Ulvi Yurtsever wrote:

>What you are suggesting is all fine; I would amend it by the principle
>that the critic should keep it in mind that when a piece or a composer
>doesn't appeal to him that it is possible, and sometimes highly probable,
>that the cause lies within the critic and not with the composer or the
>work.  This is especially probable in cases where the work or the composer
>in question has a phenomenal reputation which remains consistent (or
>intensifies) across large time spans, across cultural and geographic
>boundaries . . .

Is this the same Ulvi Yurtsever who wrote about Shostakovich's 7th, that
the reason critics harshly attack the symphony is "maybe because the first
movement has too much of the same garbage which makes "Bolero" stink"?

Granted Shostakovich and Ravel may have less than "phenomenal"
reputations, and reputations that may not have remained consistent over
what Mr.Yurtsever might consider "large time spans," nevertheless he is by
his statement, acknowledging that a "good" composer might sometime compose
a "bad" work.  Were Mr.Yurtsever to be as forthcoming about some of the
works of Bach and Brahms, perhaps he would be less of an idolator and a
better critic than the ones he disparages.

John Dalmas
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