ABSTRACT
The idea of asking the composer to address his audience is inspired by the wish to help narrow down that gap, offering the audience some guidance, some listening-aid. As long as the listener’s attention is held, the composer may do anything he likes: the one thing he cannot afford to do is to bore his listener and lose him on the way. Among young serialist composers, a certain amount of deliberate humbugging is practised on the innocent listener, in the claim as to how many aspects of a composition, how many “parameters” are being serialized. Technique is only illumined from within, from the core of the creative experience, with the composer, or from the core of the perceptual experience, with the listener or the critic. The true business of the composer is to release the flow and shape, and steer the stream of sonic events in time.
