Points of View

Extract

If it is true that all art reflects the social, intellectual, and human conditions of its time, today's music cannot help being profoundly affected by the changes taking place in our advanced consumer society. We have seen the end of that belief in progress which for a whole century was the mainspring of cultural development. Rationalism has proved itself incapable of ordering the world rationally, and an over-developed materialism has led only to a self-perpetuating cycle of frustration. As we become increasingly aware of how the human spirit is alienated from a world governed by materialistic and rationalistic criteria, we sense a need for re-humanization. In the energy generated by that recognition lies a hope for the future; and so long as the realities are critically discriminated, there is no danger of an illusory flight into some idyllic never-never-land.