Mark Seeley discusses delving into the Bartok String Quartets:

>My plan is to bring these into my office and play them as background music
>at first.

I would try the 4th quartet first.  I am concerned that if you listen to
these as background music then you may miss out on some of the stunning
colors that Bartok coaxes out of the four strings--the quicksilver second
mov't of the fourth with its delicate pizzicato, glisses, and wood on the
strings effects hangs in the air like ghostly plasma.  The following mov't
is no less delicate and sublime.  Unless your office has a door and you are
rarely interrupted, it is no place for such music!

>I have not had a high regard for much of the music of the 20th century and
>perhaps I never will

I hope you are not including Prokofiev in this blanket dismissal.  He,
(among many other 20th Century composers), could write a melody as
meltingly lovely as any 19th century composer.  Just remember that in the
20th, it's the rhythms and sonorities that become the prime ear ticklers.
I must say I have a hard time with some of our Century's music.

John Smyth