Bryan Shaw writes:

>He is often to harsh for many people's ears but he is more than energy and
>noise if he is studied much at all.

Very true- no more so than in the String Quartets.  I have been listening
to them for about fifty years.  I remember how forbidding the original
Julliard Quartet LPs seemed, although it was clear even then that it was
worth the effort to listen and to try to understand.  (The program notes
for this set, written by Irving Babbit, were far more forbidding than the
music!!!) Now the quartets are like old friends- old friends who require
your full attention if you are to absorb and appreciate what they have to
tell you!!!

The String Quartets are at the center, but the Music for Strings,
Percussion and Celesta, the haunting, menace filled yet beautiful
Divertimento for Strings must be mentioned- as well as the piano concerti,
the Second Violin Concerto, the Concerto for Orchestra (which hooked me on
Modern Music), the piano music, the violin sonatas, Contrasts for violin
piano and clarinet, the Miraculous Mandarin, etc etc, are all top drawer
stuff- the best that the twentieth century has to offer.

Professor Bernard Chasan
Physics Department, Boston University