Jocelyn Wang wrote: >Does anyone-- anyone-- in his right mind, regardless of his view of atonal >"music," actually believe that such an experience would have been enjoyed >by a single one of those kids? Yes I certainly do, and as I understand from other postings concerning this subject (also see Peter Ludins post in the Copland thread) also others on this list do. Gawain has an interesting story, full of knights, kings and fays...I would guess thats quite appalling to children. Secondly Birtwistle is *not* an atonal composer! He belongs to the same school as Maxwell-Davis, Goehr or Colin Matthews who compose complex but mostly tonal music (I think I have read somewhere Birtwistles music being described as post-romantic....). Did Mrs. Wang ever listen to Gawain or any other work by Birtwistle? >Please. Child abuse is rampant enough without subjecting them en masse to >that. Come on, you would consider the exposure of children to contemporary music as child abuse?????? John Deacon wrote: >The question, which is more or less self-evident - for those who know the >years of listening experience that needs to be brought to this (dreadful) >stuff in order to survive it (and I'm not there yet and probably never will >be!) was "that it would put them off opera for life." I went to the opera with my school class (I was around 14). We had the usual Humperdink and Mozart stuff. Now maybe that put me off opera - I do not know yet if for life - and I still do not like this kind of musical approach. Maybe if we had seen Ligetis Grand Macabre it would have been different! >Kids need guidance. Even mis-guided guidance is better than Gawain. Yes kids need guidance, but rather in a way to offer them several opportunities. Thus one should go with them to Gawain and Haensel und Gretel. Maybe for them there is not so much difference in these works than John seems to see. Achim Breiling