Ray Bayles wrote: >I think you must include the idea that 67 percent of the composers >music can be listened to repeatedly over the years. I can look forward >to Beethoven, Mahler, Mozart, Bach, Shostakovich, Brahms, Bartok, >Stravinsky, and a number of others without permanently tiring of them. >However, I share the idea of many of the listeners of my radio show: >Please, please, no more Tchaikovsky... It seems the people I know and >that enjoy my programming are permanently tired of his music... great >though it is. I am forced to ask if you have exposed yourself to enough of his pieces: the first three symphonies AND the "Manfred" Symphony; the Piano Trio; "Souvenir de Florence" Sextet (I heard a rip-roaring performance of this piece in Cambridge, Mass last fall); at least one opera other than "Eugene Onegin"...for me its's been "Pique Dame"...I've been reading interesting comments about "The Maid Of Orleans", and "Mazeppa" will be done at the Met next season. Don't sell the Bearded One short. (Oh, BTW, since the thread started with ruminations on the greatest composer ever...undoubtedly Beethoven...how could SCHUBERT's name not be on the heretofore proferred lists?) Laurence Glavin Methuen, MA