Donald Satz <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
>Thinking about this matter some more, I end up thinking that 'chance' has
>more to do with our listening preferences than 'canon'."
Since the original request was, IIRC, for a starting place, certainly a
list of pieces of music and composers enjoyed by many makes sense as a
STARTING place. After that, certainly, chance plays the main part as the
listener follows the paths of interest started by those pieces he or she
finds of interest. I certainly hope nobody who advocates the RC really
means that a listener SHOULD stick exclusively to that list! My own
experience of classical music was mostly chance. When I was six or so, I
loved the 1812 Overture and the Hungarian Rhapsody #2 and the Grieg Piano
Concerto. Then there was a longish interregnum, filled in by Warner Bros.
cartoon tracks. When I was 18, I bought the Rite of Spring based on the
description in the catalog, knowing virtually nothing about Stravinsky.
(I also bought Johnnie Mathis, if I recall.) I fell in love with Beethoven
later that year, and then a year or so later, bought the op 131, my very
first piece of chamber music, simply because it was cheap and I liked
Beethoven. The piece totally blew me away, and to this day, chamber music
is my favorite form, and includes most composers who wrote any, from
composers still living to Haydn & Mozart. Following various aleatoric
(chance) paths led me to a pretty broad liking of classical music in most
of its forms. I'm still exploring, still learning, and my early exposure
to chestnuts didn't harm me, as far as I can tell. --Except now that I
think of it, my heart beats weirdly: da-da-da-DUM, da-da-da-DUM (that's
a joke.)
Dave Wolf
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