Claus-Steffen Mahnkopf, born in 1962, is a dual talent. Not only is he a composer, he also publishes articles on philosophy and music theory. He insists that music has a unique contribution to make to the aesthetic de-bates of our time. To abandon these debates would be disastrous: they are the ecological corrective to what he calls the "acoustical garbage" that surrounds us in our daily lives. Music's polemical barb is part of its artistic raison d’être. The link between music and aesthetics is a defining feature of the musical work of art.