Progress and Pedantry: Some Modern Problems for the Theorist

Extract

A year or two ago an old friend and fellow-student of mine wrote me a letter in which he made some comments upon the character of modem music as it appeared to him. I have forgotten the exact wording of his criticisms, but it struck me at the time that there must be many musicians who have received, theoretical training similar to our own who would share sympathetically in my friend's bewilderment at the tendencies of the day, and find it hard to reconcile them with anything which they had been taught in their youth. And so I made a mental note of his comments, meaning when opportunity arose to thrash the matter out.