An observation about "Modern" classical music.

All this silence signifies to me is a possible choice made by the recording engineer. Frankly I can't even think of a good reason for including audience applause on recordings. I'm certainly not impressed by the applause and bravos at live performances except in noting how indiscriminate it is.

I'm not sure what you are referring to as 'modern classical'. I could probably share with you your lack of appreciation for a lot of stuff composed between the 30's and the 80's which is atonal and achedemic, but if your appreciation actually does stop with 'Mozart and his ilk' because of a lack of thorough exploration of music composed between Mozarts times and, lets say Stravinski's, your missing some of classical music's greatest offerings. There are also some neo-romantics who composed after the 30's who recieved no recognition until recent years whose music is very assessible and tonal.

But, since you're an admitted old fart you probably already know that...I'm just offering this to others who might assume too much from your implied judgment of modern classical music. :-)

Ejlif, I not only agree with you I would suggest that it may be his best composition. :-)

Eldartford, I'm very sympathetic to your feelings about 'modern' music, which you may have gathered from my previous post. They was a lot of crap purveyed in the last 50 years that shouldn't have seen the light of day, and perhaps a better screening process should have been effected by the conductors. I would even suggest that the prolifferation of that stuff did more to empty concert calls than to fill them. HOWEVER, we do risk never hearing music that is new and worthwhile, as for example, The Rites of Spring, absolutely hated at its premier more because it was new, not understood, not traditional, not melodic, ad infinitum, but has now taken its place as one of our century's important works. Who is to judge?