Steve Schwartz wrote:

>Music Composition for Dummies
>Scott Jarrett & Holly Day
>
> ...
>Obviously, once you've gone through its training, you're not going to
>be writing anything nearly as good as Beethoven's Missa Solemnis, unless,
>of course, you're already nearly as good as Beethoven.

Could it be that there are more anecdotes about Beethoven than any other
composer?  Anyway, about two years ago, James Levine performed the "Missa
Solemnis" with the Boston Symphony Orchestra, and in an interview with
the then more-prosperous Boston Globe, declared that work to be the
single greatest musical composition of which he was aware.  Let's flip
the telescope: a few weeks earlier, National Public Radio queried listeners
as to what they thought might be the WORST piece of classical music!
The choice...Beethoven's "Wellington's Victory, or the Battle Symphony".
Now that's range!

Laurence glavin
Methuen, MA

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