Kevin Sutton wrote:

>let's keep in mind that there are many young aspiring musicians who have
>not heard our warhorses yet for the first time.  Let's not deprive them
>of the opportunity we once had to hear great music live!

Let's keep this in perspective.  First, I never suggested a "ban"
on anything.  It was Karl Miller's nameless teacher, enthusiastically
supported by Julia Werthimer, who raised the idea of a total Beethoven
boycott for an unspecified period.  Second, I wrote "So I propose that
anyone who feels tempted to a concert that includes the Sibelius VC (and
has heard it frequently before) should telephone the box office . . ." Note
the "and has heard it frequently before".  I don't suppose for a moment
that my plan, even if enthusiastically taken up by all 900-odd of us and
all our friends and relations, would result in *no* performances of the
Sibelius VC being available to newcomers.  Third, I was only talking about
one year!  I agree absolutely with Kevin's points about continuous exposure
of the "great classic masterpieces" / warhorses, and also that even very
experienced concertgoers may have surprising gaps in their live experience.
I've got plenty of them despite being a very regular attender for over
thirty years.  That's part of the reason why I could do with rather fewer
performances of several very over-played pieces.  I don't want to hear yet
another SVC when I could be hearing something I've never heard live before.
Further - and this is something that concerns me more now that I have to
pay London prices rather than Scottish ones - I don't want to have to pay
well over the cost of a top-price CD (and often a double one!) to go to a
concert where I've already heard one of the pieces three or four times this
year.

Ian Crisp
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