>Can't modern composers come up with their own original works and >refrain
from adulterating works which already exist?...

I'll put down the gauntlet here and state my postmodern preference: once
it's in the public domain, it's fair game.  It's not WHETHER to modify an
existing work, but how successful is the result.  I see it as no different
than what is commonly done with operas, where the stage directions are
ignored or even reversed.

When I raised this point as part of a question at a public lecture held
with a Seattle Ring cycle a few years ago, suggesting if Wagner's tetralogy
can be staged in so many drastic ways, why not alter the music, vast gasps
rose up from absolutist stalwarts.  But to me the concept is valid.

I am particularly fond of, for example, the old Ormandy recording of
Rachmaninoff's "Isle of the Dead." In it, Ormandy took numerous cuts
that improved this somewhat untangled tone poem immensely.

Several composers have spoken of their works as "children being let out
into the world." I say, once they reach the public domain age of "21"
(actually now it's ridiculously high at 75+)--let them "grow up" on their
own!

Jeff Dunn
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Alameda, CA