Prog-Rock Politics

Yeah, that makes perfect sense. Musique concrète's protagonists don't appear to have been as 'marketable' fwiw.

Wrt Cage, I can see why jazzers might not have been taken by a guy who scorned improvisation and rockers might not have identified with
ideas of non-expression/non-intention. That said, Zappa and Patrick Moraz appeared on the 1993 Chance Operation tribute and a number of rockers have worked with the prepared piano.

Stockhausen was a pioneer wrt live electronics, which seems significant.

lol I deliberately didn't mention Cage because I find his music profoundly uninteresting as a listening experience, barring an exception or two.

― toilet-cleaning brain surgeon (pomenitul)

this is how i feel about stockhausen!

That's totally fair. The thing too is that both composers' outputs are so massive that there is likely much that could tip the balance either way were I to hear it.

Love both, although it took me a little while with Stockhausen.

To go back to this thread's original premise, part of me feels like Stockhausen is a prime candidate for proggiest major postwar composer, if only because of his penchant for high-minded yet unintentionally silly conceptual grand narratives. Berio, too, but for completely different reasons (mostly having to do with proto-polystylism).

also his penchant for quilting together traditions, which is key to what makes prog "progressive" imo: not just the world-music tape-tapestries (telemusik and hymnen are distortion-heavy cousins to all you need is love) but also his constant drive towards at combining competing elements in the avant-garde (composed serialism, musique concrete, electronic composition, live electronic manipulation of all the above, plus some cheekily unacknowledged thefts from the early minimalists, and -- post his starvation-tantrum to persuade his wife to return to him in 1968 -- free improvisation)

Played not bad jazz piano, in his spare time, so I believe.

Wouldn't be surprised given his son Markus's musical path.

also indeterminacy of course