About Alex Ross’ The Rest is Noise

It is an absolutely superb book: had I bought it outright instead of borrowing it from the library, I would have doubled the book’s length by my marginalia. But what struck me most in the last few chapters is the earnest desire of Leftist-leaning composers to write for the “common man”. Oh the idiocy of that wish! Oh the naiveté of that remark! As if the “common man”, the man of the street would have appreciated the liberating effect of atonal serial writing versus that of the “wrong” Beethoven’s. Most radical composers kept writing and performing for the very audience they presumably hated, and then complained that they were not understood or appreciated. Small wonder!
ps. Of course, I had to buy the book. It is one one must own.