While most people can't come to unfamiliar music as a complete _tabula
rasa_, without bringing experience of other music to bear on it, our
original enquirer could try a rather different experiment:  to get someone
else to play her pieces from that list (and others?) without her knowing
who wrote what when she hears them.  That would at least remove any
expectations based purely on the reputation of the composers and pieces
concerned.  It wouldn't get rid of associations she might make between what
she hears and other pieces, but those associations vary greatly from person
to person, even (especially?) among the musically experienced.  To take two
pieces from the list - I feel the step from Mahler's 9th to Berg's violin
concerto to be a small one, but for at least one other contributor to this
thread it is a huge gulf.

Meanwhile, my two year old daughter (far from a tabula rasa where music
is concerned) is learning the names of some composers, and last night
misidentified Dvorak as Verdi.  Right century, anyway.

Virginia Knight
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Personal homepage: http://www.ilrt.bris.ac.uk/~ggvhk/virginia.html