August 2009
Music Renewal?
August 16, 2009
Dear Mr Ross,
I wanted to write to thank you for your website, Art Renewal Center. I have long been disappointed in much contemporary art, and have always been attracted to the beauty of the old masters (and now, through your website, learned of living ones!). I am not a visual artist, however, but a musical one. Reading your articles, I felt very much at home as, similarly, much contemporary 'classical' music has been a let-down, to say the least. Indeed, as a composer, I have felt continual pressure not to write tonal music, but to go the atonal route of modern composers. While I do not discount all this music, and have come to see more value in it than I did, say, 10 years ago as an undergraduate student, my masters will always be Bach, Beethoven, Chopin, Mozart, and many others; craftsmen in their field: not simply pseudo-artists trying to do something weird or new for weirdness or newness' sake.
Your site has encouraged me to continue to compose as I see fit, and has reminded me that it is perfectly OK to love beautiful art and beautiful music.
Sincerely,
Stephen Pompa
I wanted to write to thank you for your website, Art Renewal Center. I have long been disappointed in much contemporary art, and have always been attracted to the beauty of the old masters (and now, through your website, learned of living ones!). I am not a visual artist, however, but a musical one. Reading your articles, I felt very much at home as, similarly, much contemporary 'classical' music has been a let-down, to say the least. Indeed, as a composer, I have felt continual pressure not to write tonal music, but to go the atonal route of modern composers. While I do not discount all this music, and have come to see more value in it than I did, say, 10 years ago as an undergraduate student, my masters will always be Bach, Beethoven, Chopin, Mozart, and many others; craftsmen in their field: not simply pseudo-artists trying to do something weird or new for weirdness or newness' sake.
Your site has encouraged me to continue to compose as I see fit, and has reminded me that it is perfectly OK to love beautiful art and beautiful music.
Sincerely,
Stephen Pompa