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[He] makes a kind of fetish out of musical logic. Faithful to his Central European training, he holds before us the ideal of a music in which there is “not a single note or figuration which does not result from the development and variation of the basic motive.” But isn’t it ironic that it should be just this music, of an undeniable ingenuity in note-for-note logic, that appears to have no inevitability of flow for the unprejudiced ear?

In the name of logic Leibowitz contends that only the music of twelve-tone composers can be considered truly representative of our time. Perhaps. But then what are we to do with triflers like Stravinsky and Satie—abandon them for the good of our musical souls? As an antidote to so much method I suggest that the author relax long enough to contemplate the charms of the unanalyzable and the non-systematic, which, after all, is what makes music an art and not a science.

Aaron Copland