Jeff Dunn wrote:

>4. The work must have changed the recommender's life in some way so that
>it could be enthusiastically recommended to others more from the personal
>rather than the theoretical or historical standpoint.

Rochberg - Slow Fires of Autumn (1978-1979)

As I am both historically and theoretically oriented, this requirement
(rule 4) is difficult for me, but this work, along with my runner-up
choice, Adams' Shaker Loops (1978), liberated me from the notion that I
had to learn to appreciate a lot of highly complex music that I failed
to like because I found it opaque.  It also represents for me the kind
of multiculturalism--its aesthetic is Japanese--that I can accept without
a sense that that is something demanded of me.

Jim Tobin