Jeff Dunn wrote:

>Now let's put the shoe on the other foot of the "good-old-days" music
>lovers, and ask them for 10 19th-century compositions since Tristan (1859)
>that are as significant, well constructed and original as said same.

Debussy Nocturnes & String Quartet
Satie Three Gymnopedies
Verdi Otello & Falstaff
Puccini La Boheme
Faure Requiem
Elgar Enigma Variations
Grieg Peer Gynt
Mussorgsky Boris Godunov
Mahler Symphonies 1 to 4 inclusive
Richard Strauss Death and Transfiguration, Thus Spake Zarathustra,
Till Eulenspiegel's Merry Pranks, Don Quixote, Don Juan, A Hero's Life...

are worthy candidates for my personal list.  Are there any nitty
gritty musical, acoustical, aesthetic, scientific, mathematical, chemical,
biological, botanical, moral or ethical reasons to remove any of the above
from the list (apart from being in excess of 10 in number)?

Geoffrey Gaskell