Quotation For Early April

Helmut Lachenmann, resting the weight of his beard on his fingers.

Beauty-according to my own definition from twenty years ago-as 'the denial of habit' (not of all things habitual!)-has, insofar as the term 'habit' encompasses the idea of (...comfortably? thoughtlessly? safely? unemancipatedly?) 'dwelling', the following meaning: an offer to break free from all security, i.e. a naively intact bourgeois consciousness. The 'retrieval of art' would thus-to expand upon Kraus's pronouncement-mean: bringing art to a place of in-security, discarding false securities, and doing this with reference to an innovatively-orientated work-ideal that subjects our experience of music to constant dialectical renewal.

Helmut Lachenmann; Philosophy of Composition: from Identity and Difference: Essays on Music, Language and Time.

(first half of blue link above goes to the UK compinv Amazon shop, second part to the US store, UPDATE, that doesn't work for some reason, link to UK shop here.)

Quote Of The Day (24/03/08)

Michael R. Lampert : 'Does art then offer an alternative view of reality?'

David Dunn: 'Not really. I operate under the assumption that these things aren`t separate . For me the aesthetic response is what Gregory Bateson referred to when he said "beauty is the pattern that connects". I intepret that to mean the aesthetic response, the perception and apprehension of beauty, becomes a sort of resonance : we see and feel our own individuated mind expand to include something that we didn`t assume to be part of us'.

Perspectives on Musical Aesthetics: Edited by John Rahn
From The Perspectives on New Music Journal