Satoshi Akima wrote:

>I suspect Beethoven is a poor analogy, although I think Dave grossly
>exaggerates the degree to which his late quartets (and late piano sonatas)
>were well received.

Well, a little reading and understanding of music history will do a lot to
remove your suspicions.  Even early detractors - who were responsible for
some of the harshest criticisms ever written of Beethoven's music - became
converts in the decades after Beethoven's death.  Ludwig Spohr comes to
mind as a severe opponent of Beethoven's late quartets who later performed
them with his quartet on tour in Europe.  I don't have time to track down
a reading list on this, but one source is Barry Cooper's "The Beethoven
Compendium", in which Anne-Louise Coldicott writes in the chapter titled
"Reception - Contemporary assessments":

   The late string quartets were perhaps surprisingly quickly accepted
   and admired by the public after initial difficulties with the first,
   Op. 127 (mainly on account of it being under-rehearsed and consequently
   not understood by the performers or the audience).  The chief stumbling
   block was the fugal finale to Op. 130, which Beethoven was persuaded
   to replace and publish separately as the Grosse Fuge.  The critics
   found it harder to come to terms with their overall structure,
   unprecedentedly long movements, and new level of dissonance.

So, regardless of the hesitations of some critics, Beethoven's late
music was widely accepted by the public as well as musicians, and widely
performed both before and after his death.  The use of Beethoven as an
example of a composer who was misunderstood in his own lifetime but later
revered as a genius, is simply a canard and smacks of a try at
legitimization through association.

>In fact for many years after his death many late works of Beethoven were
>regarded in many quarters as being quite strange, and were really poorly
>understood.

This is ahistoric and unfounded.

>Indeed if Beethoven really had no trouble communicating with his audience
>why did they react to his Grosse Fuge as they did?

The exception proves the rule.  Beethoven's music was accepted by the
public.  Just because you can find a single movement that wasn't so quickly
grasped does nothing to prove your point.

>A better analogy still is J.S. Bach whose music really was not at all well
>receive in his age, ...

This doesn't work either.  A little reading will reveal that Bach's
music was not rejected by his contemporaries because it was strange and
progressive, but exactly the opposite.  Bach's music was considered to
be profoundly old-fashioned at the time he was composing.  It wasn't too
difficult, it was not contemporary enough.  Bach could not or would not
compose in the modern style.  This does not mean that some of his music
was not widely circulated, though primarily for didactic purposes.  And
even if his music was not widely performed in his lifetime, Bach's name
was well-known through his famous sons and numerous successful pupils.
For further reading I suggest Otto Bettmann's "Johann Sebastian Bach -
As His World Knew Him" from Birch Lane Press.

>The sort of comments that one reads about him from his contemporaries
>often sounds like just the sort of thing you can read about Boulez today.

I'm sorry, but this is nonsense.  Where, in what venue, has Boulez ever
been called old-fashioned?

>Unfortunately the 20th century was also the age of the triumph of mass
>produced commercial popular music, which to my mind is what really helped
>establish the triumph amongst the masses of tonal music over pantonality.

Ah, yes, once again we come to the crux of it.  If we don't like the
musical styles you do, then we have succumbed to the pressures of the
ignorant masses.  This sort of broad insult does little to lend credibility
to an argument.

Dave
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