The Art-Music, Literature and Linguistics Forum

Mr. Stocken took an interesting tack in the New Statesman, a good few years ago now:

http://www.newstatesman.com/200003200041 (http://www.newstatesman.com/200003200041)

"The determinist view of musical history," he reminds us, "has been intellectually discredited, but is still in the bones of the institutions. Composers who reintroduce tonal materials are expected to use them obscurely, ironically, maniacally, grotesquely or minimalistically with no key changes. By doing this, the creators flatter the still fashionable view that modernism has changed music for ever, but also signal that they would like to think that contemporary classical music is beginning to engage with an audience. . . . Atonality was a failure of the imagination."

Exactly what I have long been saying: they lost the plot did they not.

A straightforward and simple answer to the question is a resounding "no" – but there are so many flaws, prejudices and illogicalities in the article that you cite – which, incidentally, is almost a dozen years old now – that so curt an answer hardly suffices, so let us examine the premises and assertions upon which this piece of schoolboy journalism appears to be based.

In his opening gambit, the author seeks to persuade his readership of something that he arrogantly assumes them already to be well aware, namely that Boulez represents an "archetypal social-security composer de-voted to the manufacture of sonic sewage". Even this alone poses numerous questions without answering them. Firstly, on what grounds does the author assume that this is a general public opinion (at least amongst listeners to "classical" music)? Secondly (if he were nevertheless correct in his assumption), on what grounds would those listeners hold such a view? Thirdly, what is a "social-security composer" and how might one distinguish between an "archetypal" one and another who is not? Why is "de-voted" hyphenated when the author's readership is unlikely to consist solely of Sydney Grew? What is "the manufacture of sonic sewage", how and what grounds is such "sewage" identified, what qualifies it "sewage" and by what means is it disposed of as is the case with all other “sewage” in non-third-world countries? And so far we’ve dealt only with a single sentence! It does not bode well, does it?!

In the next sentence, the author writes about two major Boulez compositions from the 1950s as though he was a pioneer of atonal writing, which is, of course, absurd.

Matters improve a little with the opening of the second paragraph but it soon becomes painfully obvious that the author is here "lapsing momentarily into sense", as Sorabji once wrote of a prominent English music critic, for we are then treated to the notion that, by the 1970s, a climate had established itself in which "those composers who traced their musical ancestry back through Sir Edward Elgar, rather than Arnold Schoenberg, should find other jobs". Leaving aside the fact that few composers outside the movie industry actually had "jobs" composing in those days, who are or were these composers? – and, for that matter, why should they be regarded as so different from one another when the musics that Elgar and Schönberg were writing as the last century began to get going were hardly at complete odds to one another? How in any case did thses unnamed composers "trace their music ancestry" thus - and, indeed, did they do so at all? The author here turns the leaking tap of his venom upon Schönberg, who has been easy prey for that kind of thing since some time before Boulez was even born, disregarding the well-known and now widely accepted fact of Schönberg the "reluctant revolutionary" who revered both Brahms and Wagner, respected Bach and Beethoven and, even late in life, famously contradicted someone who sought to accuse him of being an auto-didact with the words "I am a pupil of Mozart!" – in other words, a composer who, throughout his life, placed immense value upon certain Western musical traditions and who never eschewed or undervalued tonality.

Carefully trying to distinguish between what he calls "political Marxism" and what he purports to regard as a musical equivalent thereof, the author nevertheless lets himself down by writing of "the Marxist view of historical inevitability that culminates, in the case of music, in atonality" in the context of his perception of Boulez as representing such a view. No evidence for this is supplied, of course – and the author is also careful to avoid mention of the fact that "atonality" (such as it exists at all) is not only a natural result of the development of Western musical language over many generations (as exemplified in passages from Bach, Chopin, Alkan, Liszt, Wagner, Brahms and Scriabin in particular) but also a phenomenon that does not and cannot of itself "replace" tonality or otherwise usurp its rôle. The references in the remainder of this paragraph to Schönberg's alleged "evolutionary zeal" are, of course, as completely at odds with Schönberg’s own view as they are with reality and admit of yet further absurdity in their failure to recognise that Schönberg was by no means the first or only composer to write music where tonal centres and relationships explored new vistas only hinted at in certain earlier musics. This nonsense leads into the equally risible assertion that "just as communists called for social equality, so atonalism developed into serialism, with its theory of equality between all 12 notes in an octave"; apart from the patently obvious falsehood of the analogy itself, "atonalism" (whatever that may be) did not develop into "serialism", 12-note serialism does not of itself necessarily eschew tonal reference and Schönberg’s own claim that "his"(!) "new" system of composing with 12 tones would assure the supremacy of German music for the next century has all too often not been recognised as an example of his wacky humour, even Ronald Stevenson falling for it as a literal statement (though it is arguably a good thing that he did, insofar as he followed it up by asserting that this was a strange idea for an Austrian Jew to have).

