Bob Kasenchak wrote:

>Steve Schwartz replies to me:
>
>>What I don't believe can legitimately be said, however, is that a
>>classical Lied per se is better than an American pop song.
>
>I would -never- say that.  I love pop music.  I have long argued that pop
>music is art.  There are some pop composers who I would put up against the
>more tedious lieder composers (I won't expose myself naming names).

Well in some degree you are rigth,since a lot of lieds,are just a very
cheap music,and sometimes some folk music is just wonderful(as an example
some of the Beatles songs).  For me the folk music is art when it deserves
it.

>I had/have no intent to diminish Cage and his ilk, or remove them from CM.

CAGE(in my native language we pronounce his name as it sounds in
Castilian),is diminish in himself.For me he was nothing as a musician.Maybe
as a Philosopher as some people pretented.In this case he make a mistake
,because he doesn't went to a good editor of "literary works"(i can't hear
him,because his music does'nt sound4:33, and when it sound,i prefer to
don't speak about)

>I have reckoned for some time that the easiest definition of CM is "not
>pop", thus easily blanketing everything from Palestrina to Cage (to use
>my own example).

As you realized,i didn't express my opinion in previus E- mails concerning
this painful "theme",of the European music,because my opinions can make a
big sore to some people,but DESPITE i feel too the best music in OCCIDENT
in an amount of 80% maybe,is from Europe,i can not agree with Williams and
with his Chauvinism.  It makes me remember some of the 3erd Reich dogma.

Best wishes.
Gerardo:.