Norman Schwartz (no relation) writes:

>I feel a composer is "Great" if he/she gets their message across
>(appeals) to the largest numbers and variety of listeners.  By variety I
>mean to include the so-called "man in the street" as well as professional
>performing musicians, musicologists, composers and those holding graduate
>degrees in music.

By those standards, no classical music composer is great.  The man in the
street would rather suck exhaust fumes from the tailpipe of a bus (only
slightly overstating here) than listen to classical music.

Steve Schwartz