The writer then goes on to try to ascribe to Boulez all the "ills" associated with the spread of "modernism", determined not to recognise that Boulez was by no means the epitome, let alone the sole purveyor, of all things “modernistic” any more than the short-lived total serialist persuasions of the early years of the Darmstadt/Donaueshingen/Köln axis represented the summit of "modernist" practice (what about Vermeulen and Varèse long before them and what of Xenakis and then Carter at the same time?). The author nevertheless pursues his pointlessly puerile parallel with communism as though it actually meant something in the context of "musical modernism".

The sidelining in Britain of composers such as Lloyd, Panufnik and Goldschmidt, along with Rubbra and others certainly did occur at one time, but this was largely at the BBC rather than across British musical life as a whole and was largely the responsibility of Sir William Glock, not Boulez; unfortunate as this was and disproportionate as was its effect it should be remembered not only that Britain had fallen way behind in European musical history and developments and needed to be brought up to date but also that Malcolm Arnold’s work did not seem to suffer under this "régime" at all. In any case, moves to try to drag post-WWII Britain into the general European musical landscape had already been made by, for example, the members of what we now call the "Manchester School" – Goehr, Birtwistle, Davies, Ogdon and Howarth – some time before the Glock era established itself.

Perhaps the daftest statement of all in this litany of pleonasms is the one which seeks to persuade readers that "a figure such as Boulez is a creation of the Arts Council, Radio 3 and the French taxpayer". Unless I have been labouring under a fundamental misunderstanding for decades, Boulez is French (whereas the "Arts Council" and "Radio 3" to which the author refers are British) and, in any case, the "French taxpayer" has funded Boulez no more than taxpayers elsewhere fund arts organisations (i.e. inadequately). Boulez’s term as chief conductor of BBCSO began only long after he had himself become well established as a composer and conductor in any case.

The ne plus ultra of risibility that this statement so clearly is, a later one runs it pretty close; according to the writer, "thanks largely to the legacy of Boulez, the worst sin a composer can commit in the contemporary music establishment is imaginatively and naturally to speak the vernacular of high art developed over four centuries of classical music"! Again, of course, no evidence is provided with a view to supporting such an assertion – which is understandably, frankly, since there is none – and why "four hundred years" rather than 250, 500 or more?

We are then assured that "the history of music categorically does not point to the inevitability of atonality, which scowls upon the diversity of four hundred years of composition". The problem here is that the writer is again seeking to define this "inevitability" as some kind of supplanting mechanism; the fact that this is clearly not the case does nothing to lend credibility to what passes for his argument, however, since "atonality" is one part of the fabric of musical language rather than some kind of "new deal" and, in any case, it does not and indeed could not "scowl" upon anything, least of all a "diversity" to which it has itself become an addition.

The writer tries to end with a succinct summing-up of his case with the notion that "atonality was a failure of the imagination"; I wonder what retort he might have received to such an idea from the man who composed Bagatelle sans tonalité some 115 years before this article was published.

There’s a "failure of the imagination" (and more) here, for certain; "atonality", however, isn’t it.

Below the article appears – with questionable serendipity – an advertisement that includes the words "get a free copy of Penny Red"; who on earth would need one after trawling through the murky penny-dreadfulness of this article?

To call Petit Pierre a 'pernicious influence' is really overstating the case.

His slender output has already slipped from view, and he exercises no influence whatsoever - pernicious or otherwise.  His music isn't played outside his own country.  Even there, it's only played because no-one dare admit France has slipped into formulaic mediocrity.

