"Stephen E. Bacher" expresses skepticism about the emotional profundity of most of Mendelssohn's music: >... It's not a superficiality so much as a lack of emotional complexity, >something I believe to be an essential characteristic of the finest >composers.... I think I know the feeling, and it applies not only to music, but to other arts, as well. It has to do with a certain expectation of refinement. Now, Mendelssohn's just fine by me (except perhaps for the Octet) but the other evening I experienced some music that most decidedly did not meet _my_ expectation of refinement. It was a presentation of eight short organ works by Messiaen offered at the state Musik Hochschule here. A professor introduced the (paying) audience to Messiaen and his musical agenda, suggestive of the kind of refinement he was striving for. After more than a half-hour of this, replete with demonstrative intersperses on the organ, we got to hear the eight pieces. Now, I've been listening to Messiaen for over forty years and can abide some of his larger oeuvres--mainly for the catchy handling of chords, retardings, and colorings --but the organ stuff worked on me like refined cryogenics. Give me the expressiveness of Mendelssohn, or of a Schubert Lied, any evening of any day. Denis Fodor