Bill Pirkle replies to me: >I agree with music development, and your remarks, with the caveat that if >music develops to the same extent that art has (modern art) it might cease >to be music at all - no harmonic center, incomprehensible melodies (themes), >obscure form, etc. Well this depends a lot on your personal definition of what is music! Atonal composition fits very well with mine, maybe not with Bills (or with many other music-lovers). As usual, as there is not a kind of law-book we could refer to, its a question of opinion and taste. >My only complaint is that it is somehow obliged to evolve, especially >past the point of becoming music in a traditional sense, and somehow that >writing in traditional styles is forbidden as if the composer is taking a >step backwards. I never claimed that! I am perfectly happy with *modern* compositions in a traditional style! I do not think we need development for the sake of it and all art that draws back to traditional forms is per se dated. Not at all! I greatly enjoy this music and as the example of Paert, Tavener and Bryars shows one can create even something new going back to traditional forms. I just tried to explain why people like Schoenberg started to compose atonal music, because they wanted to try a new approach. If you have some good arguments against this approach, fine, lets discuss. But I do not see a reason to start such generalising hostile attacks. The Adinsell (spelling?) Warsaw concerto was on one of the first LPs I got from my father (it was coupled with the Grieg piano concerto). I must have been 10 years old. Its truely a fine piece! Achim Breiling