Albie Cabrera <[log in to unmask]> writes:

>Surely, if you like the new stuff, go for it...  it's just that I think
>it's harder to actually *truly* like the new stuff than it is the older
>stuff...  a lot more hit-or-miss...  because, at least with the older
>stuff, we are more familiar with it...  more comfortable...  and from
>that safety one can reach out and explore.

What are your reasons for thinking 20th Century music is "harder" than
the earlier repertoire? Some, technically, for players, perhaps:  but the
toughest of pieces by Bogeyman Schoenberg is much easier to grasp as a
whole, in terms of emotional impact - note the choice of phrase - than,
say, Beethoven's Op.130 String Quartet, with its switchback ride of musical
forms, techniques and mercurial play of intelligence.  And as for the
Grosse Fuge, or Bach's Art of Same ....  no contest.

>Luckily (I guess) for me, I had a lot of background in classical music
>performance before I *liked* listening to it

Hmm.  I can't speak for you, but an imp prompts me to suggest that maybe
you'd have "liked" it more, and sooner, if you'd not had to struggle with
the Museum Pieces first!  If you'd started with the luminous, wonderful
"Mathis der Maler" for example instead of coming to it as a sort of
adjunct, or footnote to the "basic" repertoire ....  who knows?

To return to the basic point of this thread:  we cannot advise people on
selecting their personal "basic repertoire", anymore than we could choose
their friends for them.  Once a person has started to map out their
preferred territory - be it Shostakovich, Schoenberg or Scheidt - then,
only then, can we fruitfully suggest extensions to it.

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