Well, I have a couple.  First off, Louis Spohr (or Ludwig, auf Deutsch).

This genius actually compared Beethoven to Cow Manure.  He thought of
himself as the greatest composer of the early 18th century.  Speaking
as a clarinet player, I can say that his four concertos are specious and
superficial.  All four put together have less good music in them than one
movement of the Beethoven Opus 11 Trio for Clarinet, Cello, and Piano.
The rest of his work (that which I have heard) is equally dull and
uninteresting.

Secondly, Minimalist Composers, with the exception of Terry Riley, who
was at least original.  Seriously, how much brain power does it take to
write the same one measure motif 500 times in a row? Riley's "In C" was an
original attempt to do something different.  I've heard it (well, not the
whole thing, which is supposed to play each of the 52 motives for an entire
week, so that the entire performance lasts a year), and it's cute for the
first 5 minutes or so.  After that, it palls very quickly.  After doing
a paper in grad school for a class in 20th century music regarding the
similarities between minimalist music and Top 40 Pop, I concluded that they
were very similar.  That might explain the disdain in which pop music is
held on this Digest (I don't disdain all pop...just the lousy stuff).

Maybe I'm wrong.  Comments?

Charles Dalmas
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