John Dalmas wrote:

>It is astonishing to note that some subscribers to this list approach music
>not as an art to be appreciated, or as a medium to test one's maturing
>powers of discrimination and taste, but rather as an opportunity to join
>in partisan battle for this composer or that composer, as if matters of
>discrimination and taste had no relevancy.  As if all that mattered is not
>the music, but the composer's name, the composer's reputation.

My work routinely gets turned down from this or that event because I am
"not famous enough." The music is rarely considered.  A sad fact of life
in many places.

>...  Dare to mention in a statement about one composer a contrasting
>statement about another composer, and right away:  an almost puerile
>dichotomy arises.  It is X vs.  Y, A vs.  B.  The armor is donned.  The
>battle joined.

In other times and other places these were called "guerres de bouffons"
(fools' wars), a name that I think fits quite well.  French or Italian
opera, Brahms or Wagner,....  From our 20th-century vantage point we can
see that there's room for French and Italian opera, for Brahms and Wagner.
My only regrettable choices since I moved to Fort Worth have involved two
or more concerts (and/or other activities) going on at the same time.  I
can handle that.

Aaron J. Rabushka
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