progress as in the refinement of musical instruments. But he argues that
this is different from the type of progress which he identifies above all
with Wagner (the central figure in the so-called “Music of the Future”
movement) or the concept of artist as unappreciated genius.
Popper’s position might therefore be seen as boiling down to the
unsatisfactory proposition that “it does not matter what you do so long
as you do it with the right attitude.” But one could perhaps refine this
reply to give it more weight. There are two ways in which one might do
this. If Popper’s objection is not to the importance of progress as such,
but rather to progress on a grand scale conceived as the composer’s
main objective, then it is in effect a defense of piecemeal innovation in
contrast to radical experimentation, and this is directly comparable to
his attitude to social engineering in the social sciences. Or alternatively,
one might argue that what is at issue is not the attitude of the composer
to his task, but rather the nature of the objective problem being
addressed. A composer who tries to supersede Wagner is worrying not
about a musical problem, but rather about the dogma which gives rise
to it. He is in a position analogous to the scientist who worries about
the origins of his hypothesis, or somehow imagines that those origins
justify the hypothesis, rather than engaging with the task of testing that
hypothesis.
A second issue is the relationship between Popper’s ideas, as
described above, and his attack on historicism. Popper does not, in fact,
criticize musical progressivism or avant-gardism as an outright embodi-
ment of historicism, but this does seem to be clearly implicit in his writ-
ings.^12 He seems to have viewed historicism as an undercurrent of
movements like avant-gardism, and consequently one of the features
undermining them.^13 It would not in fact be difficult to argue that avant-
gardism is intrinsically historicist to some degree. If a composer is ahead
of his time in what he writes, rather than his simply writing music that
people do not appreciate, this implies some standard regulating his music
to which he can appeal objectively. It implies that there is already a musi-
cal future to which the composer has somehow gained access through his
genius or insight or whatever. There is, in short, a ‘right’ way to go.
Whether a musical development bears the seeds of what will supersede
it, or whether music in some way reflects its social circumstances, the
avant-garde composer is simply one who has recognized what these are,
ahead of the listening public. Similarly, it is difficult to imagine a style or
technique (such as tonality) being exhausted without some sense of there
being a historical direction which has reached a culmination. Both types
of explanation of artistic change mentioned earlier—as due to changing
What Shall We Do After Wagner? 105