guess his way through these homemade hieroglyphics.

the bishop’s

be an agnostic when

Canon and Free Fugue which has since been converted

[one], the tenderness of [another], the exuberance

by debauchery, seeking justification in what were,

of the resistant spirits would remain shamefully (if sagaciously)

know anybody in the world brighter than

he would never run down the tubercular bacilli.

their activity, need be cited to discredit

to awaken or soothe the

a thousand years he would never run down the tubercular

sound to detect the inner

Properly chastened, I asked him about his previous training, and

authentically from one

merely in fingers and wrists or in

working in the field of world improvement.

Our ancestors lived literally in the dark, while

cause for alarm and accusations of obsession with

what are apparently meant to be satirical

enterprise, enthusiasm, and even

and so on, and measure each single fragment.

cope with facets just as

particularly lamentable

nonsense to marvel

to find only specious reasons for them.

a quadratic monomial—that it

because the passivity and utter

its ferocity.

rotten apple—probably not so

it—who cherish music’s sanctity as an

rather it should be obvious to the point of virtual tautology.

in the company of mathematics, geometry and astronomy.

pinnacle of

or triads or quatrads

risk of self-

But, luckiest of all, the whole name

trivia of verifiable

reasoning, and the operation of electronic sound apparatus induces

Such lip service has not been denied

changing breezes.

a completely saturated structure of analogies in

the symbiotic relationship between

But then what are we to do with triflers

(whose excellence testifies to his great objectivity) proclaimed

I should like to make it explicitly clear that the

gauge, is not merely a

robs them of their splendor.

. . . From the conjunction of

here that has ropes around

wedges, one for each instrumental choir

untenable then, as it

the same token, only art can substitute for

small aquarium near the in the

matter is frivolous, pessimistic, or

for the spanking, confessing

                   and somewhat square,
Certain to sicken

dope fiends and gun men, invariably are

a point which appears to have eluded even celebrated

confessing all, and expressing full intention, with

the breathy whine of the old-fashioned cinema organ

becomes first a web and finally

a long pole with a chicken feather,

question of musical exegesis and

mop up the rubble left

and its peripherals have been spreading like mushrooms in the centers

For hours on end I brooded and mused
On materiae musicae,

the heel of

high quality with regard to time consumed.

accused of “wanting to have his cake

remnant of a colloquial

even millennia, about the relationship of art and

their punctuations to this total disorder.

                               thIs i can always split it up
you could

is infinitely more “true” than the wretched whimperings

the abrupt

according to my usage, deserve the name

I have never been intrigued, even as a “thought

managers and publicity agents or

thought of contingencies—donkey work—of any kind:

preserve the coolness of

me crack

of the purely musical imagination aggravated by

include the large majority of practicing musicians, baffled as they

What is the octave of a mezzo forte?

no mathematics; my inspiration was carried along on the wings of

exposes the gulf between myself and the

and the pampered

does not dare penetrate, save in

What a pious illusion!

to the person ignorant of art just as to the connoisseur.

was reviled by the

own revenge: the work does not achieve any conclusively coherent

of how [synergetics] could influence

till now altogether neglected, is a requisite

wall slides

criticism, as well as by the private

is free of goal-seeking, pleasure giving, or discriminating

excessive dissonance, harsh instrumentation, unusual

of which was an indispensable

will stifle, at

a matter of arithmetic, theory, and pedantry, but

clamor fills the city, and the

for which mathematics ought to and must forge new

though I know that there is a button

a miniature reflection of a new expanding universe incorporated

Its shape is that of tyranny.

with their most mathematically complicated scales, rhythms and “ragas,” knew

either the sketches

the invention of bizarre

. . . Confronted with the sound of

without any thought of contingencies—

that by mere accident, and solely

same source: the brain and the nervous

The frame announces: Here the real world leaves

or that the water faucet is, or is

representing the most exalted

and his fellow Athenians.

phrases of a conventional minuet

of deflation, for the completely

the inhibiting force of voice and rhythm reaches a climax.

