Christopher Rosevear <[log in to unmask]> writes (of a list of 20th Century
Classics for the Novice):

>But the great failing of this list is that it pre-supposes a classical
>vocabulary.  So let's hope Mozart, Beethoven, Brahms etc figure in the
>background too!

I'll add my own "Why so?" to the pile of objections to this thought.

As another example, I knew virtually all the pieces listed before I got
remotely interested in Beethoven, or Handel, or Mozart - alas, I have never
been interested by Brahms - and Bartok, Stravinsky, Janacek et.  al.  led
me backwards to an appreciation of the Viennese Classics, not vice versa.

Strange dictum, to claim that we can only get to know music written for
us in (more or less) our own time, by starting someplace and sometime we
know even less about!  Ring-fencing 20th century music with such caveats
is defeatist, and depressing.  It's not as if Beethoven's 'Grosse Fuge'
is in any sense "easier listening" than 'The Rite of Spring'.

Similarly, I have found it infinitely easier to interest people in opera
by taking them to "War and Peace" or "Wozzeck" than to "Fidelio" or "La
Traviata".  This has nothing to do with quality.  Musical and theatrical
conventions in 20th and 21st century opera are far easier to grasp for most
people than these older models.

Christopher Webber,  Blackheath, London,  UK.
http://www.nashwan.demon.co.uk/zarzuela.htm
"ZARZUELA!"