I read a very interesting remark - by an American gentleman - on a messageboard this week, which has stuck in my mind. "Calling something bad", he wrote, 'conflates the concept of mere mediocrity with the idea of being actually evil'.  How very true!  Boulez isn't 'pernicious' - he's merely third-rate.

He keeps a few music lecturers in work, I suppose.


Entirely so.  The emperor's never been so denuded.  Creativity and imagination know no borders. The impetus for creative work has gone on outside France & Germany, and the baton's been passed elsewhere.  The visible part of the iceberg of creativity must be supported by a submersed mass of third-rate talents who have nothing but their nationality to cling to...  as though it's their birthright as Frenchman to achieve success?  

And in which sides of British musical life was that grossly politically-motivated venom counterbalanced?  Where were these composers promoted?  In the Proms, Britain's main musical festival?  Certainly not, because Glock's Zhdanovian hand was pulling all the strings there too.

Look how well Boulez has been served by the Proms over the years? (http://www.bbc.co.uk/proms/archive/search/performers/3bce590b-479f-42ca-b9e0-82883e0db9a2/1)

Admittedly some of the mentions above are for his autopilot conducting 'performances'.

There can be no doubting the autocracy that was characteristic of Boulez from time to time, especially in the earlier part of his career - no less a composer than his elder compatriot Dutilleux has railed against this (although not in the context of criticising Boulez's own music, it has to be said) - and this fact, together with the more overtly polemical of his remarks as a young musician, has remained in many memories even though any significance of that autocracy and those remarks has largely passed into history, so perhaps it is little wonder that Boulez as a controversial figure continues to exercise some people in rather extreme ways - but this, I think, is to miss the point, or rather to get certain factors out of proportion.

Boulez as a conductor has never disproportionately favoured the presentation of his own music above that of other composers, he has conducted the music of quite a few composers younger than himself and he has continued to widen his repertoire, especially in music outside of his own time, albeit not always to best effect (Janácek has already been cited in this context and I might add to it my own disappointment in his more recent Szymanowski recording). Schoenberg may once have been "dead" to him but he has since done that composer considerable service in drawing attention to his music - and many of his Bartók performances are near-legendary, to my ears.

As a composer, he has perhaps done his reputation insufficient favours by the sheer extent to which he has continued to rework pieces over large spans of time (not that I am suggesting that this has to be a bad thing) and, whilst never particularly prolific, his output in recent times has continued to deplete in quantity. I have already stated that I find his three piano sonatas and Structures) for two pianos as gravely dismaying as I find them impenetrable and even Notations seems to me far finer when dressed in orchestral garb - all of which, considering Boulez's evidently considerable talent as a pianist in his younger days seems particularly surprising. Le Marteau sans Maître is a work of significance and Pli selon Pli perhaps his most remarkable, as well as his most ambitious, piece. The aridity (I almost wrote sterility) of the piano writing has since given way to more easily absorbable and readily engaging music without any obvious compromise. Is Boulez the great white light of French music in the latter half of the lasst century and the beginning of this one? No. Is he as untalented and insignificant but over-hyped as certain of his detractors seem bent upon making out? Again, emphatically no. As far as his influence on other composers goes, there is no doubting it but it has too often been grossly over-emphasised.

Yes, he's always had an eye to the main chance financially  :o


Surely the overall influence is Messiaen's - relayed somewhat by his pupil Boulez?

What is ultimately frustrating about Boulez is perhaps not his work itself - but the way he has indeed been presented as the 'Great White Light' (and prescribed as Set Works for A-Level exams etc). 

I had thought that the article sought to imply a widely held opinion that Maître Boulez was so heavily funded by the French taxpayer that he'd have had no need to concern himself with such trivial considerations...

I wouldn't have thought that either composer's influence could reasonably be regarded as all-pervasive these days, frankly - and let's not forget that, as in the case of the "dead" Schoenberg morphing into a composer whose work's importance to Boulez came to be illustrated by Boulez's considerable promotion of it through performances, so his one-time tasteless brothel crawling teacher Messiaen came to be well served by Boulez in the same manner; sometimes, however - even in such circumstances - it is hard to forgive the indiscretions of firebranded youth...

