Roberto Strappafelci replies to me: >If I can add my humble 2 cents I'll tell you this: we need a fair amount >of tomatoes and a good deal of courage. Music passes through our ears >before it could reach the brain, at least for the vast majority of people >it works this way. Every attempt to bypass this physiological path should >be prosecuted by the tomato's law. Let me quote the following: "It is mathematical music evolved with difficulty from an unimaginative brain. ... How it ever came to be honored with the title of The Tenth Symphony is a mystery to us. ... This noisy, ungraceful, confusing and unattractive example of dry pedantry before the masterpieces of Schubert, Schumann, Mendelssohn, Gade, or even of the reckless and over-fluent Raff! Absurd! ... All that we heard and seen from {his} pen abounds in headwork without a glimmer of soul. ... It is possible that as we grow more familiar with this symphony it may become clearer to us, but we might pore over a difficult problem in mathematics until the same result was reached without arriving at the conclusion that it is a poetic inspiration." - 1878 Said of Brahms's First Symphony. I also recall a contemporary reviewer complaining of the lack of tunes in Gounod's Faust. People are very quick to blame the composer. I can understand different tastes. I even expect it. However, elevating taste to the level of artistic principle drives me up the wall. Steve Schwartz