An artist should have the freedom to choose his or her palette. To criticise a modern piece of music for using tonality would be like criticising a painting for not being abstract, or for having too much of a certain color. I'm more interested in what the artist was trying to say, and how well he or she said it. Along the same lines, I don't like it when a composer tries to carve out a nitch by settling on a certain style. Sometimes I think Shostakovich and Messiaen did that, although I like their music. Ives used conventional tonality in the 3rd movement of his 4th symphony. He explained, "no need to throw tonality out the window" (if I remember correctly). Mike