It's a mad scramble for crumbs. (Milton Babbitt, circa 1947)

When I was fifteen, someone handed me a book called Jean Cristophe. That was what ruined my professional life. Coupled with this, my father said he would give me what his father gave him - the world. The world turned out to be Lewisohn Stadium on a hot summer night. It never occurred to me to go to a University.

I did not understand the full extent of my loss until very recently when I read an article in The Nation. This informed me that the most advanced music in America is being written in certain colleges throughout the country, and that a sort of musical Renaissance is taking place in these colleges, unknown to the public at large. A number of the faculty composers were singled out for praise, and a great deal of space given to the laudable upsurge of performance in these universities. It seems some of them are organizing their own performing groups, sometimes vying with each other for the services of professional free-lance players. Professionals are needed, for these musical events are taking place not only on an inter-collegiate babies, but even in such historic ruins as Carnegie Hall. It is noted that Harvard has been regrettably inactive in this direction - in a Pravda-like touch, it is reprimanded for neglecting its opportunities.

The music itself? To call it latter-day Schoenberg or latter-day Webern is to over-simplify. In a certain sense it is a criticsm of Webern and Schoenberg. To take another man's idea, to develop it, expand it, to impose on its logic a superlogic; this does imply an element of criticsm.

Perhaps the music can be described as academic avantgarde, a term already in some usage. This term takes in certain twelve-tone developments, their application to tonal thinking, various procedures in electronic music research, and has even begun to include an academic chance music. Believe it or not, there is such a thing - and they've got it.

On the whole, however, the campus composer allies himself with the Germanic musical tradition. This is perfectly understandable. Twelve-tone music, while it may not be great fare for the concert hall, is perfect for the schoolroom. Besides, the Hofbra~u has always been a popular feature of life on an American campus.

If all this music has a decided German accent, the open pragmatic spirit that accepts it is purely American. To really understand its deeper meaning, one should take a look not only at William James, but at his family, too. There was William himself, looking out of his ivy tower, and deciding the most practical thing of all was to stay put. There was a brilliant, morbidly intellectual, letter-writing sister. There was Henry, who felt there was something fishy somewhere and escaped to England. And then there was a younger brother - I think his name was Bob - who at his mother's newly dug grave exclaimed, "I am so happy for her". Bob is the one who interests me. He really lived it.

One wonders if these eccentric, distinguished ghosts still haunt the corridors of Harvard? Can this be the reason Harvard has remained somewhat detached from the Schuller-esque "hard sell" going on elsewhere? Perhaps. For while our article describes all this healthy activity as being in the "great tradition of American philosophic thought", it is not Emerson or Thoreau or even James who is its guiding spirit. It is someone called Hermann Weyl. The intellectual principle behind this music is based on the writing of this same Hermann Weyl, whose theme seems to be the "rational subjugation of the unbounded". Oh, Lukas Foss, do I hear you laughing?

Our article assures us that this "rational subjugation of the unbounded" is "totally sufficient to justify the activity" of these advanced composers, and that they make no "qualifying apologies" about such things as sensibility or communication.

One gathers that the moral virtue and unshakable confidence of these university groups stem mainly from one thing. Responsibility. A key word, apparently. They assume and demand this responsibility not only for their self-contained musical life, but also for every last note of their compositions. But what does this word "responsible" mean? Let us suppose that a young campus composer, in a state of intellectual delirium, commits a murder (non-musical). If he is found guilty in a court of law, it will be just because he is responsible! In fact, the measure of his responsibility will be the measure of his guilt. Responsible is clearly the wrong word. They should replace it with ÔÔconsolidation'', if they don't like the old word -"academic".

What it all boils down to is this. If a man teaches composition in a university, how can he not be a composer? He has worked hard, learned his craft. Ergo, he is a composer. A professional. Like a doctor. But there is that doctor who opens you up, does exactly the right thing, closes you up - and you die. He failed to take the chance that might have saved you. Art is a crucial, dangerous operation we perform on ourselves. Unless we take a chance, we die in art.

It becomes increasingly obvious that to these fellows, music is not an art. It is a process of teaching teachers to teach teachers. In this process it is only natural that the music of the teacher will be no different from that of the teacher he's teaching. Academic freedom seems to be the comfort of knowing one is free to be academic.

A painter who continually turned out paintings exactly like Jackson Pollock would soon be on his way to Rockland State Hospital. In music they make him the chairman of a department.

What happens to the young man who comes to the university to learn his craft as a composer? Like every young man, he is a romantic. One of the things he's romantic about is originality. That is, after all, the ultimate success. But he soon forgets this dream because it is so remote, so unattainable. He studies, he works hard. After, say, six years of intensive musical training, if he has luck, we can call him a survivor.

Have you ever looked into the eyes of a survivor from the composition department of Princeton or Yale? He is on his way to tenure, but he's a drop-out in art.

All the same, he continues. He goes to Darmstadt, but feels somewhat hopeless there in the midst of so much tradition. All he's got are pitch relationships, while Stockhausen uses five centuries of every conceivable musical tradition simultaneously in three seconds! Nevertheless, our young man goes on. He writes a piece occasionally. It is played occasionally. There is always the possibility of a performance on the Gunther Schuller series. His pieces are well made. He is not without talent. The reviews aren't bad. A few awards - a Guggenheim, an Arts and Letters, a Fulbright - this is the official musical life of Amercia.

You can't buck the system, especially if it works. And this system does work. You can put it through a test tube and prove it. You can feed it to a synthesizer, and hear Foundations shake. These men are their own audience. They are their own fame. Yet they have created a climate that has brought the musical activity of an entire nation down to a college level.

The other night I received a telegram summoning me to Princeton. I was expecting this. Once again I made the monotonous trip over the Jersey flats, once again was charmed by the utterly lovely stretch from Princeton Junction to the campus. My old colleagues were all assembled, waiting to hear what I had to say. I was perfectly prepared. "Comrades and honored Chairman", I began. "Unknowingly and unwittingly I have brought a cosmopolitan element into our noble national tradition of music. How can I explain, how excuse this internal wandering -?" But there is no need to go on with this; it occurred in a dream.

"The earth has become small, and on it hops the last man, who makes everything small. He has something of which he is proud. What is that something of which he is proud? He calls it education."

Thus spake Nietzsche