"Stephen E.  Bacher" expresses skepticism about the emotional profundity
of most of Mendelssohn's music:

>...  It's not a superficiality so much as a lack of emotional complexity,
>something I believe to be an essential characteristic of the finest
>composers....

I think I know the feeling, and it applies not only to music, but
to other arts, as well.  It has to do with a certain expectation of
refinement.  Now, Mendelssohn's just fine by me (except perhaps for the
Octet) but the other evening I experienced some music that most decidedly
did not meet _my_ expectation of refinement.  It was a presentation of
eight short organ works by Messiaen offered at the state Musik Hochschule
here.  A professor introduced the (paying) audience to Messiaen and his
musical agenda, suggestive of the kind of refinement he was striving
for.  After more than a half-hour of this, replete with demonstrative
intersperses on the organ, we got to hear the eight pieces.  Now, I've
been listening to Messiaen for over forty years and can abide some of
his larger oeuvres--mainly for the catchy handling of chords, retardings,
and colorings --but the organ stuff worked on me like refined cryogenics.
Give me the expressiveness of Mendelssohn, or of a Schubert Lied, any
evening of any day.

Denis Fodor