Mats replies to me replying to Albie:

>>>where could she possibly start?
>>
>>Anywhere she likes.
>
>It is so one consider unsubscribing when one reads things like this.

See you around.

>Thats my contribution to the current debate, with the addition I think
>(or at least hope) Mr. Schwartz was a little humourus here.

Actually, I was serious.  I don't see your problem.  In fact, I suspect
that very few people deliberately planned a "rational" program of how they
would begin to listen to classical music.  Most of us encountered it by
chance.  In my case, my mother happened to be a classical pianist.  A lot
of people watched Warner Bros.  cartoons and Disney's Fantasia.  If you go
to movies, you hear so many steals from classical composers, as well as
classical composers themselves, you probably have a start right there.

>If one possibly whats a more safe start however I would say that Beethoven
>is indubitabely a much more safe start than Boulez.

The point I have always made is that there is no such thing as a safe
choice, that one person's Beethoven is another's Boulez and vice versa.
Furthermore, if you recall, this has been borne out by the testimony of
other contributors to this thread.

Steve Schwartz