John Smyth, in a post I largely agree with:

>Why do some people consider CM forbiddingly intellectual and refined?
>I submit: How many generations of captive or curious music students
>have watched teachers, (including myself), act as midwives to the
>appreciation of "art music," by peeling apart its staff like a quintuple
>helix--especially when explaining and justifying the music of the
>serialists, etc.--to reveal, compare and contrast the intellectual rigor
>rather than just letting the sensual delights stand on their own?

To be fair, they do this with everything, not just serialists.

>Steve Schwartz in a recent review of Mahler's 7th:
>
>>...almost every performance of the Seventh I heard seemed to miss the
>>point, although I had no idea what that point was.
>
>This is what I'm kind of talking about.
>
>Have we led the uninitiated to believe that art has to have a point to be
>"fine?"

Actually, I was probably agreeing with you.  I could analyze Mahler's
7th to a fare-thee-well.  What I missed was the music making sense or me
connecting with its emotional world.  It took a special performance to show
me my way into the piece.  And if what I read and hear from even Mahler's
fans, that Seventh is among the hardest of his symphonies to get to know in
this way.

It's always amazed me how some of the most beautiful music avoids analysis.
"Shenandoah" makes me weep, it's so beautiful.  Analytically, I have no
idea why.  A lot of Poulenc and Satie strikes me the same way.

Steve Schwartz