Bernard Chasan wrote:

>It would be an interesting exercise for interested members of this
>liszt to put down their favorite classical music of the last twenty years.
>I think that describing them as "masterpieces" is perhaps not needed at
>this point.  "Excellent" or "interesting" will do fine.  Much as I love
>comtemporary music I don't think that this is at all an easy bet, if for
>no other reason than that we have some perspective about and familiarity
>with the century old stuff.

Maybe it would be an interesting exercise, but I don't think it would
prove or disprove the statement that Jim Tobin quoted...

   "I would venture to say that there have probably been more
    masterpieces created during the past 20 years than there were
    in the last 20 years of the 19th century (an easy bet, since
    the population is so much bigger now).  We just haven't finished
    sorting the gems from the garbage yet. ..."

... because of the last statement, we haven't finished sorting the
gems from the garbage.

However, there is one thing in the quote that I strongly disagree with:
"an easy bet, since the population is so much bigger now".  A population
explosion doesn't equate to a cultural explosion.

-Mike Leghorn