David Stewart asks:

>And as another point..  what makes a good tune? Why are the tunes from the
>1812 overture so irrefutably bad ;-) and others to die for?

Nobody knows.  Also, not everybody thinks the tunes in the 1812 are bad.
I, for example, happen to think God Save the Czar and the Marseillaise
are wonderful tunes.  If you have no objective criterion, it's hard to
come down definitely on one side or the other.  People have made a case
for "surprise" or "thwarted expectation" or (to remove subjectivity as much
as possible) "statistical rarity" as a criterion, which works for, say,
Ravel but not necessarily for Mozart - the latter point something not many
believe.  Others try to make a case for "implied harmony," in which case
most of Beethoven, including the theme to the finale of the 9th, doesn't
qualify.  Yet, for some reason, most of us persist in thinking this a great
tune.

It's a mystery.

Steve Schwartz