Yes, I think that this is true; it would be difficult, for example, to dream up a reasonable and credible explanation as to why Boulez has been lauded to the skies to the extent that he has when his even less prolific but immensely important compatriot Dutilleux has merely garnered respect and admiration for his work as a composer without ever desiring to assume the rôle of French Music's de Gaulle; it's interesting, incidentally, that even now relations between the two composers are now said to be most cordial, Boulez the conductor has still done very little for Dutilleux's music. Disproportionality seems sadly to be the order of the day here.

Yes that confused me too Mr. H. Originally I wrote "Schönberg lost the plot in July 1908" but after I realized that Mr. Stocken did not actually have Schönberg in mind I changed the aforesaid Schönberg to a much hazier "they." It may well be that Mr. Stocken as Mr. H. suggests had a hazy idea of twentieth-century musical history. A surprising number of persons does these days.

Does any one know anything about him? He has certainly inspired Mr. H. to write at heavenly length.

I didn't find Mr Stocken's article at all "inspiring" - very much the reverse, in fact - and I'm far from certain that my response was in any real sense "heavenly" in either its length or its content. Stocken, an English composer, organist, pianist, teacher and Bruckner scholar born in 1967 and now living in London, has a website (http://www.frederickstocken.com/), although most of it comprises a bio and sound clips; there's a brief works list at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frederick_Stocken. That's about all that I know of him.

Incidentally, the notion that anyone - even your amorphous Schönberg substitute "they" - "lost the plot" (whatever plot, if any, that may have been) in 1908 or indeed in any other specific year is one that I find almost more meaningless than inaccurate.

That said, I suspect that, whilst most people reading this thread may well have begun by assuming that the term "influence" here was intended to refer to Boulez's influence as a composer and, indeed, no small proportion of my responses have been based upon such an assumption, that is not presented as a given in the thread title and one might therefore be given to wonder whether you had in mind his influence in more general rather than specifically compositional terms...

Thank you for introducing me  to composer Stocken. I know now a number of composers that write in their own style in our time.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1MftfbE_O60

Well no actually there was really nothing much at all in my mind; it was merely a word I picked up from this passage, to which it is intended to refer:

"With such direct influence, Boulez inevitably attracted envy and criticism. Indeed, in the near-hysterical atmosphere that pervaded discussions of new music, he was frequently accused of being Stalinist. There are some similarities between the history of communism and the modernism of Boulez."

But perhaps as you point out Mr. Stocken in 2000 was - if not entirely hairless - still something of a callow youth. He was not making a lot of sense altogether was he. (And in my experience and judgement the writings of Mr. P. Griffiths - the Welshman you know - are very similar and hardly more enlightening.)

Paul Griffiths compared to Frederick Stocken in such matters? Vastly superior and well thought ot in every way! - so I cannot agree with you here. Stocken seems to have gotten his knives out for Boulez before he pens his first word and this agenda-driven motivatgion pervades his entire article, I fear; Griffiths is not only far better informed but far more considered in what he writes, as is, for example, Arnold Whittall.

SInce you clarify that you were broadly deferring to Mr Stocken's contextual use of the word "influence" I think that it can be accepted that his meaning was something perceived to be far wider and more pervasive than mere composer-on-composer influence as provided by Boulez's music.

I think that's true, especially in France... where Boulez is touted as the living embodiment of what a composer 'is supposed to be like'.

Unfortunately.

I'm not so sure that this is any longer as true as once it seemed to be in that country, though...

It is interesting discussion here. I saw listened to Boulez conducting several times and i was impressed. I don't remember what it was, but it wasn't contemporary repertoire. At the same time he made an impression that he is Stalinist in his opinion on contemporary music and the way it should go. Sometimes it is good to see when musicians are a little more humble and respectful of other people opinions. One never knows how history will develop and where music is going.

When we are not around people could be playing different music and not understand what discussion was all about. It would benefit us all to be kinder to each other.

Frederick Stocken is a familiar name is he not? He and Keith Burstein received some attention back in the 1990s (and some opposition from an Ian Pace, amongst others).

