which is the precondition of every society, but, and mainly, it managed to make a public show of this demand as such, to declare it outdated and, finally, to remove it. The unhappiness around us does not allow easy accusations about a supposed "civilization of monsters"; therefore, if we are talking about a world in search of its logos, we can make a good start by pointing out places of clarity. Indicatively:

In 1947 (namely after the second world war) Martin Heidegger's Letter on humanism is being published. In this work we find the decisive confession "language belongs to the Essence, in the same manner as clouds belong to the sky". Music, too, is being compelled to do what it had not done after Beethoven: in 1954 the American composer John Cage presents his work «4':33''», in which for an equal time span he stands still beside an open piano — a work identical with Heidegger's confession; yet, the later goes on a little more when he writes: "what we need in the current world crisis is less philosophy and more careful thought; less philology, and more care for language" (ibid., p. 179). Costas Axelos will decipher the meaning of this standpoint and he will attach it to the axis of his poetive thinking: "as the charm of the world is dissolving, poetry and art are touching their closure. After their decline, only a friendly poetiveness toward the w/World, a plasticity which offers an elaborated surface, a sensitive and open to the world musicality could succeed them with dignity" (Systematique ouverte=Anoichte systematike, p. 146). After these developments we can fully understand under what conditions Camus leveled the ultimate accusation: "Europe's secret is that it does not love life any more" (L' homme revolte=O epanastatimenos anthropos, p. 378).

"NONE among the critics understood it at that time, and because of this they attacked me and they called me an imitator, good for composing only ‘naive' music; they accused me of abandoning ‘modernism', of betraying the ‘true Russian heritage' of mine. People who had never listened to or been interested in the originals were shouting ‘blasphemy: the classics are ours. Let the classics alone'. To all these people my answer was and remains the same: you ‘respect', I love" (Stavinsky's statement in D. Mitchell's The language of modern music=H glossa tes sygchrones mousikes, pp. 96-97). All the works of Igor Stravinsky decipher and enforce this distinction; from The Rite of Spring to Pultchinella, and from The Soldier's Tale to Laments, Stravinsky teaches again friendship to past, present and future. Popular creativity — and I don't only mean anonymous, since in this category I also count composers like Manos Hatzidakis or Nino Rota — grows on a ground common with that of a Stravinsky, but without cultivating it to the same depth; yet, this statement is not equal to a blame: popular creativity constitutes a standpoint beside and not before or after the other two; it bows in front of the wonderful grace of the autonomous accidens, reducing its autonomy not that much by artistic means, but mainly by the very admiration this kind of art expresses. Therefore Astor Piazzolla tangos are valid, while the obsolete Maps-of-the-Everything, (for example, many of Karlheinz Stochausen's works,) are not.

These three honest standpoints, as springs of Paideia, should be systematically promoted. The first one expresses the impasse of modern art and the other two would provide an effective opposition to this impasse, if we wanted to differentiate art from raw technique. We must constantly look at the primal ground of such answers, until it becomes present to the degree that the air we breathe and the act of breathing itself are present. This is, therefore, my proposition to our composers: to abandon Steinbach cabin and to travel all over the earth until they find the ashamed Agamemnon; to share with him the weight that the millennia accumulated on his arms, and to leave together for Ilion's shrouded seashore; if they ever arrive, to rest from the long trip, and when night comes to stand up and see once again the Trojans across the way, gathered around the Fire, talking and dancing.