Edgar Beach writes:

>Reading a good book requires attention and commitment also.  Yet Reading
>still remains a popular human endeavor because there are still good books
>being written and read today.  Some may even attain classic status.

Really? Which ones? Clancey? King? Krantz? Barry? Rice? These are, after
all, popular authors.  I even admire two of them.  Have you read Jared
Carter or Martha McFerrin? I doubt either of them sell 2,000 copies
nationwide.  It seems to me that serious art is in trouble, no matter
what art it is.

>IMO, there is very little good music being written today or in the past 20
>years and the "old" stuff loses it's attraction to the younger generation.
>I know many of you like what is being written today...but you are not the
>average listener.  As an old boy, I hang onto my brethren....they are
>comfortable and familiar.

You're certainly entitled to your likes and dislikes.  However, this
only prompts the question "What have you heard?" Have you heard the Adams
Violin Concerto, the Rouse Trombone Concerto, songs by Jake Heggie, Joan
Tower's Piano Quartet, Rosner's string quartets? I've been known to like
music written in the past 20 years, but I certainly don't like all of it,
just as I don't like everything by Brahms I've ever heard.  It takes an
effort to find what you like.  If you're not willing to make the effort
or to take a chance, then you're quite right to stay with the pieces you
already like (though how you found them without taking a chance is another
question).  As to whether anything written in the last 20 years will last
1) I won't be around in 100 years, so that question makes little difference
to me now, and 2) it's a real question whether classical music itself --
always excepting crossover and McClassical Music -- will be around in 100
years.

Steve Schwartz