Unqualified

"Without modernism, nothing would get invented." - John Cage

"I'm a classical composer." - Alvin Lucier

Let x ∈ {serious, modern, classical, experimental, longhaired, scare the dog, etc.}.

There is some fashion among composers (and critics) to define their work negatively, i.e. as the music that is not x, or the music that follows x. (E.g. anti-modern, post-experimental, proto-scare-the-dog music).

Let y ∉ {serious, modern, classical, experimental, etc.}.

There is some fashion among composers (and critics) to define their work negatively, i.e. as the music that is not y, or the music that follows y. (Contra-pop, post-commercial, pseudo-entertainment music).

Further, there is some fashion among composers (and critics) to define their work as some union of an x & an y. (Post-serious anti-salon music).

Okay. Maybe I'm dense and just can't follow, for example, that Stravinsky will on one hand be the epitome of modernism in music and on the other the avatar of post-modernism in music. While perhaps as naive as the set theory above, this fool persists in the folly that there is still work to be done in a music which is comfortable with a label found in set x, unqualified by pre's, prae's, post's, ante's, anti's, non's, pluses, extra's, or ultra's, and unembellished by appeals to other genres. Discovering exactly what our work is strikes me as much more interesting an adventure than excusing the work for not being what it is not.