card-carrying members of the "music-by-the-yard" school of music, the minimalists. Philip Glass, Steve Reich, and Terry Riley-along with Roger Crumb and George Rochberg, strangely enough-are brandished com- posers who have "embraced the trendy art- world esthetic of simple-minded harmonic repetitiveness" (p. 31). John Adams is char- acterized as a composer "whose unbut- toned vulgarity in writing music based upon the hoariest of stock romantic cliches simply defie[s] the imagination" (p. 32), and his music as "the Andrew Sisters run amok" (p. 83). From Lipman's perspective minimalism is nothing more than "a swarm of untalented, compositional disciples, who have found in repetition a master key to obtaining fellowships, and grants" (p. 104), while respectable composers are "too busy writing real music." Collectively, minimal- ism has failed miserably "in winning any audience at all from traditional music lov- ers or from the most respected performers of traditional music."

Is there any composer in America today with whom Lipman is not at odds? He names only one: the late William Schuman, the head of the Juilliard School of Music whose "lone, arching 'American' melodies" (p. 86) embody what Lipman finds so lack- ing in the work of others: "a quality of plaintiveness, referred to by some as a 'cow- boy' quality and by others as the loneliness of the city . .. the inclusion of jazz inspired but regular rhythmic complications to con- vey musical interest and human vitality; and above all, a seriousness of utterance, as if each piece being written were the com- poser's final act" (p. 70).

Lipman's arguments are more fatiguing when he invokes the aura of "the golden age." Whether he refers to instrumental music ("For many years we enjoyed noth- ing less than an unparalleled golden age of music performance"), opera ("No observer of the opera scene today needs to be told there is a shortage of historically great sing- ers" [p. 109]), symphonic music ("There really aren't many first-rank conductors to- day" [p. 11 1]), or the musical scene in gen- eral (". . . the richness of the past and

less," the "women bejeaned" (p. 116)-are not those with whom Lipman would care to share the concert hall.

No one is more the target of Lipman's vituperation than those card-carrying members of the "music-by-the-yard" school of music, the minimalists. Philip Glass, Steve Reich, and Terry Riley-along with Roger Crumb and George Rochberg, strangely enough-are brandished com- posers who have "embraced the trendy art- world esthetic of simple-minded harmonic repetitiveness" (p. 31). John Adams is char- acterized as a composer "whose unbut- toned vulgarity in writing music based upon the hoariest of stock romantic cliches simply defie[s] the imagination" (p. 32), and his music as "the Andrew Sisters run amok" (p. 83). From Lipman's perspective minimalism is nothing more than "a swarm of untalented, compositional disciples, who have found in repetition a master key to obtaining fellowships, and grants" (p. 104), while respectable composers are "too busy writing real music." Collectively, minimal- ism has failed miserably "in winning any audience at all from traditional music lov- ers or from the most respected performers of traditional music."

Is there any composer in America today with whom Lipman is not at odds? He names only one: the late William Schuman, the head of the Juilliard School of Music whose "lone, arching 'American' melodies" (p. 86) embody what Lipman finds so lack- ing in the work of others: "a quality of plaintiveness, referred to by some as a 'cow- boy' quality and by others as the loneliness of the city . .. the inclusion of jazz inspired but regular rhythmic complications to con- vey musical interest and human vitality; and above all, a seriousness of utterance, as if each piece being written were the com- poser's final act" (p. 70).

Lipman's arguments are more fatiguing when he invokes the aura of "the golden age." Whether he refers to instrumental music ("For many years we enjoyed noth- ing less than an unparalleled golden age of music performance"), opera ("No observer of the opera scene today needs to be told there is a shortage of historically great sing- ers" [p. 109]), symphonic music ("There really aren't many first-rank conductors to- day" [p. 11 1]), or the musical scene in gen- eral (". . . the richness of the past and

624 624

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Book Reviews

the emptiness of the present"), for Lipman there is little to celebrate today.

More troubling still is the implied racism in Lipman's criticism. He characterizes one performance as "nothing so much as jungle music, complete with tom-toms and the yelps of victims," or the term "world music" as "an upscale euphemism for what was formerly seen as folk and ethnic art" (p. 118).

Lipman clearly views life as a series of dichotomies, and our times as "a battle be- tween those who would carry on music and those who would destroy it," a fight to pre- serve "the legacy of Athens, Rome, and Jerusalem" from the philistines and bar- barians ("bejeaned" and "tieless" I would venture) at the gates. It would be easy, therefore, to dismiss this criticism as mere tirade. However, Lipman's work is at once more embroiled and problematic.

Lipman makes considerable reference to his youthful experience as a concert pianist

of the modern repertory and as a fervent champion of the music of the American composer Elliot Carter. It immediately be- comes apparent that Lipman recounts his own personal history more to establish a critical position, and hence authority, to bludgeon those with whom he finds himself aesthetically at odds, rather than as rele- vant background that might elucidate the issues under discussion. In short, Lipman seems to be saying that his own failed at- tempts at promulgating modern music to an unwilling public proves that all music of "worth" must by nature be unpopular, or, if popular, suspect. He seems bent on denying postmodern music the popular success that it has achieved, success that the modern music he championed never attained.

KENT DEVEREAUX

Evanston, Illinois

ldisoin's Electric Pen.

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