The other day, I was listening to a really interesting symphony by
a Romantic composer by the name of Bristow.  I really enjoyed it, and
I wonder why he (or at least the symphony) isn't more well-known.  I've
reached a point in my "musical enlightenment" where I can enjoy (or at
least tolerate) any music, and I've heard a lot of good music by
"second-rate" composers.  In fact, I think there's much less difference
between the famous composers and the insignificant than is usually thought.
Perhaps the main difference is consistency, I don't know.  It just seems
like a lot of the hierarchy was arbitrarily decided.

This brings me to the subject of the letter.  I'd like to conduct an
experiment, probably when I get into college, to see how much a "big name"
influences peoples' opinions of music.  I think I've devised a decent
experiment, but it may have been done before, so if it has, tell me.

First, take two fairly similar pieces of music (I was thinking two early
string quartets by Beethoven...  not too likely to be well-known by the
college audience).  Tell one group of people that string quartet A is
written by Beethoven, and the other by (some unknown composer), and have
the audience compare them afterwards.  Repeat the process with the
composers reversed.  Continue this until enough data has been acquired, and
see how the results turn out.  I suspect the name is of fairly large
importance.  Tell me what you think.

~John~
"Without music, life would be a mistake" -Nietchze