Margeret Mikulska writes:

>I'm very enthusiastic about 20th-C music; that's why when I see composers
>like Kernis or Corigliano winning awards for their tepid, easy neo-tonal
>pabulum, I'm quite appalled.  Thanks goodness Carter, Boulez, and others
>do get some recognition as well.

I am in agreement with Margaret, adding the proviso that there is a good
deal of twentieth century music which is tonal but not tepid or easy.
Vaughn Williams and Honneger come to mind.  There is a legion of others.
others.  Steve Schwartz and others have pointed out that atonal techniques
get used more widely than the unschooled listener (me, for example) might
suspect.  Nonetheless the two composers I have mentioned, and others such
as Schnittke are clearly not like in the Carter or Boulez camp(s) in some
sense.

But if you like tepid and easy, then Lowell Lieberman might be your man-
as judged by his gorgeous and terminally bland Second Symphony.

Professor Bernard Chasan
Physics Department, Boston University