Robert Clemens wrote:

>Self-serving posturing of the Drury school - Basil Ramsay's recent
>comments on the subject mentioned elsewhere on just as bad - only
>stink up the place & do nothing to alleviate the suspicion amongst
>the punters that contemporary CM is as bad as it sounds; & therefore
>can be quite reasonably dismissed without a second thought.

It must be that time of the year again - traditionalists vs.  modernists.
As usual, the traditionalists, commenting on modernist music, will say:
it stinks, dismiss it, it's not really music, and even those who listen
to it don't really find it rewarding or enjoyable - it's a sham.

I don't understand that attitude.  I'm not a modernist fan, listening
to it rather infrequently.  However, there's a tiny little voice within
me that says, "you might be missing something." I don't hear that voice
about composers I don't appreciate such as Vivaldi, Tchaikovsky, or Liszt.
That's probably because they are in the past.  There's something about not
liking contemporary music in one's favorite genre that does not sit well.
So, every few months, I give modernist works another hearing.  I sure wish
I did like it.  I'd have a whole other area of music to buy and bother you
about.

This definitive "trashing" of modernist music, framed in an objective aura,
is nothing more that subjective hatred.  You don't like the stuff.  That's
fine.  Can't you leave it at that?

Don Satz
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