Richard Todd replies to Don Satz:

>>I think Denis and I are miles apart on this matter.  I wince when I read
>>"authorities" or "members of a community".  With music, I don't have to pay
>>any attention to those concepts.
>
>Good for you, but without a consensus in operation among the members of
>the musical community, you would have had to find your boy Bach out of an
>unsorted, undifferentiated mass of perhaps 30,000 published composers.

Hardly, since probably only 100 composers are even relatively widely
played.  And as for "consensus," this implies considered and informed
thought, not necessarily -- indeed, not often -- the case.  I suspect very
few performers take the trouble to explore anything beyond the repertoire
they were taught or were paid to play.  Consequently, what we have is a
situation more analogous to ritual rather than consideration.  I'd give a
nickel to know how many pianists have even heard Messiaen's Livre des
oiseaux, let alone looked at the score.

>And before anyone takes me up on that number, it's just a wild guess.

As is my number.

Steve Schwartz