Mimi Ezust wrote:

>It is not arrogant to be excellent.  Arrogance is unpleasant behavior,
>but it has *nothing* to do with excellence.  Talent is something that
>must be developed, and excellence in music is the shining beacon for it.

It recalls me the Mozart versus Salieri case, magnificently set in the
Milos Forman's film "Amadeus".  Mozart was arrogant but also a genius.
Salieri was only one of the many good composers living in Viena in the end
of the 18th Century, whose music was much more easy to the mediocre ears
of Joseph I.  At the end of the film, Salieri (F.  Murray Abraham) says:
"Mediocrities everywhere, I absolve you...  I absolve you..."

Wilson Pereira.