to some mundane banalities, not some sort of many-one

by the private counsels of

antlers, cockleshells, maple leaves, sunflower seeds and

symbol, and strenuous

a kind of fetish out

artists in the kitchen.

work, whether it be hoeing corn or painting

by the violins and tuba at the apex of

you can modify the field of sound

The former, moderately well known here as

encomium,

invention was not contrived with tongue

all very eminent men. . . .

and those—how shall I put it—who cherish

Sometimes, however, such articles are diatribes against developments in

This composition consists of a series of studies designed to exploit

sculpture—which could

of hidden truths still to be

about the collection of integers, modulo

lyricism, which somehow breaks through the tortured

For the sake of the exquisiteness of

as innovations that purported

hence more serious, more worthy of the fierce

to sicken a stout

boxes of water and i had been warned

sound neither contentious nor portentous, rather it should be

plot of the story revolved around the idea

The prevailing spirit was

geometric patterns of “mechanical and biomechanical trajectories,” one

trapped by the tools and of becoming stuck in

the violins and tuba at the apex

to understand—so rare among artists—was innate in

of moods and the development of ideas), I

Involution series.

an exact, irrefutable

bits of colored cardboard hung on wires.

an inkling

witty, elegant, and often profound comment on the subject, the

can make without killing

the verge

will boast of having tracked down our

least eleven had intervened, and no

us all the way back to the “big bang.”

oneself at the mercy

rather apt to render form

seldom encountered in musical

while indulging in the caresses of the inferential and the

brain, and it is composed of geometry—an estimation

a knife, a bottle or

sensitivity and mathematics, a harvest

released

among all the branches of the “gray theory”

should make an apprenticeship in the necessary

days spent making something inedible
   (painting, theatre, etc. and

pull a loaded freight car even for

a rather futile and undesirable pastime—I

the abstract, the tricky, the mystical, the mechanical, the erotic.

unnatural, arbitrary, rigid and inelastic

determined by dropping perpendiculars from them to

                          sopranos
With squadrons of

the following monumental

machines, sensitivity and mathematics, a harvest of prodigious

Mr. Disney’s musical mimicries.

I index them in a book.

fundamental human experience, dim

One excerpt from this recording appears in a

It is today still burdened with unessential studies

brave—only

The discrepancy between the requirements of larger forms and the simple

of supplementary statutes which

work, react violently against

consecration to this aim is to be aided and reinforced by

time, and the Chinaman replies that he would be

more subtle and complex than those of snowflakes, but their principle

is the very thing that cannot be controlled, manufactured, or premeditated

any field, and since this was buried away in

be the final, devilish degradation of the most spiritual

is a cruel deceit.

the price of not

as quiescence

collision of hail

and ostensible observations about musical relations turn

can square and cube

get an accurate count, would be flabbergasting.

But it is preposterous to call

the brass, but

the bottom that disturbed

is internally redundant, and this involves repetition of

a long pole with a chicken

of legal status to a misapprehension which

an occupation for moles,

of vague intuition and nebulous notions.

                                                   have
uhm
been the occasion  for  another  first (laughs)

inadmissible to couple such sober concepts as

both epithet and

art is ahead of

might be animated by an itch to use

show that i was not biased one way or

to avoid having to spend their time mumbling

and horizontally, it also comprises

whims and, as such,

in the oboe and trombone,

space has more than a local effect.

of bullets adding their punctuations to

those with adequate

were devised with the spots of dice, a pastime

a binary situation with all of its variations in

for love or war or wine

instead of symptoms of

almost always out of an urge to emulate

by means of stock formulas, technical or

be smothered

and not with the secular

to dismiss a whole

is it a terrific solution but

At this point the brain begins to reel.

thing, finding and deciphering ‘secret affinities’ in

the virgin domain where

under a similar emergency, would show a not inconsiderate amount of

certain times, moving arms or adjusting embouchures or

capacity for repudiating them is

sway;

technical device to the rank and importance

tumbler without calling in grammar and syntax.

fiends and

quit his laboratory because he knows that he

be an agnostic when the chips are

One excerpt from this recording appears in a record album

the bishop’s move along the diagonals—

It’s about a farmer who is irrigating the land with

obsession with numbers, not incidentally,

barely perceptible irregularities which infuse

everybody’s eggs? . . .

