Yes, there's a lot of energy in the Pollacks. And I can see why people like them in their strange fashion. But I find myself increasingly impatient with the whole modernist gang, especially in music and art. In literature, I like Joyce and Eliot, though they both have problems, and I love Yeats and Stevens.
But Schoenberg? Music went to the dogs with the modernists.
Picasso was one of the most talented modernists. He was a great artist in some ways. But his work is cruel, brutal, and artistically immoral. Great talent put to destructive use.
Cicero --
I agree with your tastes pretty much down the line. Classical music seems stuck in a dead end and can't find its way out. Contemporary operas -- Corigliano, Bolcom -- are just high-toned pastiche or else minimalism best appreciated after a hit of acid. I like Darius Milhaud and Dave Brubeck, though.
Howl had the same problem. Like it or hate it, it was a dead end.
So much of modernism and post modernism is about telling us that there is no God and the universe has has no meaning. Once that message is delivered and accepted, where do you go? Not to concert halls, museums and libraries.
Atonality was inevitable. Don't blame Schonberg blame Wagner if not Chopin.