In answer to Jeff Dunn's questions:

>1. Who wrote it, when?

I have no idea.

>2. Which interpretation do you like the best?

The second one, largely because the melody is shaped better and the
accompaniment is given greater prominence.

>3. Why or why not does the melody speak to you?

It seems awfully square, awfully predictable. For me it was only
moderately interesting.

>4. Is melody even that important or necessary nowadays?

Absolutely it is.  But the definition of what constitutes a melody has
perhaps undergone changes that some of the great melodists of the past
would not recognize as 'melodic.'

>5. What are your all time favorite melodies?

Impossible to answer.  Too many to enumerate.  Having listened this
afternoon to Don Giovanni I could list five or six from that opera
alone.

Scott Morrison