Chris Bonds ponders the nature of the democratic process:

>Isn't the voting going to be less meaningful if the reasons for choices are
>mixed? Some argue from popularity and sales as above, others for artistic
>influence, the patina of age and reputation, etc.

I could have made it a totally closed, secret ballot with all entries
coming straight to me rather than some of them via the list.  Then no-one
(except me, to some extent) would have known the basis on which people
voted.  This way, everyone who reads this thread knows more or less how
everyone else is thinking and will be able to interpret the eventual
results accordingly.

I could have been much more prescriptive about the basis of the vote
and pinned it down to just one of these things.  Question is, would
most people have taken any notice? This end-of-year poll thing started
a couple of years ago.  In response to a couple of posts about Brahms
and my own inability to like his symphonies as much as I think I should,
I invited listmembers to take part in a ranking exercise.  I made up a
cunningly-designed list of 10 composers (Brahms included) and asked people
to put them into an immediate, intuitive "favourite" order.  This was
intended as a little piece of research to get evidence for an idea about
Brahms' popularity, or lack of it.  Some people played the game by the
rules, but many others just weren't able to stick to my list of 10 and
introduced their own favourites.

There was a lot of interest and several people asked me to organise a
straightforward "Ten Greatest Composers" poll, which I did.  And various
others, which I refused - one a year is enough.  Last year we did "Ten
Greatest Performers".  And the main thing I've learned from doing these is
that no matter how I frame the rules, some people will always bend them to
get their own obsessions in.  As I would probably do in somebody else's
poll!  This time, I set out to frame the rules in a way that would give the
poll a clear focus but would also create opportunities for plenty of good,
interesting on-list discussion.  My personal opinion is that, so far, they
have been very successful - many people have posted high quality thoughts
about the various "schools" of music in the twentieth century, influences,
categories by period, nationality, aesthetic criteria from outside music,
etc..  In the few days since this started I've received 25 entries, plus
a good many more that say "I'm still thinking about this, I'll send the
entry a bit later".  That's a good result and I think it shows that many
listmembers have found the discussions interesting and have been stimulated
to join in.  And in the end, the discussion is more important than the
vote.  Let's face it, the result of the vote won't change anything, but the
arguments we have on the way may well change the way people think and make
people listen to music they might not have heard otherwise.  Personally,
I've been very surprised by the range of pieces being voted for, and
there's a lot of music there that I haven't heard *of*, let alone heard.
But I will be attending to that as soon as I can.

>Or am I just splitting hairs?

Yes.

There you are, I *can* write short replies!

Ian Crisp
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