Theories and prophecies are irrelevant...

Alex Ross's blog, The Rest is Noise, quoted extensively from composer Carl Nielsen last week about the conflict composers face between tradition and originality. Key quote:

Theories and prophecies are irrelevant. Some believe in and hope for a new Messiah in art; others think that all is in hopeless decline. Both are unrealistic. The former believe in miracles and want to witness them; the latter, that life may be extinguished to the last flicker. They both forget that art is human and that humanity will not die out in fifty or a hundred years. There is hope for the new generation if it will work from within and not seek originality in externals, biding its time like the mother who carries the fruit of her womb within her until the great day dawns. And let us not forget that every single creature is different from his neighbor, though all must have time to realize the fine strong growth which perfects itself.

Every musician is entitled to use tones as he thinks fit. Old rules may be accepted or rejected at will. Schoolmasters no longer take their scholars by the ear; whipping and thrashing have been abolished, abuse and scolding silenced. But let no man assume that he can relax his efforts on that account. It is up to you to listen, seek, think, reflect, weigh, and discard, until, of your own free will, you find what our strict fathers in art thought they could knock into our heads. We have the glorious badge of freedom and independence. And should our path take us past our fathers' houses, we may one day allow that they were after what we are after, we want what they wanted; only we failed to understand that the simplest is the hardest, the universal the most lasting, the straight the strongest, like the pillars that support the dome.

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