Len Fehskens wrote:

>Karl Miller suggests:
>
>>I also believe the notion of a standard repertoire has given the general
>>public a limited notion of what classical music is all about.  It is a bit
>>like what NPR did with their "great pieces of the millenium" or whatever.
>
>I wonder if you are exchanging cause and effect here.  It's not as if
>there exists some cabal of "know it alls" who are hell-bent on telling
>the public what the canonical masterpieces are, so less worthy music can
>be cast into the outer darkness.  The public, for the most part, wants
>simple answers to complex questions: "I don't have the time or inclination
>to listen to everything ever written, so would someone please just tell me
>what the good stuff is?".  Rarely is demand created out of whole cloth;
>more often it exists untapped until discovered by the entrepreneurially
>insightful.

I may be exchanging cause and effect, however, I also wonder about a
society that measures success by comparison versus individual merit,
especially when it comes to the arts.

On the other hand, was the entire world really unconciously waiting for
the hula hoop? Ok, so the hula hoop was fun, I had one.  On the other hand,
I wonder, did it do us any harm? I believe the "masterpiece syndrome" (as
one of my teachers called it), has had a negative effect on the arts.

On the other hand, I wonder what positives others might find in the
"masterpiece syndrome."

Karl