Achim Breiling writes:

>Well, Denis, you wrote: music lovers generally find the atonal and serial
>stuff unpleasant and ugly.  As I take *generally* as *always* I think you
>will have a hard time to proove that and I would be interested to see those
>numbers!  I have the impression that on this list are a few persons who
>like atonal and serial *stuff* and do not think its unpleasent and ugly.
>Thus I doubt you are right in using the term *generally*!  Now, of course
>you could argue that people who like atonal music are no music lovers, but
>then we could start again to find out what the term music means ....

Well, Denis didn't quite write it that way.  It was his contention that
big-time concert goers generally found avant garde music such as atonal,
serial, and aleatory ugly.  " Generally" doesn't need to mean "always,"
just as "naturally" needn't have reference to Rousseau's Noble Savage or
the way a flower grows.  To make _generally_ read as _always_ puts an
invidious spin to the meaning.  I'm sure you've heard the expression
_natural golfer_.;or can track with _naturally, I don't like Microsoft_.

I've had enough experience with big audiences to have satisfied myself
that the avant garde stuff at best is tolerated because it happens to fall
between some Bruckner and Mozart.  And, of course, it's entirely clear to
me that quite a few members of this list enjoy the kind of avant garde
music that we're talking about here.  On this, at least, I can give you one
of those numbers that you crave:  932 subscibers, the last time I looked.

Denis Fodor