B Chasan writes:

>I do not think accessible means pedestrian.

Hear!  Hear!

>Accessible for me can be Bartok or Nielsen or Nancarrow, but not
>one of those Princeton dudes (Babbitt for example) who think they
>are doing quantum field theory.  In a moment of elderly exuberance
>I bought the complete works of Varese.  Bad mistake!!  I can conceive
>of no circumstance when I want to play it again.  If yhis marks me
>as pedestrian or mediocre so be it.  A lot of damage is being done
>and has been done to contemporary music by composers who are not
>particularly interested in listeners.

Golly, I just bought Chailly's complete Varese and loved it, every single
click, boop, wail, and squeak.  As far as I'm concerned, Varese was
interested in *my* listening.  But, then again, I also like Babbitt's
music.  On the other hand, Nancarrow puts my eardrums to sleep.  All this
means is that nobody likes everything, rather than the end of music, art,
and civilization As We Know It.

Why do you care at all what someone thinks of your taste, unless you make
your living by it?  Enjoy what you enjoy.  If you're "Pedestrian," does
that make me "Intellectual?"  My wife is currently laughing so hard, she's
clutching her sides, reading this.  I'm certainly not as intellectual as
someone who understands physics, for me a seal-ed book.

Steve Schwartz