List member Scott Morrison and I were talking off-list about the Sony
all-Stravinsky set at one time available for at most half-price from
Berkshire Record Outlet.  I listened to it almost straight through, and
that's a lot of CDs.  It occurred to me that Stravinsky, because of his
incredible range, was one of the few composers you could make an entire
concert program from.  It has little to do with the quality of the work,
given work of a certain quality, but the variety in a composer's output.
For example, as much as I love Schoenberg, Webern, and Hindemith, I doubt
I'd want to sit through an all-Schoenberg, all-Webern, or all-Hindemith
concert.

I'd define concert as a program with at least three works on it.  So most
of Mahler is probably out, as are Schoenberg's Gurrelieder or Moses und
Aron, Hindemith's When Lilacs Last in the Dooryard Bloom'd, and Britten's
War Requiem.

I'd like to propose a thread.  Suppose you were in charge of programming
for a major orchestra and it was a composer's commerative year.  What
composers would lend themselves to a concert of just their works, give a
sample program, and explain why you've included the composer and the works.

Perhaps you could also figure out who wouldn't fit the bill and why.  Try
not to include composers you dislike, since you'd not likely  program them
in any case, but composers you do.

Steve Schwartz