Steve Schwartz <[log in to unmask]> writes:

>What seems to me more important are the criteria for inclusion...I had two
>major criteria:  the music must appearm today in both live and recorded
>formats; the music must have demonstrated historical importance.

That couldn't be far off the mark.  But here's a little additional spin.
The RC should comprise composers whose oeuvre proved paradigmatic of the
various phases of the development of CM.  A bit of old music should be in
there, a bit of Italian baroque, the Romantic giants (including opera and
ballet), a skeleton of the music transitional from there to the modern,
then the modern in which, I shudder to have to agree with Steve, Schoenberg
does belong (as a sort of anti-hero, but pace that, the recognized master
of the second Viennese School), so does Bartok and, alas Webern, whose
selection is made easier because he kept his presentations mercifully
short.  But I think Adams and Paerth, f"rinstance, are comers for selection
to the RC of the future.  So, maybe, are a handful of very craftsmanlike
movie composers.

Denis Fodor