Iris ter Schiphorst
The Grand Fathers of New Music - and Mr John Cage...
Archive: from notes 2005
The Superego that the sons cannot bypass: Lachenmann, Huber—and naturally Boulez etc. etc.—those grand, powerful old men who propagate and demand strict '-isms'; those who represent the 'Symbolic Order' of New Music and have raised, and continue to raise, entire generations of 'sons.'
Many of these sons have now slipped into the corresponding positions of their fathers: for Huber, Günther Steinke; for Lachenmann, Marco Stroppa, etc. etc.—always with the father's blessing, who takes great care to ensure that the appropriate genealogy remains intact.
Then there is the altogether different Grand Father, the 'Good-Buddy-Father,' so to speak: Mr. John Cage. He is responsible more for the androgynous sons, for the grand eternal boys (though this is not to say that the other sons do not remain eternal boys as well).
Of course, at some point, there is also talk of murder—namely, patricide (as Lachenmann never tires of referencing in relation to his teacher Nono). Matricide, however, is a different story, though it is far more cruel... or perhaps: more real.