Roberto Strappafelci replies to me:

>If I can add my humble 2 cents I'll tell you this: we need a fair amount
>of tomatoes and a good deal of courage.  Music passes through our ears
>before it could reach the brain, at least for the vast majority of people
>it works this way.  Every attempt to bypass this physiological path should
>be prosecuted by the tomato's law.

Let me quote the following:

   "It is mathematical music evolved with difficulty from an
   unimaginative brain.  ...  How it ever came to be honored with the
   title of The Tenth Symphony is a mystery to us.  ...  This noisy,
   ungraceful, confusing and unattractive example of dry pedantry before
   the masterpieces of Schubert, Schumann, Mendelssohn, Gade, or even
   of the reckless and over-fluent Raff!  Absurd!  ...  All that we
   heard and seen from {his} pen abounds in headwork without a glimmer
   of soul.  ...  It is possible that as we grow more familiar with this
   symphony it may become clearer to us, but we might pore over a
   difficult problem in mathematics until the same result was reached
   without arriving at the conclusion that it is a poetic inspiration."
   - 1878

Said of Brahms's First Symphony.  I also recall a contemporary reviewer
complaining of the lack of tunes in Gounod's Faust.  People are very quick
to blame the composer.  I can understand different tastes.  I even expect
it.  However, elevating taste to the level of artistic principle drives me
up the wall.

Steve Schwartz