Janos Gereben wrote: >Giacinto Scelsi and his five surviving orchestral works: in the city of >St. Francis, we have two down and three to go. Oy. Mr Gereben favors us with quasi-journalistic fare of allegedly authoritative nature from time to time, in the course of which an assortment of questionable observations and somewhat hazy conclusions has given me some serious doubts about his competence. The installment which began as above blows his credibility completely as far as I am concerned; In addition to standard repertoire, I conduct and work with an enormous amount of "contemporary" music, running from early 20th century standards to premieres with the ink still wet on the parts, or the scores still toasty from the laser printer. I'd be a liar and hypocrite to say I like it all but I find it difficult to understand the logomanic impulse to favor the list with such a diatribe against a score or a composer I didn't like, repelete with witty sociohistoric allusions. We should be grateful that the author actually took the time to attend a second performance of any Scelsi; in doing that he reveals a higher degree of professionalism and plausibility than anything else in this silly effort suggests. Joel Lazar Bethesda MD