an excerpt from "audio culture"_readings in modern music
…the old (and new) ’music of climax’ is no longer the prevailing model. for all things are now equal and no one thing is given any priority over any other thing.
merce cunningham summed up the implications of this situation where priorities no longer exist, where every item is of equal value, as early as 1952:
“now I can’t see that crisis any longer means a climax, unless we are willing to grant that every breath of wind has a climax (which I am), but then that obliterates climax being a surfeit of such. and since our lives, both by nature and by the newspapers, are so full of crises that one is no longer aware of it, then it is clear that life goes on regardless, and further that each thing can be and is seperate from each and every other, viz: the continuity of the newspaper headlines. climax is for those who are swept by New Year’s Eve”
source: audio culture-readings in modern music, towards (a definition) of experimental music, michael nyman