This quotation hardly seems a promising beginning to what is, after all, an analytical study. In fact, there would be little reason to cite it, were it not for the fact that the words are Edgard Varese's own. There is a good deal of vehemence in these wordsmuch of it, we may gather, directed against the study of music as it was pursued in the academic institutions of Varese' s student days. Beyond that, however, the passage above bespeaks an attitude about musical composition: a process that is the business of the composer and no one else. Given Varese's condemnation of analysis-by implication, of anyone's music-is there any point in attempting to analyze his own music, which may have been designed, among other things, to foil such attempts? Do we even have any right at all, morally speaking, to investigate? As a matter of fact, there are valid reasons for proceeding with this study. Varese has had a considerable, if somewhat vaguely defined, impact upon composition over the past quarter-century or so-in other words, dating from about the time when he began to receive general