Mike Leghorn responds to me:

>>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.  ...
>
>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. ..."

Of course not.  It is interesting mainly to get ideas about the
interesting music of the last twenty years, as selected by people who
care about contemporary music.  We need not worry about the gems from
garbage business.

I find Jim"s and Steve's lists useful guides to music which I have not
yet heard.

Mike:

>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.

Yes, it is ludicrous to scale cultural achievement to population.
Elizabethan drama, Viennese classical and early romantic music, French
impressionist painting, German physics in the twenties, were unique
explosions, not explicable on the basis of population.  As it happens
the last twenty years of the nineteenth century covered the last years
of Liszt, and much of Bruckner, Mahler and Brahms.  Enough said.

BERNARD CHASAN