and join it regularly for emphasis with the adjectives

the animals,

postulate a new parable about time, but that is

little more conviction than

sophistries are a total absurdity, and indeed almost

congenial to begin

support less perishable than the impulse

a farmer who is irrigating the

fight which the human intelligence wages in

to be blasphemed

of these etudes . . . comes

indignation, here and there let the cat out

                                                 admir-
ation for other

their curricula with

to elevate, edify, explain, and

            fire, which is just as well,
For I then had

being “dull because it satisfies

especially conspicuous detail in the

fifteen minutes with

resentment

“Premiered in Chicago, the stilted, lifeless performance

certify to a certain

Its twin capacities to mean all and yet nothing represent

between our tolerance of deviations from the ratio of 2:1

is more powerful than many other similar but casual

were, after all, pretty

It is infinitely more “true” than the wretched

tumor or its

ragged contours demand to

fever curves, cooking recipes, railroad

will not explain why the peaks are

point out the cardinal

cold at the border of this mystic area.

an additional, transposed equation recommended to heighten the

exacerbated during the

Others say “syllogistic.”

from one stratum of the texture to any other

who by race,

can be incorporated into a practical repertoire.

who had artistic aspirations.

broached, recognizing the

a mad collection

moon, might we not all of us look through

composing zealot who wants to be up to date.

deprive the term of its scientific aura.

reaped from numbers:

idea], it seemed quite inadmissible to couple

to (b), the germ of

questions and others must be probed

other words a sonata form without

directions . . . and puts verbs and nouns on

disciplines for the adolescent mind,

or avowing that all we’re dealing with

glass,

at the border of this

notion implies the aspect of the fluid,

hell follows

The clutter of the

an absurd mechanistic project, to be guilty of pretentious caprice.

inherited from the modal

                                  tetrameters;
Pieces for nattering, clucking

over a longer time span than the other

a cloak (quite genuinely

tragedy occurred long before

My eye caught the word

Then the impact between the demonstrators and the enemy occurs.

all, natural events such as the collision of

as an intellectual perversion of nature, consider the

is supposed to elevate, edify, explain, and

reservoir in

beyond, two parts adoration

and retire to business on ten acres and dig potatoes

deferentially up to the present day and it certainly leaves us

of arcs—both upward and downward—radiate from a

I had a long pole with a chicken feather, and

be panaceas which would solve in some

music of which this earthly music is only a shadow.

quarter-tone arcs (both rising and falling) in the muted

of course, negligible for

a set, and the augmented triad, which

This cautious stepping is

the limits of tessitura.

even, that a congress of

rigid objectivity, it escapes this compulsion

haunt

soldiers inspired

embarked

                                            . . . Days
spent hunting for

prophets who proudly claim that they can,

to a slight mystic haze when the subject

the offending works are

of an insidious

-line, its curve or curves, its shape, its profile,

to business on ten acres and

the title augurs well), and though

downward—radiate from a sort of fulcrum:

rules—using a knight’s

do, the doctrine about

in a parallelepipedon, for it seems cleaner and perhaps

to another, impoverishing the

from the romantic adulation of the grandeur

ugly—and hence we are glad

. . . consequence is not an exigency of art.

contours demand to be reproduced in

than the wretched whimperings and the tentative wailings of

from following the intertwining

and to check it out as far as basic operation was

inspired this excursion when he

the windows, this year, even though they’re

fiction

just as optics is the “geometry

to the elective parts

was not contrived with tongue in cheek.)

streets the cheerful

rudiments of chemistry and physics

Moreover, by dint

grandeur of machinery that the futurists inaugurated.

study the eating habits of bats

a fortress of reasoning and practicality, have lately been

in loafing, it would

in by a sort of inferiority complex in

from these impasses, the remedies are obvious: the

as the “salvation from the

try to wriggle

the performance is in town or country—that makes no

instinctively feel to be related

into a cauldron of figures, recklessly mixing mathematics and

some despondency, and there

by pouring written words

numbers; the composer fled from

other hand, condemned as representing

are like the problem set by the king in the fairy

am sorry to report no more than perhaps

worse, a

not much envy from

makes and breaks theories, without pity and without

of interjecting the slightest anecdotal

set defeats the possibility

The clutter of the unkempt forest. . . .

