ABSTRACT
In many ways, the academic prestige market is even less stable than the commercial market. Perhaps Philip Glass signalled best the beginning of the end of that era when he described his contact with the Boulez scene in Paris as "a wasteland, dominated by these maniacs, these creeps, who were trying to make everyone write this crazy creepy music". For a while, avant-garde music's glory lay in the illusion that it had transcended social context altogether-that it was too difficult for the uninitiated to comprehend. From discussions of avant-garde music one can gain a greater sense of human connectedness—the repertory can be heard as articulating poignantly some of the contradictions human subjects are experiencing at this moment in social and musical history. This is a case of terminal prestige. By retreating from the public ear, avant-garde music has in some important sense silenced itself.
