Chapter 12: The N.D.P Defends Weirdos

before to lend them a boost! Needless to say, the N.D.P. have always been staunch and stalwart defenders of the works of the Maestro and myself and more often than not have been the sole members of the audience at some of our more daring premi res.
Once again, at this juncture, I find myself compelled to remind the reader of what was said earlier  namely, that Modern is as old as the hills and there is a long history of weirdos going way back in this century.
During those amazing first 14 years of the 20th century (1900 1914), one helluva lot of things happened:
1. Picasso lost his perspective
2. Schoenberg BROKE with the past and became SERIAL or 12-TONE
3. There were all sorts of technical advances and improvements (especially toilets)
4. Stravinsky caused a RIOT to mention a few.
And in 1913, a group of Italian artists known as FUTURISTS issued a MANIFESTO written up by their chief spokesperson, Luigi Russolo. The overall title of Russolo's Manifesto was THE ART OF NOISE, and I quote extensively:
"We must break out of this narrow circle of pure musical sounds and conquer the infinite variety of noise  sounds. We futurists have all deeply loved the music of the great composers, Beethoven and Wagner for many years wrung our hearts. But now we are satiated with them and derive much greater pleasure from ideally combining the noises of streetcars, internal combustion engines, automobiles and busy crowds, than from RE-HEARING for example, the Eroica or the Pastoral.
Do you believe it? In 1913 already!
This daring call to break with the past and look for sounds "which no ears had heard before" was answered by many and the N.D.P. have become their champions. Let us look at a mere few.
The first one we'll discuss became the kind of mascot of the N.D.P. and that is the American composer John Cage (1912 1992), who is said to be long to the ULTRAMODERN WING of this century. What makes my blood boil is that each of his three works that I will discuss here were all precedented right here in Chezlee, Ont., by the Maestro or myself and who has ever heard of the names Albani or Darling being associated with the Ultramodern wing of modern composers and given the respect and fame that John Cage has been given and deserves? (However, I let that rest!) Here's a quote:
"Cage attracted wide attention with his music for 'PREPARED PIANO'"

 



How to Listen to Modern Music Without Earplugs
How to Listen to Modern Music: Without Earplugs
ISBN: 0920151310
EAN: 2147483647
Year: 1999
Pages: 35

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