Writes Keith Gerling:

>The contributors here possess a wealth of information, regarding
>performers AND obscure (as well as popular) works.  But I continue to be
>perplexed by the lack of interest in contemporary music.  Are there any
>Morton Feldman fans here? How about Alan Lucier?

I have tried Feldman and I have problems with the repetitiveness and
the snail like pace.  So I am not a fan.  Lucier I do not know.  But I
DO know Schnittke, Gubadalina, Rzewski, Norgard, Lindberg, Maw, Tsontakis,
Rautawara, Lutloslawski, Rouse, Adams, Glass, Boulez, Messiaen, Dutellieux,
Carter, just to name a few.  (I will admit I don't know how to SPELL them
all!) Most are still alive, some recently departed.  I think that I am more
or less typical of the people on this list.  Some are not attracted to what
they characterize as "experimental" music, but there is enough diversity
in contemporary music to satisfy anybody, or so I believe.  I suspect that
my list is by some criteria rather conservative.  A recent article in the
Sunday NY Times by Paul Griffith named Kurtag and Heinz Holliger as the
best of the nineties.  I don't know Holliger as a composer at all, and what
I have heard of Kurtag does not appeal to me.  These composers will manage
to survive my lack of enthusiasm which is a changeable thing in any case.
I have more than once played a contemporary cd which I regretted buying
after the first playing and which on second hearing, sometimes long
delayed, sounded great.

Professor Bernard Chasan
Physics Department, Boston University