consortium of concert

subsequent sections (in other words a sonata form without the recapitulation). . . .

of musical material) as an irrevocable law of

fleets of

a bottle or a watch,

waves and how they behave is

         nattering, clucking sopranos
With squadrons of

the stilted, lifeless performance aroused curiosity but not much

dressed, and she came wearing

available in extemporization.

in the fairy tale who told the princess

an arm of the state’s social policy.

relax long enough to

too, by going around the corner, linking

with the beyond, two parts adoration of almighty forces—an

festivals, or marching, or windy days.

with greater pride it compels their respect, if not their worship.

terms—can perfectly well be encompassed by the new

cockleshells, maple leaves, sunflower seeds and many

annoy me to spend

most holy of all numbers, and the second,

several brief preliminary

                                              the other
hand uh                uh emotions hmm?

of confidence, an impotence and a

has used only a tiny number of them, whereas if

a fructifying

that an immense distance must still

bothered him because

had to be for morning hours, or sunset, or

a desperate surrender of

finicky when it comes to our notice

an attempt to free music from the clutches of the

constrains us from venturing only

that architecture is frozen

advertised as having

by ascertaining

For all its aberrations, the evidence of the senses

a minimum

bump against the

   dIfferent
fuelS we
  buT
awakE

ominous that

and measured in frequencies, in decibels, in

                                   the palms—
—And then I came up with

equals addition, . . . the erased

And I regret to tell you, I am

[“Verily I say to you: One

conception is, in our terms, certainly a false one;

a thing as live, serene

wand, forgot at the birth of the work, react

in such a yoke it was

a magnificent display i

two branches: the trivium, or the

the arts were very compatible

poor task in disguise.

Through this conception of ornament the music acquires an almost mechanical

extremely generous with

praised the number (Zahl)

time he felt bullied by such

of age or sex, which incline

                     time of tonality,
Over the fads of

recorded it in a recording session sponsored by

“That smells of oil.”)

in any static, seizable form has always held fascination for the

malignant

as mathematics, logic, physics, chemistry, biology, genetics, paleontology (for

only smile at

seconds in the clarinet and bassoon;

do, the doctrine about Art, occidental and oriental,

the primordial utterance . . . and the imposition of an abstract

To borrow G. E. Moore’s

be the real condensations of

retire to business on ten acres and dig

the flavor of something

the sands of a technology that

only an episode in the flow

received a grant of

such a nice, new, catchy

absurdity was let loose; numerous distribution-tables

pizzicati, one must know these

aggressiveness is

Pieces for nattering, clucking

suit the chord, the honeycomb frame of combined intervals,

thought, which have in fact proved a dangerous threat to

plug them into this, and you get 4000 permutations

rehabilitate

refuge from the undependable,

a detonating calm, full

daily work, whether it be hoeing corn or painting

plunge into the delicate

remnant

for love or war or wine festivals or crowning an athlete.

I expound the complete technique of

and endurance.

its own—once propelled

roots of music were embedded in mathematics.

. . . Adversaries have called me

He conceals the order from himself by shuffling

property ownership or yearly returns of income from all

doctoral dissertation].

            there lurked at the back of my mind
The irrational

laureate Sir

cutting a slice of chance.

in the clarinet and

to write pieces whose virtuoso demands go

The clutter of the unkempt forest. . . .

some air sailed back down this way

and it cost ten

little problem with all kinds of heavy hammers,

violated by nonmusical intrusion, it

who told the princess to come neither

the ‘equals’ sign, hinting

and gradually fanning out

                        and mused
On

not my purpose to frighten

this, on which I stumbled recently while perusing

pique turned to pleasure as the panel gamboled for nearly

ubiquitous music: music to eat

and enliven the whole

Intuitive artists of great merit are usually endowed with great

‘between,’ ‘parallel,’ ‘congruent,’ ‘continuous.’

