. . . 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...
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.)
