First, I love VW's work -- just about all of it.  Even the so-called
"minor" work gets under my skin.  But if I really get down among
the nits, then I can find places "where even Homer nods." Except
one piece, very little known, for some reason -- a choral work called
"Valiant-for-truth," which sets the relevant section in Bunyan's Pilgrim's
Progress.  This is NOT part of the opera, but a separate stand-alone a
cappella motet, written on the death of a friend.  Much of it is unison,
and the amount of power he gets from individual notes is in the Webern
class.

Steve Schwartz