Albie, responding to me:

>>It is theoretically possible, though highly unlikely, that there are
>>listeners--not musicians--who don't know any of the RC works but who know
>>hundreds or even thousands of non-RC works.  Just suppose for the sake of
>>discussion that there is such a person.  Can one really say that she is
>>worse off than the more typical listener?
>
>Good for them if that's how they are and are satisfied...  however the
>scenario is so unlikely as to be almost purely academic/rhetorical.

My numbers may be exaggerated, but I was actually thinking of my brother
who, when we were both teenagers, was utterly indifferent to classical
music (and there was much standard repertoire played in the house) until
one day he heard on the radio David Diamond's Rounds for String Orchestra
and it "made his cheeks puff out," as he said.  He then got excited about
Hovhaness' Prelude and Quadruple Fugue, Schuman's New England Triptych,
Harris' Third Symphony, Thomson's Symphony on a Hymn Tune, Thompson's
Second Symphony and Testament of Freedom, Bloch's Concerto Grosso # 1,
Copland's ballets, the symphonies of Ives, Piston, Hanson, etc.  Even
after this it was years before he would listen to any European composer
and then he discovered Bartok's Music for Strings Percussion and Celeste,
Stravinsky's Petrouchka (and Threni), some Hindemith and then Schoenberg
and Webern.  It was a long time after that when he would even listen to
Brahms.

Jim Tobin