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/home-news/a-noisy-night-at-the-opera-esther-oxford-reports-on-a-clash-that-is-looming-between-traditionalist-music-lovers-and-avantgarde-rivals-at-covent-garden-1369165.html

http://www.churchill-society-london.org.uk/Bad.html

Ah, yes - how interesting the effect of selective memory can sometimes be, can it not? Until you reminded me as above, I'd completely forgotten about that! - whbich presumably says something about its unimportance in the scheme of things. But since you have now drawn our attention to it again, one might argue that the sheer noisiness of such an act of disruption was, like the act itself, so yesterday; it was just about on a level with the young Boulez's noisy and attention-seeking assertion almost half a century earlier that those composers who do not grasp the significance of 12-note serialism were of no use - or indeed the violent protests that took place at the première of Schönberg's D minor string quartet in which Mahler sought to intervene in support of the composer almost half a century before that - or, for that matter, some of the very nasty reviews of a young man almost three quarters of a century before that, following his première as soloist in his E minor piano concerto (I refer here, of course, to Chopin, aged around 20).

All that really matters is that a composer writes just as he/she feels impelled to write. Birtwistle does it; so did George Lloyd. Take Boulez's barb refered to above, which is demonstrably about as meaningful as accusing Mozart of being of no use on account of his lack of understanding of gamelan, or indeed Boulez's own questionable usefulness in the light of his lack of understanding of Vaughan Williams; that kind of noisily empty polemicism may stick in the memory but its inevitable passage into footnote-of-history status illustrates just why Boulez's influence in such matters has ultimately be far less than pernicious, since it has by no means become the accepted norm. Furthermore, time is no respecter of such mental inflexibility and dogmatism, as is obvious from the most casual comparison between today's musical climate and that of the early days of Boulez; the term Darmstadtrophy camoes to mind...

I'm convinced that some composers would have been far better off without the influence Boulez, Cage, and their ilk, who compose musical snake oil for adoring zealots. Progressives take note - having an open mind does is far different than having an empty one to be filled with "vampid progressive abberations of "beauty".

But what "ilk" could that possibly be? Boulez is about as far from Cage as Pergolesi is from Varèse!

I don't think that Cage was so self-aggrandising by nature as to do anything of the kind, frankly; as to Boulez, are you really seeking to suggest that Répons, Dérive II, Messagesquisse, Le Marteau sans Maître and, above all, Pli selong Pli are "musical snake oil" (however that can or cannot be identified and defined) written deliberately and solely to be listened to by a tiny côterie of like-minded peers only? and, if so, how do you account for the fact that, given all the changes in music since the 1950s, they're still being performed today?

What's vampid? How do you define "progressives"? How do you define "beauty" and aberrations[sp.] thereof".

On top of all that, just how widespread and pervasive is the influence of Boulez today anyway?

I am on the side of Boulez here, up to a point. The reason he is held to be a great composer is not because people are conned in some way, but because he genuinely is a great composer. But to appreciate his music, you really do have to, as Charles Ives put it, "stand up and use your ears like a man".

The problem, as I see it, is with (as per the thread title) the influence, or to be more precise, the advocacy of total serialism as the musical "way ahead". In the long run, I think strict serialism, and especially total serialism, will turn out to have been a blind alley. It is possible to write masterpieces using serial techniques, when applied by a great musical mind. Unfortunately, in the hands of anyone who is not a great musical mind, serial techniques produce pieces that have no virtue.

For instance, if you take some minor second- or third-rate Soviet composer of limited compositional powers. Their music can still be enjoyable and entertaining today; which is why there are a bunch of them represented in the archive here. But the works of a composer of equivalent ability writing in the total serialism manner just have no redeeming features; they are just dull. Thus I predict that 50 years from now, there will still be people like us chasing obscure pupils of Reger; but no-one will take any interest in obscure pupils of Boulez.

Footnote: I heard that for a pupil of Boulez, a compositional lesson consisted of being taken out to a Chinese restaurant for a meal and a chat about anything under the sun.

Much as I hate to disappoint Petit Pierre's fans, his 'influence' is almost 0.

He is unheard of as a composer outside France, except for a certain notoreity. His music is never played.
Here in Moscow, nothing of Boulez's - except perhaps a few solo piano pieces played in student recitals? -
is performed at all.

