With no single trend predominating, the twin pillars of total serialism and
aleatoric music emerged, resulting in an ongoing conflict between "order" and "chaos." While several composers took sides--for example, Pierre Boulez (b.
the increasing trend of
aleatoric music, where the composer leaves some
Then there was the entire domain of
aleatoric music; all of us, Kabelac's pupils, really wanted to take our bearings in work with controlled chance.
Despite a very positive response rate (92.9% return), the results indicated that the matter of electronic music in schools was quickly dismissed as experimental as it did not occupy "an established place in the curriculum of schools, and there was no evidence returned in the survey of developed and systematized courses in this field" (22) Regardless of a number of contemporary works during the late 1960s and 1970s such as those of two major Australian composers Barry Conyngham's (23) (1944-) Through Clouds (1974) or Peter Sculthorpe's (24) (1929-) Sun Music I (1965),
aleatoric music and electronic music were at their infancy in Australia.
In an interview with the pianist and writer Charles Rosen, Carter explains his view on the insufficiency of
aleatoric music, "that the idea of having uncoordinated, separate things destroyed all sense of drama." Freedom needs to be checked; it needs a counterforce: "We so are continually confronted in our lives with things that do not go together, that I feel music should somehow give the impression that things do go together, no matter how remotely they are connected." (5)
Maybe, one muses,
aleatoric music has become--dare I say it--boring.