Jocelyn Wang wrote: >No, I do not advocate uncritical listening under any circumstances. The >beauty of Mozart (or Beethoven, Bach, Schubert, etc.) is that, the more >critically one listens to them, the more brilliantly they come through. Thank you sincerely too for this response, though I should add for those readers who have joined the discussion part-way that I am of course being quite deliberately provocative: but only in the hope of generating deeper discussion, and apologise to those whose toes I tread upon! Indeed I should like to share the story of how when Arnold Schoenberg dared to criticised a work by Wagner in front of Mahler. Mahler replied that he too had gone through periods where he had in his mind, demolished the reputations of various composers. The truly great ones, he added remain intact in their places long after the smoke has settled. Moving on I must ask whether this above view advocated by Jocelyn however ought to be extended to cover not just Mozart, not just Beethoven, Bach, or Schubert but to perhaps include a Salieri, or a Dittersdorf. Then why not include virtually any composer one would care to name, including those who are still contemporaneous - say for example Berio, Stockhausen, Carter, or Boulez. Why only be reverential to those better established or wait till they're six foot under earth before becoming reverential? And really have you never, never even once dared to utter even the slightest criticism of any well established composer, or is perhaps everything such composers write so utterly sacred that one must humbly remain the unconditionally unquestioning servant of every single note - including every repeat mark? That would surely consitute a kind of musical utopia. Must one however really be led to believe that everything written by ever so-called 'great' composer is so absolutely perfect that one is forced to'critically' (the word is being used in a totally different sense here to that which I used it) examine these composer's works until one even forcibly convinces oneself as to the utter perfection of every single note that they EVER wrote? At times I fear that one is expected to believe of Mozart that every musical note that he produced since he was old enough to suck his thumb or coo was such a deeply sacred utterance of the Musical Messiah that to suggest otherwise is considered Unspeakable Blasphemy. Satoshi Akima Sydney, Australia