Ed Zubrow wrote:

>>On our wonderful local radio show the Connection with Christopher Lydon,
>>pianist and NEC professor Stephen Drury is discussing contemporary
>>classical music.  He is urging listeners to approach modern music in a new
>>and different way in order to begin to appreciate it on its own terms.
>>Do not think of music as telling a story.  Do not think of it as a dance.
>>Think of the sounds as an experience to be absorbed.

Robert Clements wrote:

>I was going to leave this thread alone; but Jon misses the obvious point:
>it isn't that so few people can follow dreary Drury's fossilised masters;
>but that they have absolutely no interest in doing so (& indeed: noone has
>yet offered a single good reason why they should).

Ahem.  Please let me intrude on this and the other diatribes against
Drury.  Here on the Davelist, I keep reading messages full of complaints
that in the US, public radio has dumbed down, that classical music is
getting kicked in the butt, that we are poor lonely misunderstood music
lovers all alone in this crass world.  Along comes Chris Lydon, who has
created a low-key, intelligent program which started out on a shoestring
here in Boston, on public radio, and has finally gone into syndication,
a program that for two hours every day explores with as much depth as
possible all sides of music, poetry, literature, philosophy, and all
*other* areas of interest to people just like us, AND does it both from the
viewpoint of professionals and the listeners who are invited to call up and
ask questions.  Often the callers are every bit as twinkly as the guests.
This is EXCITING radio.

Why all the whining? Drury is just one person with one opinion.  If the
show grabbed Ed Zubrow, and grabbed a few more folks that morning, made
their morning a bit more interesting, gave them a reason to try listening
to some music they ordinarily would not have tried, opened up their minds
even just a teeny bit, what is the problem?

Yeesh! Some people are NEVER SATISFIED.

Mimi Ezust <[log in to unmask]>