Don Satz wrote:

>Len Fehskens writes in response to me:
>
>>>I would say that the canon is about the 'average' of things with a
>>>great deal of 'follow the leader' involved.
>>
>>I know you didn't say this, and may not have implied it, but I am
>>prompted to infer that there might, then, be stuff that is part of the
>>canon that is not truly worth listening to?
>
>That's for each person to decide.  Also, you can't conclude that there are
>parts of the canon not worth listening to until you've listened to them.
>It's a bitter-sweet process.

Last weekend I had the pleasure to hear Osmo Vanska conduct the Pittsburgh
Symphony, including in Sibelius' 5th symphony.

Sibelius is in my top five list of composers.  I have Vanska's recording
of this symphony.  So it was a good experience to hear live.

But I was reminded once again how I feel about this work.  After alot of
very wonderful music, Sibelius throws a cheap and disappointing ending at
us.  I can't believe he actually wrote that.

Who's right? Well...my feeling is mine, and inescapable--despite the fact
that the master wrote what he meant to write, and certainly understood
expressing oneself in music a million times better than I do.  So I will
continue to avail myself of opportunities to encounter this work...maybe
some day, it will click, and make sense.

Everybody has their idiosyncracies in how they react to music--just as a
previous writer, who didn't care for the Great Fugue.

(As far as Vanska...1) I appreciate he (and everybody else) who champions
new or little-known music.  He conducted the world premiere of James
Oliverio's The Messenger, a concerto for timpani and percussion.  2)
He's wonderfully "in the moment", in terms of passion and intensity and
commitment.  Maybe too much...I feel that he loses some of the overall
architecture of what he's conducting.)

--Brian Burtt