Dave Harmon writes: >It slways seemed like a sell-out to be peddling Gershwin as 'immediately >gratifying' while equally attractive and tuneful composers like Goetz >or Schwarenka lie in obscurity... My only question here is: who or what are Goetz and Schwarenka? Bernard Chasan reminisces about music education in the NYC public schools of 60 years ago: >However we were required to recognize little pieces - by MacDowell, >Ethelbert Nevin, excerpts from Schubert and Beethoven- all with little >texts. (" This is the symphony which Schubert wrote but never finished"). Reading Bernard's words, I experienced an awful shudder, and those very words sang themselves in my brain to the tune of the 2nd theme of the Schubert 8th first movement. It was burned into my brain by a vinegary old witch in a schoolroom about, well yes, almost 60 years ago. I have no doubt that this experience delayed my appreciation of classical music by a good four years. When I DID discover classical music, a few years later, it was through some passionate music (Beethoven's Appasionata Sonata, Sibelius' 1st symphony) that I heard in live performance, and through recordings of Stokowski's Bach transcriptions. After that, I just dived into classical music of all periods, and have never come up for air. Oh yes, after about 50 years I found that I was, at last, able to listen to the first movement of Schubert's 8th. I've even become mildly fond of it, in my dotage. Jon Gallant and Dr. Phage