Abstract

In one of my last conversations with Peter Suhrkamp, he asked me in regard to the titles of several essays included in my Klangfiguren: “Why do you people still go on talking about New Music? In painting any such designation was dropped a long time ago, but in music you bend every muscle to keep this one alive?” I should like to try to answer my dead friend as well as I can. In so doing, of course, I cannot simply restrict myself to mere matters of nomenclature; I shall have to record something of those complex considerations which his question called forth as well, in the hope that in so doing I shall touch upon something of essence to the issue involved.