He has become Unsung during his own lifetime.

Within France, I suppose he is guilty of having shoved everyone else aside to further his own
self-importance.  That may be called a legacy, but it is far from a good one.

Nor would I call him anything better than a merely average conductor.  His Janacek efforts are feeble -
he should really stop now.


I doubt it even reaches the 20-ieme arondissement, let alone the rest of France.

We know what Boulez thought of many composers both of the past and amongst his contemporaries. The treatment of Hans Werner Henze by Boulez and his fellow members of the Darmstadt school in the early 1950s is notorious and was utterly disgraceful. It was one reason(there were of course others) why Henze left Germany.

What seems to me interesting is that Boulez-as he got older-increasingly widened his conducting repertoire. It is not so very long ago that I bought a Boulez recording of the Bruckner 8th symphony with the Vienna Philharmonic, recorded at the International Bruckner Festival at St. Florian. Now....I would wager that if someone had said to Boulez in, say 1953, that one day he would be conducting a Bruckner symphony he would have snorted in disbelief and derision.

Age brings-or should do ;D-increasing wisdom. Has Boulez a radically different opinion today of those composers he openly despised as a young man ???

Not true in the UK. His music is broadcast fairly frequently, and was performed on mainstream TV in a recent documentary series on 20th C music. He also appeared as a talking head on the same programme.

Also, given the number of people who have passed through IRCAM, one can hardly say his influence is zero.

If Le Marteau sans Maître - is good music, please tell me what(if anything) can be described as mediocre or distasteful.
If the bar is to be set that low, I guess I could record my pet birds and be considered a creative genius.
There is so much wonderful inspired music being written which merits our attention, too much is neglected for
the mediocre.

Want a list?  :)

Plink selon Plunk.

To name just one such 'masterpiece'  ;)

It sounds like fun...but there are sensitive musical egos afoot.
Be critical of something written by an icon like Elliot Carter and watch the fur fly!!
 

I don't like Carter's music, but I don't try and pretend that it is bad music because I don't happen to like it. I'm thinking of any number of very minor composers who have followed serial techniques slavishly and without any musical imagination.

Exactly. Slavish adherence to any "method" does not guarantee great results. If you are an untalented hack, no "system" or "method" will elevate you to a more profound level and allow you to produce masterpieces. Garbage in, garbage out.

Regarding "difficult music" in general:
If the music is a "difficult listen", then based on WHO likes it and WHO performs it, I will give it repeated effort...several times and several hours in some cases. And often,this music may yeild great rewards. The WHO includes most members of this forum, friends and reviewers such as www.musicwebinternational.com, www.recordsinternational.com,www.clofo.com and http://www.classical.net.
I migrated from unsung to this great forum wich implies a much wider musical spectrum of musical tastes.

On the other hand, there are some at this forum who are more liberal (I reject their word progressive) in musical tastes and I take their suggestions more reservedly. This holds true especially if I have already wasted hours of my time trying to assimilate music that for me, is of little value and is overhyped.  At age 72, time becomes more precious and my to eagerness to hear great unknown music may be a big factor in my tastes, but when I was young I was weaned on Wagner Copland, and Brahms, so go figure..
I do not place a negative value on their input and hope they will do likewise with mine. Terms like neo-Glazunov or "musical Stalinist" only pollute the dialogue.(Silly term, Stalin promoted Miaskovsy's music, much of it I regard as priceless.'''emphasis on the I")
I suggest a caution if the music is difficult at best, just as  as a caution hat some tastes may be too bland and conservative for those seeking musical "diversity". Opposing "Diversity" implies a closed mind and the issue may be semantics as well..its HOW you say something.
I hope I have been respectful to both opinions, which is all they really are.

Well, you know, from my various observations of the world, I long ago came to the conclusion that a lot of what people call their musical taste has nothing to do with music at all, but is a badge of cultural identity. At some point in their life, someone may decide, probably entirely subconsciously, but based on their social milieu, that "their" music is, let's say hip-hop, and that is what they then play. But equally, it may not be hip-hop, but opera. I'm inherently suspicious of anyone who listens only to opera, that they actually don't care for music at all, they just like opera singing. And ALSO, I think it applies to many people who attend concerts of avant-garde (for want of a better term) music and cheer the music to the roof. Liking Boulez and denigrating Britten becaomes a cultural act and a badge of identity, rather than a purely musical judgement.

