Jeff Dunn makes several reasonable points about my list of 101 Essentials:

>1.  If a composer's listed for more than one work, you narrow the
>field and are forced one by one to eliminate other composers' historic
>contributions to the music of the century.  Notable omissions: Holmboe,
>Birtwistle, Hartmann, Norgard, Gerhard, Rautavaara, Schmidt, Petterson,
>Schuman, Piston, etc.  Not to mention ROUSE: Violin Concerto.:)

I considered pieces by most of those composers and didn't come up with
any that I found "essential" to understanding the century just past.
This doesn't mean I won't find a place for them later, or on other lists
I am planning.  I also found the one piece per composer rule arbitrary.

2.  We don't have the same perspective on the end of the century as we do
on the beginning.  Great late works haven't quite emerged in consensus yet

Agreed.  The appearance of later works on the list tend to be predictive,
to an extent.

3.  Which work(s) should be picked, e.g., why Kije and not Romeo and
Juliet? Why Ariadne and not Elektra or Salome?

Arbitrary, to a certain extent.  Kije for the tunes; I've already replaced
Ariadne with Salome.

4.  The "textbook" examples (Symphony of Psalms, Pierre Lunaire, etc.)
Some of these pieces fit too easily in historians' patterns, then the
writers cite each other.  But are there many people who love hearing
Pierre over and over again?

I think there are audiences for those pieces.  But the real issue is with
capturing the essence of the century's music.  And I don't think you do
that without Pierrot.

5.  If one grants multiple citations per composer, should there be a
proportion of recognition based on "importance" and/or "popularity"? Elgar
and Falla, for instance, are neglected in this area.  I prefer an empirical
approach based on tabulations of CD sales or citations in textbooks and
articles.

That would indeed make a different list.  It would tell you much about the
audience for art music, but not much about the music itself.

6.  How do you handle film composers?

By [arbitrarily, I admit] making the list about concert music.

7. Genres: opera vs.  symphonic vs.  chamber?

I tried for some balance here.  I don't know how successful I was.

Anyway, fun to think about!

Absolutely!

Steve Hicken