Steve writes:

>>>...almost every performance of the Seventh I heard seemed to miss the
>>>point, although I had no idea what that point was.

I write:

>>Have we led the uninitiated to believe that art has to have a point to
>>be "fine?"

Deryk writes:

>He (Steve) certainly didn't emply the word "fine", so your two sentences
>above really constitute, I submit, a non-sequitur.

But I really think they *do* follow, as I was suggesting that the
qualitative, aesthetic potency of *fine* art--it's ability to please and
it's right to please--is mistakenly understood by students of critics and
educators as a function of its intellectually quantitative elements, such
as its *point* --its technical merits.  By endorsing Mahler's music and
Barbirolli's performance on the basis of technical merits, (coherence?),
IMHO Steve is suggesting the presence of aesthetic hierarchy--a finer art.

What if people enjoy the music without knowing the point? What if the point
can never be found? If one type of music is "smarter" than another, will
one type of listener have to be smarter than the other? How do you explain
to Mahlerians that not everyone is stopped in the same place on the road to
Damascus?

But this is what critics, educators and aficionados do, So I don't mean
to do Steve an injustice.  Technical talk and historical perspective are
enriching.  Leading listeners toward a conductor sensitive to the desires
of a composer is a great service.  My concern is how this is all
interpreted by people *not* familiar with the music or the idiom.

Please excuse the analogy:  When college students show up to a sex
education class, which covers theory, psychology, physiology, etc.;
they probably have already made the pursuit their own, and know that
the aesthetic enjoyment of sex is wholly independent of intellectual
capability.  Undertanding the subject matter of the classroom
discussions--no matter how technical--is never mistaken to be a
prerequisite for enjoyment.  For the captive music student, or one with
a nascent interest who has never understood that "serious" music has a
non-utilitarian, diverting purpose; I think these people could easily
see complicated theory discussions as a requisite need for aesthetic
appreciation.  Hence the belief-smart music needs smart listeners.

John Smyth