Perspectives on Perspectives: On the Occasion of the 50th Anniversary of PNM

PERSPECTIVES ON PERSPECTIVES: ON THE OCCASION OF THE 50TH ANNIVERSARY OF PNM JEAN-CHARLES FRANÇOIS RIOR TO MY MOVING to the USA in 1972, I had already been introduced by the Australian composer, conductor, and pianist Keith Humble, to Perspectives of New Music. This helped me greatly in measuring what was at stake in the existence in America of practicing musicians devoted to the music of their time in the academic world, beyond the mere economic necessity of survival in a country where the arts were not publicly supported. Certainly in this context, the role of the musician exceeded his/her simple artistic production in welldefined categories (be that of composer, of performer, of theoretician, or musicologist), which strictly defined musical life as I had experienced it in Europe. The PNM world seemed to take seriously the Boulezian slogan “Penser la musique d’aujourd’hui,” beyond the mere solo exposition of one’s own technique, and the facile generalizations P 158 History of Perspectives of public debate. PNM was important to me in showing the very different approach and attitude towards twelve-tone structures and serial procedures adopted by American, as opposed to “continental,” composers. While it grounded such theories in mathematical models, it insisted on the reality of perceptual abilities of the ear to grasp sound structures, and linked directly the second Viennese school to a tradition . It was in PNM that I found, in the early 1970s, most of the sources for my particular interests as a percussion performer; for theories pertaining to rhythm, notation, and the American experimentalists (notably Varèse). Viewed from California, where I lived from 1972 through 1990, Perspectives of New Music was perceived as “academic” in three ways: a) a high level intellectual posture concerning how to engage talking about music of our time; b) an intimate association with what founded higher education institutions in the United States (especially on the East coast) and with the way composers should behave in such an environment; c) a perceived tendency of impermeability to all kinds of microbes and stultifying attitudes. We were fascinated at the time (1970s) with Source Magazine, which away from the “smoke” of theory, presented in Technicolor experimental behaviors in the raw, notably by publishing works without much critical commentary. It represented for us the perfect alternative to PNM, an affirmation of the sunny, lazy side looking into the Pacific. I, for one, was not aware then of how difficult was (and was still at the time) the struggle led by Babbitt to establish the intellectual and artistic credibility of the creative music community in the institutions of higher learning, and what an essential role PNM did play in this battle. Many of my freespirited colleagues at San Diego did not consider the University as an appropriate place for harboring artists. Very soon after Source Magazine disappeared, Perspectives started a spectacular opening towards a multiplicity of media and aesthetic postures: scores, graphics, sound recordings, poetic and compositional texts, texts pertaining to all aspects of contemporary music-making, issued from widely varying communities of practitioners. No important or less important topics were left untouched by this journal (I notice an exception to this rule: instrumental theatre and music theatre, notably composers like Mauricio Kagel and George Aperghis, received very little attention in PNM). This opening to all kinds of singular approaches to music-making was not at the expense of the presentation of rigorous theoretical papers which constituted the trademark of the early PNM output. I was one of the happy beneficiaries of this evolution in editorial policies and many of my textual “élucubrations,” my Perspectives on Perspectives 159 particular phantasms, have been published in PNM, and recently one of my compositions appeared on one of PNM’s compact discs. I am even more grateful to the editorial team(s), as in return I did very little to contribute to the well-being of the publication. Back to France since 1990, and involved in music education, a field in many ways perceived by “new music” practitioners as completely antagonist to creative endeavors , I have been not been very effective in promoting an awareness of the rich musical and theoretical world represented in...