Achim Breiling writes:

>As Denis Fodor pointed out in his recent posting that muisc lovers
>generally find atonal and serial stuff unpleasant (you have statistically
>significant numbers for that, Denis?) Harris and Stravinskky must have
>been right and we should better forget about Mrs. Usvolskaya.

Of course we should not forget her.  I will try her piano sonatas once
again!  However, it should be pointed out that response to difficult music
is a highly individual matter.  Not to like Usvolskaya does not indicate
a general rejection of atonal and serial music.  Practitioners of these
approaches to composition don't all sound alike!!!  I am thinking of Robert
Gerhard, whose late symphonies.  which employ serial techniques are
difficult, sometimes hard to fathom, but never, to my ears, cultivate
the ugly.

Professor Bernard Chasan
Physics Department, Boston University