Professor Bernard Chasan writes:

>Billy Joel, interviewed by the fawning Charlie Rose, did precisely what
>James Tobin noted in a recent communication: identifyed the alternative
>to the good stuff with the avant garde.  The villain was Schoenberg and
>his followers, and Joel charactitured that music by producing a few ugly
>noises.  Rose did not challenge him.  Perhaps Rose is not into classical
>music, and of course Rose never challenges anyone.

I find it ironic that only classical music (and other minority audience)
listeners CARE about the music to which they listen.  Surveys conducted
about other matters of some weight reveal that the larger public really
just doesn't care about substance of music, art, architecture or anything.
Most persons complain that CARING requires expending too much energy and
attention.  "Pretty" pictures in the Museum Of Fine Arts are judged not on
artistic merit but, whether it appeals on a mere casual level.  A suburban
school committee person I know is continually astonished at how little even
college educated middle class parents care about what goes for learning in
the public schools.  Discussions about fundamental changes in curriculum
attract barely half dozen people to school committee meetings but, the
controversy about a hockey coach not playing a kid during a game brings out
the public in droves.  Why does the general public not give a damn about
quality? Music -generally reproduced poorly-has become "comodititized" in
the form of background music in retail stores and on television, nearly
indistinguishable from the noise which continually surrounds us.  Persons
are thereby deafened into insensitivity when music of substance is played.
How can we expect discrimination from the larger public under these
circumstances? Another casualty of contemporary existence, perhaps.

Bernard Gregoire
Hingham, MA