second place is the first loser, loser

Over at On An Overgrown Path, the always-thoughtful Bob Shingleton has a post about the current binary cultural paradigm "forces everything - including art - into the dualistic framework of 0 or 1, good or bad". (Links within quotes from Mr. Shingleton are present in the original.) This dynamic is one in which "[a] classical work is either a masterpieces or an also ran, and as a result audiences are denied permission to like unfamiliar music".

One of my missions in writing about concert music has been to try to open up the cultural space for our music, especially for new music. This kind of zero-sum cultural game does the opposite--it leaves room only for "winners", whatever that might mean.

Please read all of Mr. Shingleton's post. In it, he talks about how not every piece worth hearing has to be one that you want to listen to again and again. That kind of attitude really does open up the space for more music.

While writing this post, I was reminded of a recent post by the also-always-thoughtful Daniel Wolf, in which he writes in favor of writing the occasional occasional piece--that not every piece a composer writes need be an attempt at a chef-d'oeuvre or even a piece in the composer's "normal" style. It should go without saying, but I'm glad Mr. Wolf said it.