March 31

DAY VIII

Rationalism, Structure, Science

0. Progress report on final projects.

1. Back to Bach. What is the meaning of imitations ? Was Bach religious ? If so, what kind of religion is influencing his music ? Bach's audience.

Neo-classicism, baroque. Are they viable propositions ? What was the trigger which started them ? Art for art's sake. Inconsistency in adopting an old formalism.

2. Relativity. Concept of simultaneity in Newton's mechanics and in Einstein's. The world-point of Minkowski and its history, the world-line. Cones of light and communication of messages. Complexity, a re-occurring issue. Boltzman, entropy and information.

3. Xenakis. Music and Mathematics form Pythagoras on. How it works, what does it involve. Universality of the theory. The 3 architectures of Xenakis:

Stochastic distributions, algebra, and controlled indeterminacy. System music and process music. Hiller's attitude. Experimentation.

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