Richard Tsuyuki: >I detect in this Strauss/Liszt controversy an element that we have >encountered in previous discussions, for example the "atonal music is >evil" thread. Yes indeed. They come up all too regularly - another list member once memorably described them to me privately as "Nazi Threads". They are tedious games of chop-logic best avoided, like endless baseline rallies in tennis, and for the reasons you so graphically outline. >Just as there is a great difference between saying "I hate atonal >music" (a personal opinion) and "atonal music is bad" (a categorical >assertion), there is a great difference between saying "I dislike >Liszt's music because it sounds full of vanity to me" and "Lizst's >music is bad because it is full of vanity." This problem of trompe l'oeil objectivity is caused by our desire to dignify our little *opinions*, which can spring from a variety of causes which have little interest to anyone outside ourselves, into ringing *judgements* of an even-handed sagacity to which all rational folk will naturally bow. If we manage to throw in a bit of moral opprobrium or superiority for good measure, so much the better. Isn't it really the case that most of our musical opinions are shifting sands, blowing first one way and then another? Today I might really fancy a bracing bit of Liszt, tomorrow I won't have that inflated old bombardon polluting my ears. Certainly, few of us are secure enough in our tastes not to get tetchy when they're assaulted. With most composers who've established any sort of track record, it's really about our own mental furniture and physical circumstances. For a handful of us Bax, for example, will always be one of the most fascinating composers, and just because relatively few share this rather strange taste doesn't mean we need to be defensive, or that his detractors are right to say he's second-rate. It's their bad luck they don't "get" him - just, as Mimi said so perfectly, it's Robert's that he doesn't "get" Liszt. The problem with Nazi Threads is that they seldom if ever encourage people to think about why we don't "get" a particular composer. As we change, so do our tastes and preferences. As for me, I have tried very hard ever since I've been grown up (which happened at the age of 43 or thereabouts) not to slam into individual composers I don't happen to "get", because I know my failure to see and enjoy what others find in them is due to my own blinkers. It's my failure to climb over to their side of the fence, rather than any terminal failure in them, and going for their jugulars makes me less rather than more likely to see the light. And that will be to my impoverishment, not theirs (unless they happen to be eligible for CD royalties in which case we're both losers.) I'm arguing this to try and convince myself, of course. My New Year resolution was to count to 10 before slamming into Sondheim. Well I did get to 11, and now I'm trying manfully to make it to 12. Christopher Webber, Blackheath, London, UK http://www.zarzuela.net "ZARZUELA!" The Spanish Music Site