Dear list members,

Is there any hope for me and Twentieth Century music?

Keith Bramich wrote:

>Today at Music & Vision, we begin a new series of articles by Peter Dale -
>'A Survivor's Guide to 20th Century Music' is 'a fast-track graduation
>course in making your peace with the music of our time and in sweeping
>the house clean for the next millennium'.

This has my full attention.  Peter has posed some good questions.  Here are
my answers:

1) Can you really cope with late Britten or, if you're honest, do you still
prefer the Frank Bridge Variations or, if pushed (hard?), the War Requiem?
I really like Britten's War Requiem, but give me Britten's Simple Symphony
and the Courtly Dances from Glorianna.

2) Do you really love Bartok Quartets as much as the Concerto for
Orchestra? Heck no!  There is no love for Bartoks Quartets as there
is for his Third Piano Concerto and his Concerto for Orchestra.

3) Given a choice between Peter Grimes and La Boheme, which would you go
for? Neither.

4) Can you name any piece by Ligeti? No!  Who is he?

5) Have you ever listened to John Cage for longer than 4 minutes 32
seconds? No!

6) Would you open the door to Thomas Ades without a letter of introduction
from Ralph Vaughan Williams? No!

7) Do you whisper a prayer of thanks now that Maxwell Davies is back in the
fold - the Strathclyde Concertos are OK and you'll never have to turn off
the Fox-trot for Orchestra ever again? I don't even know who Maxwell Davies
is!!!

8) Do you congratulate yourself that you've got beyond Rachmaninov 2 and
into the much grittier 3 and 4? I always thought the Rach 2nd was too
sugary and sweet, but what about his Cello Sonata?

9) And do you take a patronising view of those antedeluvians who haven't
yet weened themselves off Sibelius 5 and discovered instead the stark
'modernism' of Tapiola and the one-movement Symphony in C? Certainly not
a patronising view, but I 'm beyond the Sibelius 5th.

10) And then, of course, there's Schoenberg, Berg and Webern.  Do you
really ever pay attention to anything later than Verklarte Nacht? This is
too convicting; No!  Except for Berg's Violin Concerto which is definitely
an acquitred taste for me.  Does it count if I like Messiaen's Quartet for
the End of Time?

11) Can you really offer corporate clients tickets to Lulu, even if it is
at Glyndebourne? And have you ever really managed to follow a tone-row in
Webern from the beginning right to the end of the piece? Absolutely not!

Frustrated,

Mark