Hmmm. Just read the Boulez thing. Boulez, of course, now writes a very sensual music! And you could reinterpret the statement you quoted as saying merely that "nothing can be taken for granted any more, not even the distinction between harmony and melodic continuity", which would make sense in terms of both serial *and* tonal thought (outside of pop music, you can't have counterpoint without harmony or harmony without counterpoint, though some folks seem to think that chords can exist in a mystical without constituent notes that the ear follows linearly from chord to chord, and others proclaimed "linear counterpoint" in the '30's as a rallying cry behind which to hide the fact that they were too lazy to mind their parallel fifths, harmonic implications, etc.). For myself, I prefer to take the time to craft something well, regardless of tonality, atonality, etc. Tonality won't save a bad piece for the big public, atonality won't save a bad piece for narrow academia, etc. Babbitt says "I'm trying to make music as much as it can be, rather than as little as I can get away with", and *surprise*, a lot of his stuff turns out to be 10 times more groovy than any of his immitators. Too bad his articles on musical topics get so long so fast, and he talks so fast--- his rather old-fashioned, artistic points tend to get buried under all the intellectually fascinating asides. In some ways, perhaps, his music is like that too! I think academia's role has dwindled since the 1970's. Almost *none* of the composers I know have academic appointments. Almost *all* of the composers I know of with academic appointments are Boulanger students or specialists in ethnic or pop musics, or have their appointments primarily not for composition, i.e. they have nothing to do with the old orthodoxy. The roles of commercial music, the rise in importance of the United States with its rather limited cultural heritage and even more tenuous cultural pride, the rise of the movies and television---these factors need to be figured into historical understanding of our century in music.

I'm just now looking at an article on the 30-year reunion of The Monkees. And they're on record saying that actors considered them a bunch of musicians pretending to act, while musicians considered them a bunch of actors pretending to make music, and they themselves considered the band a pure fiction until just this year. Yet in that time they became a cultural force second only to the (very real) Beatles. The irony can't be missed: mediocrity paired with television publicity beats out a lot of very earnest, honest artists. Eventually the two actors in the group took music lessons, and the ensemble created its own sound and musical identity, but so many other far better musics have been made in the meanwhile, that will never get the publicity opportunities and public approval of virtually *anything* the Monkees do. So when we look at your symphony or mine and ask whether there's something intrinsic in the music that scares listeners away or draws them in, we may well be missing the most salient aspects of "accessibility", because we keep looking for it in the music itself rather than in the publicity machines.

Dr. Matthew H. Fields, University of Michigan