Program #22, September 28 2000: '60s/'70s politically-oriented compositions.

Some avant-gardists of the late 1960s and early 1970s strongly wanted their music to express particular political points of view. But when an art form is so inherently abstract, is it possible to realize such a goal without "watering down" the music artistically, or making it artlessly didactic -- as did (sometimes) composers like Cornelius Cardew, whose major interest came to lie with the democratization and political deployment of art music? This program explored that issue, generally affirming the possibility that avant-garde music can find a middle ground between political acuity and artistic innovation.

(Because a disc I'd planned to use was missing from the KBCS library when I arrived, I moved the resultant scheduling "hole" to the end and used that time to repeat one of the pieces from last week -- not from the '60s or '70s, but certainly political. Look up the grid reference!)