"A maverick feels like he has no choice however difficult his choice of expression. In my case, it was going backwards into tonality. It seemed so wrong. The idea that progress is going into the past in a new way is very strange, even though there are precedents"
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Del Tredici frames “maverick” not as a brand but as a trap: the outsider pose is less swagger than compulsion. The line “feels like he has no choice” is doing quiet work here, pushing back against the romantic myth of the avant-garde composer as a fearless futurist. His rebellion isn’t against tradition; it’s against the rule that rebellion must point in one direction.
The provocation is “going backwards into tonality.” In the late 20th-century new-music ecosystem, tonality often read as capitulation: to audience comfort, to institutional conservatism, to nostalgia. Del Tredici’s “It seemed so wrong” captures the social pressure of that aesthetic consensus. He’s describing an environment where stylistic decisions are moralized, where harmonic language functions like political affiliation. Choosing tonality becomes an act of heresy, not because it’s inherently radical, but because it violates the era’s idea of artistic progress.
His most interesting move is redefining progress as a kind of temporal sabotage: “going into the past in a new way.” That phrase suggests pastiche isn’t the goal; reinvention is. He’s arguing that history isn’t a museum but a toolkit, and that innovation can happen through re-activating old materials under new conditions - new ears, new contexts, new psychological stakes.
The nod to “precedents” is both modesty and defense counsel. He knows this isn’t unprecedented (Stravinsky’s neoclassicism looms; so does Mahler’s backward-forward tug), but he’s staking a claim: originality can be measured not by novelty of ingredients, but by the force and necessity of the choice.
The provocation is “going backwards into tonality.” In the late 20th-century new-music ecosystem, tonality often read as capitulation: to audience comfort, to institutional conservatism, to nostalgia. Del Tredici’s “It seemed so wrong” captures the social pressure of that aesthetic consensus. He’s describing an environment where stylistic decisions are moralized, where harmonic language functions like political affiliation. Choosing tonality becomes an act of heresy, not because it’s inherently radical, but because it violates the era’s idea of artistic progress.
His most interesting move is redefining progress as a kind of temporal sabotage: “going into the past in a new way.” That phrase suggests pastiche isn’t the goal; reinvention is. He’s arguing that history isn’t a museum but a toolkit, and that innovation can happen through re-activating old materials under new conditions - new ears, new contexts, new psychological stakes.
The nod to “precedents” is both modesty and defense counsel. He knows this isn’t unprecedented (Stravinsky’s neoclassicism looms; so does Mahler’s backward-forward tug), but he’s staking a claim: originality can be measured not by novelty of ingredients, but by the force and necessity of the choice.
Quote Details
| Topic | Music |
|---|---|
| Source | Help us find the source |
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