Hi Ray. (REH) <<<< I would suggest that you Keith have an incentive to argue that music is dead for your own business. >>>>
Not at all, Ray. No skin off my nose. I'd be delighted if modern 'serious' music had a big future. If so, I would have started an additional publishing business on the net and be raking in the cash. Quite a few desperate contemporary composers write to me already. As you know (in case new FWers don't), I think that most of the medieval arts -- music, art, linguistic philosophy, poetry, sculpture, clog dancing -- came to the end of their essential development sometime between the beginning and the middle of the last century. Mind you, there's hope for me yet and my reactionary old brain. The other day I heard a fantastic song on the radio and I had to make quite a number of phone calls to friends in order to identify what it was. It turned out to be from "Midsummer Night's Dream" by Benjamin Britten -- hitherto one of my b�te noires. I actually bought a CD as a result. (The rest is pretty weird though.) Instead, the background music I'm currently playing as I plod through my daily routine is Handel's oratorio, "Israel in Egypt". Now there's singing for you! Oh for the days of such religious certainties! Oh for those great massed choirs! Oh for the exciting development of music that was going on in those days! Especially Handel -- giddy with excitement after returning from Italy where the music world was exploding with innovations. Keith __________________________________________________________ �Writers used to write because they had something to say; now they write in order to discover if they have something to say.� John D. Barrow _________________________________________________ Keith Hudson, Bath, England; e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] _________________________________________________