visual hell follows a detonating calm, full of despair, dust, and

by truckling to the

more ambitious composition is

of interlocked probability

a fixed conception of tradition, or of

human experience, dim in some, shining in others, rare

sciences, and the second category should plunge into the delicate

sight, the more stars you see

—plus their own mental laziness and cowardice.

principles paid no heed to balance, groups of

that this invention was not contrived with

to enlighten one another and thus endeavour to promote

—the challenge of [one], the tenderness of [another], the

beyond the babblings of

whine

so as to achieve an absolute equilibrium.

of studies designed to exploit a few features

a dreadful system where two and

doctoral

and she came wearing fish

What is the octave of a mezzo

them of their splendor.

an insidious “conspiracy.”

piece of twelve-tone music—and won a prize with

The crucial question remains: Do they

last slogan breaks up in a huge

Then the impact between the demonstrators and the enemy occurs.

figures, recklessly mixing mathematics and

of such ghosts, he prefers to set up an impersonal mechanism

a while a clam

the advantages of numerical calculations for elucidating and anticipating

the results of close collaboration between

is one topic he treats among other

is a mosaic of static

been industrious enough to reach their maximum will

fists

it with a well-directed assault of sound

what you will) and for any individual compensation

because it is more nutritious, but

in order to comply with a

a caricature.

acquainted with more “master patterns” than in

qualifications rather than to

not, however, his privilege nor

                           ambient sounds there are to hear what
developments in mathematiCs
                    are

a misapprehension which is both honest and sincere.

that eventually illuminates the background before

he never could make a million dollars.

Faithful to his Central European training, he holds

but the evidence produced is frequently dubious

deprive the term of its

but, as is my custom in

been overlooked by this tidal

of organ burbling, rubber suction (indecent, this) machine-

a knife, a bottle or a watch,

is the born disciple, with a proselytizing fervor seldom

—abandon them for the good

laziness

and at the same time more globally into the essence of

money he can make without killing the goose

of compromise scales and arbitrary working rules,

“enrich” or contribute something warmer or more human, but

of one of the tanks and

and the arts, as distinguished from fun, have as

social inflexibility follows from the initial conception of

boast of having tracked down our mathematical vices.

will become obsolete.

the fairy tale who

resist a critical blast at the mania for

suffers from the kind

I see arithmetic triumphing over the heart,

prisoners are released from their padded seats

that sounds like a riddle, it

The Seasons . . . commissioned by the

I am merely stressing the point that the

Do they coalesce

in their craziness.

                                                was
                              and going          uh
north               to              to

old-fashioned and sweet.

benefits to be derived

occult mathematical orders may exist on

here becomes the victim of an

a state of divine delirium, seems to be

One thinks of the highly touted Schillinger system of

the caresses

and shortly it was a magnificent display i thought of

With few exceptions “infinite possibilities” has meant collages

Average persons will readily agree that

pull a loaded freight car even for a quarter

modes simultaneously, that savors each detail all

Horns, antlers, cockleshells, maple leaves, sunflower seeds and many other natural

skip from one stratum of the texture to

historic or mythic

same class as those who preach

tips 127 googols of possible

its peripherals have been

view of finding financial

these sham solutions whose charm lies

Music is entering into medicine.

pleasure in doing nothing, unless senility or

who can exceed ten moves, but only

the true bliss of

amplitude, frequency,

as an “art,” and “aesthetic” genus.

differentiated by thickness

is the smell of pork from the smell

the manner of diophantine

computation and strict over-all control is the tribute for protection exacted

work from the encroachment of its

pique turned to

stilted, lifeless performance aroused

years ago I had a rather heated argument

for being “anarchistic” simply

science, mathematics, or even certain far-flung regions of

turn upon the storage pattern of integers

(omissions and italics mine): “Concord between

earns a grade of 3.2,

it something that simply satisfies a bureaucracy?

the picture demarcates

which adults lose and

it would cease to be an art.

of Greece it occupied a post of honor.

language—grammar, rhetoric and

pieces may be organized to engender

of money he can make

the orbit of the