The discussion of concert programming made me wonder about the related question of programming on commercial "classical" radio. Forget about Webern: on our Seattle radio station such music as Hindemith, Honegger, Walton, William Schuman or any Stravinsky after Petrushka is all strictly forbidden. This is not merely stodgy, it is the stodginess of about 50 years back in time. What CAN they be thinking? Deryck Barker's quote from Aaron Copeland provides the essential clue: "They use music as a couch; they want to be pillowed on it, relaxed and consoled for the stress of daily living." The commercial broadcasters evidently calculate that aural pillows provide the most relaxing intervals between advertising messages; the pillows are presumably chosen to soothe the listeners into the highest level of receptiveness. Returning to the question of concert programming, maybe in some venues this soporific view of CM has clouded the minds of the board members and managements of concert organizations. This might occur where the local "classical" radio station pretends to be part of the local arts community, despite the obvious fact that it really belongs to the advertising industry. Our task as devotees of serious music is to keep reminding the real local arts community of the rest of Copland's message: "...Serious music was never meant to be used as a soporific, Contemporary music, especially, is created to wake you up, not to put you to sleep. It is meant to stir and excite you, to move you - it may even exhaust you. But isn't that the kind of stimulation you go to the theater for or read a book for? Why make an exception for music?" By the way, I think these words are also an incisive account of what we can find in (some) atonal music. Copeland surely knew what he was writing about. His own music ranged from the atonal (Connotations) through extended tonal (Organ Symphony, Short Symphony, etc., my own favorite of Copeland's various idioms) to the archly diatonic, populist style of Appalachian Spring and its like. These latter pieces are so calculatedly easy-listening that you can even get to hear them (but nothing else of Copeland's) on commercial "classical" radio. Jon Gallant Department of Gnome Sciences University of Washington *********************************************** The CLASSICAL mailing list is powered by L-Soft's renowned LISTSERV(R) list management software together with L-Soft's HDMail High Deliverability Mailer for reliable, lightning fast mail delivery. For more information, go to: http://www.lsoft.com/LISTSERV-powered.html