If I Am A Musical Thinker

If I Am A Musical Thinker is a statement of the aesthetic, social, and spiritual credo of the influential American composer and writer Benjamin Boretz. Boretz proposes that artistic expression answers primal human needs for experiencing identity through articulation in artistic media; and further, that theoretical reflection is constructively or deconstructively crucial to expression and is itself expressive in nature. In keeping with this view, the author has created a discursive form peculiar to this statement, composing textual, graphic, and typographical material into a manifesto embodying his evolving position. Boretz founded and, until recently, edited perhaps the foremost journal of contemporary music theory and analysis, Perspectives of New Music.