That does not mean I am suggesting that all music is equal, far from it. Rather that a lot of what purport to be musical judgements are in fact cultural ones.

This is absolutely true; the people with whom i can talk about my enjoyment of Richard Barrett, Horatiu Radulescu and Toshio Hosokawa are disdainful if i happen to mention that i also like Christopher Rouse—and vice versa. There's a need to denigrate certain composers (the likes of Britten for the avant-gardists, the likes of Boulez for the traditionalists) out of a kind of siege mentality born, i think, from the belief that classical music is in decline and only their particular faction can save it.

i think both sides adopt certain kinds of music as standards to bear in this faction war. For the people on this forum it's the hundreds of little-known twentieth-century symphonists who worked in relatively traditional, tonal styles, whom you adopt in an effort to fight the prevailing cultural narrative that all such music became irrelevant when Schoenberg first set pen to paper; to the degree that if someone wanted to upload a rare work by a little-known twelve-note composer there'd be a very real sense that such contributions weren't welcome (though that's not in fact the case, and composers like Ralph Shapey do figure in the download archives, although with disclaimers). For other people it's the Wandelweiser composers, or the new complexity school, or free improvisers or les acousmatiques or Stockhausen. All of whom will definitely save classical music from whatever its problem is.

Yes!  It's a straw-man argument, which runs like this:

1) I like composer X
2) So if I insult composer Y
3) then composer X will shine more brightly by comparison

 ???   ???   ???

Crazy, I know - but there are quite a few fans of 'unfairly negelected' composers who think there is some grudge-match to be 'won'?   ::)

"If we all write to the BBC to say Berlioz is rubbish, they are certain to broadcast 'The Tigers' instead of 'The Trojans' in the Proms!" etc....

---

I am sorry to say that there is even a whole classical music website which works on this basis. All other composers are assaulted, belittled or rubbished, in the hope that Handel will appear to be a 'greater' composer than he already is...

It's very hard to have an opinion of anything these days, especially a subjective one...sooner or later, one will be accused of irrationality or bias, especially if it is negative. Maybe the "straw man" is in effect for some, but I would hope the members of this forum are more adult than that.
I do not slam a composer's music because it is "bad," but I certainly will certainly offer an opinion if the music of little value or inaccessable for me. I will not reccomend music I do not like, even the composer is in vogue with the newest "normal." To do otherwise would be dishonest and hypocritical.
My only concern is to share music that I value, especially that which has not been "discovered" by the mainstream of classical music devotees. The music is a much bigger issue than any personality cult.
 

In looking through some files yesterday (the old kind -- printed paper, not computer files  :)), I came upon a clipping from the New York Times, from 1986. Unfortunately, only the last bit, so I don't know who wrote the article anymore. But, it's very apropos to the discussion here:

In his effort to remain at the head of the avant-garde class by becoming the prophet of computerized acoustique / musique, Mr. Boulez may be forgetting the advice of one of his own heroes, Varese, who cautioned composers against a narrow infatuation with technology at the expense of musical tradition: "Just because there are other ways of getting there, you do not kill the horse."

 ;D

And all this audio experimentation at the expense of other gifted composers being neglected. And not all of it necessarily tonal or traditional either. One case in point is Bruno Bettinelli's outstanding music, Do you know of him??
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CzzYZe47wBA&list=PL7743470771C543AF

Mostly from the various works of his that I recently discovered on YouTube. Very impressive! I've only just begun to explore, but the symphonic music has already grabbed my attention. I had heard a couple of other works in sub-par sonics a few years ago and wasn't impressed, but this trove on YT has changed my mind.

And only one of his symphonies (no 7) is posted there...what a shame..

Sorry, Sinfonia Breve and the First string symphony are there also ..I do not think the string symphony is his symphony no 1.

BTW: I started a thread for Bettinelli here..you may want to check it out..
also, did you get the post I sent for Juri Karlsson Music for Strings at Latvian Radio?