Deryk Barker wrote on my dislike for the music of Liszt: >In other words you don't like it. Fair enough, but that's not the same >as its being "pretentious pooh-pooh" (whatever that might mean). > >What feelings exactly do you get? I'm curious. You're exactly right Deryk. (May I call you Deryk?) [By both convention and definition, anyone who subscribes to to the list agrees to casual correspondence, and thus the use of their first name. -Dave] "In other words" I don't like it. I just chose to express my actual level of dislike rather than just, "I don't like it." I think calling Liszt the king of pretentious pooh-pooh IS the same as saying I don't like it. If someone said Mozart is crappy I tend to think that means they don't like his music. When I called Liszt the king of pretentious so and so I meant that I consider his music to be the epitome of pretentious music. His music strikes me (just me, not everyone) as being all show and no heart. Maybe I should say that he sells me the sizzle without the steak. I don't feel this way about all composers of virtuoso music. I think Chopin wrote some very difficult piano music but his music seems to aim for a higher goal than the music of Liszt. When I hear Liszt's music I feel like I'm listening to a man who plays piano with incredible skill, a man who knows how to put on one hell of a show, and a man with nothing much to offer musically. This is just an opinion so don't take offense. That's a pretty fair description of how I feel about the music of Franz Liszt. --Wes Crone