Richard Tsuyuki wrote: >This whole notion of "my music is better than your music" seems silly >to me. I think there is a stereotype: any post to an internet discussion containing words "classical" and "pop" seems to be mostly considered as one more example of the really silly notion of "classical vs pop: which is better". I put insufficient emphasis on what I wanted to say and, I admit, added an out-of-place personal opinion about certain aspects I value in classical music and miss in pop. Because of this, the stereotype I pointed out in the paragraph above forced many readers to start defending everyone's right to any form of pleasure that I surely wasn't attacking because I agree with it completely. >You have people who like Stravinsky looking down on people who like >Rachmaninoff looking down on people who like Solti In the part of the Dicterow's interview I quoted, this absurd "ladder" is present, although in an opposite way: the renowned classical musician seems to feel uncomfortable that he is so tightly connected with classical music. He is trying to assure the readers of the article that they shouldn't think of him as an old fashioned person, a snob, an "old-stick-in-the-mud" in his words. This is what surprised (and disappointed) me: not the fact that he may be listening to soft rock in his car but his implication that listening ONLY to classical is old fashioned, not fashionable, one-sided, limited, narrow. I disagree with this implication categorically and THAT is what I wanted to say with my post. Listening exceptionally to classical music and completely ignoring pop, soft and hard rock, hip hop is appropriate and nothing to be ashamed of. The way Mr Dicterow put it, nowadays, being a classical musician/listener, you must make certain excuses for it and add that you like (better: love!) pop because otherwise you'll be regarded as a narrow-minded and uninteresting person. Juozas Rimas Jr (not the one playing) http://artists.mp3s.com/artists/141/juozas_rimas.html