Ulvi wrote ...

>I don't see any chance for MIDI performance to catch up and become of
>anything other than educational value.

But it has one great benefit.  It makes it possible for people to write
music, classical and other, (especially larger works like symphonies and
concertos) on their computer without the expense of hiring a symphony
orchestra to rehearse it, not to mention finding an orchestra that will
perform it.  In that sense it liberates music from any existing politics
in the composition/performance business.  Out there somewhere is another
Beethoven or Wagner who will have a better chance or writing and
distributing their classical music through MIDI than breaking into the
music business the normal way, which requires going to the right schools,
winning the right competitions, and knowing the right people.  If history
in any example, the great classical music of the future will be rejected
out of hand by the establishment and will come from people "outside the
business".

In that sense it is an incredible technology that will only get better.
Sound cards reproduce the voices very well and if they don't already have
it soon these sound cards will use the digitized sounds of the actual
instruments.  I suspect that there are MIDI versions of classical music
already that many music lovers can't tell from the "real" thing.

Bill Pirkle