1987
Although Neuhaus grants that good music can still be made in a concert hall, he himself is determined to expand the art beyond those walls. 'One obvious way to realize that idea is to transport the music of the concert to the public space,' he says, 'and in some cases this works very well. Far too often, though, the results of removing this kind of music from the esthetic and acoustic context for which it was conceived are serious compromises in the sound of the repertoire performed. Rather than trying to fit these forms into situations where they have basic conflicts, it seems a more positive direction to look at the unique acoustic and use characteristics of these spaces, use them and make new kinds of music that work there.'
All of this presupposes a populist ideology, based on an impatience with the elitism that characterizes most American composers. 'I demand from a listener no previous knowledge of my work or of any other work of any composer, but simply to listen, and I also take on the burden of providing a situation where it is most likely that he would listen.'
When this is accomplished, however, it poses new demands on the listener - demands similar to those implied in Cage's 4' 33" of silence. Ideally, all listeners are at all times actively engaged in a dialogue with all that they perceive, busily balancing the responses of their own ears, intellect and emotions. Practically, for a listener comfortably settled into a particular style of the past (Beethoven, Dixieland jazz, fifties rock & roll), many of those more alert, sensitized responses become blunted by habit. Encountering unusual music in unusual circumstances can resensitize a person, encouraging a new awareness of the continuously shifting sounds all around, which is what Cage had in mind. Hearing Neuhaus' Times Square is an especially powerful way of confronting ambient noise, and of engaging in the meditative exercise of trying to perceive the totality of sound at any given moment as form. Hearing any of these ongoing environmental pieces is like passing by a painting on a museum wall. You are invited to contemplate it for as long or as little as you like; it is the moment-by-moment sensation of the piece that determines the length and depth of your interest.