Denis Fodor wrote:

>The above is a variation on a theme we've heard played by Stirling
>Newberry quite often.  I'm afraid I don't see the system working quite
>the way he claims it works.  A great number of CM fans, especially the
>non-professionals, very much believe that greatness is alive, and that
>much of it has a lifetime reaching back to the beginnings of CM.  To such
>folks, Beethoven is not demode and a Bizet symphony is not boring.

I'm afraid Mr. Fodor's statements in this case are, how shall I say it?
not germane to the point at hand.  The point at had is that there is a
sizeable contingent of the classical world, including people like say,
Donald Vroon, who on the one hand seem to have a standard of greatness
rooted in the past, and bemoan that that standard is not upheld - and yet
on the other hand spend a great deal of time rather actively trying to
prove that everything has gone to hell since (fill in the blank) and there
are no standards any more and that it is consequently impossible for the
old level of artistic accomplishment to be reached.

It is this viewpoint which I was attacking and it is this viewpoint which
is germane to the question. Since Mr. Fodor says he's seen this from me
before, I can only conclude that he merely is maintaining a comfortable
misreading of the statements in question.

Stirling S Newberry
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