MIchael Cooper writes:

>Refined tastes are refined tastes.

Rite of Spring is refined? Prokofiev's Alex Nevsky?? How hard is this
stuff?

>Not only is the more refined more cerebral, taking more effort to grasp....

I taught music from K-8th grade.  Children from K to 5th adored CM, from
Bach to Ligeti.  From 6th to 8th, boys started to dislike it.  By your
observation, shouldn't it be the other way around?

Don't feel bad.  My good friend, (a Cal Poly grad), upon seeing how
happy I was to find Prokofiev's War and Peace used, said, "I wish I could
understand and get as much enjoyment out of what you listen to.  What's
that opera about?" Completely unaware of the delicious irony of the my
answer, I said, "Well, peace....and, uh, war."

The enjoyment of CM doesn't require intelligence, it requires
vulnerability.  But I'm banging my head against the wall with this one.

John