I think Judith is absolutely right. Every day, everywhere I go, and especially where I work (in a shopping mall, for my sins) I hear cheap music which does nothing and goes nowhere, gratuitious music that nobody asked for and nobody listens to. The other day in the mall I saw two very small girls accompanying their shopping parents, both carrying toy microphones, so they could pretend they were Miley or Hannah or whatever her Disney name is. It nothing to do with music, but with incessant distraction. (I remember a British critic's description of Australian pop star Kylie Minogue as 'a prancing dancing antiseptic swab.') All it is is background noise. And most of the new 'classical' music I hear, from the minimalists to the Tan Duns, similarly goes nowhere. Nowadays if people go to the lakeshore they cannot hear the waves lapping or the fish jumping; if they go to the mountains, they cannot hear the waltz of the wind. I'm afraid most people nowadays cannot even hear music in any meaningful sense. Donald Clarke <[log in to unmask]> *********************************************** The CLASSICAL mailing list is powered by L-Soft's renowned LISTSERV(R) list management software together with L-Soft's HDMail High Deliverability Mailer for reliable, lightning fast mail delivery. For more information, go to: http://www.lsoft.com/LISTSERV-powered.html