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I'm forever on the lookout for string quartets that I've never encountered. And, oh golly, I noticed this morning that Brilliant Classics (on November 18) will be releasing a recording by the young (but hugely talented) London based Alauda Quartet of the two string quartets by Roffredo Caetani.

Now that's a quite new one for me, and the CD was promptly ordered. The two quartets were composed turn of the century, and a quick look at the literature suggests they might well be interesting. Anyone acquainted with them?

There is also a Piano Quintet which goes straight on my wish list. I'm aware that Brilliant released a disc a couple of years ago of Caetani's piano music (which includes a sonata), but I don't know the disc. And I don't suppose Caetani is related to the conductor of that name?

Over the previous few days I've had some delightful experiences exploring the new Delos 3CD set of Arthur Foote's piano music. The box proclaims the word 'Complete', and that's what I presume it is - even down to a 1917 'Octave Study in G minor' with a duration of just over a minute.

It seems all this music - largely I believe unrecorded before - has been a personal project of Kirsten Johnson who has been assiduously chasing up many of these pieces. On the evidence of the performances, lucky is the composer who has Kirsten Johnson on their side.

Like, I suspect, most others I've often encountered and enjoyed some of Foote's orchestral music - and I'd very much commend three Marco Polo discs of chamber music. But I don't think I've heard a note of the piano music.

It includes two fairly extended Suites, Opp. 15 and 30, each of around 15 minutes duration and which are almost 'sonata like' (though without the tight formal structure of a sonata). And then groups or collections of pieces most of which could stand on their own. For example, the 'Five Poems after Omar Khayyam', Op. 41 - think a kind of lyrical poems without words.

And why do I keep somehow hearing echoes of Brahms in many of these pieces? And even sometimes Chopin (try the Capriccio ending the Suite No. 1) The music is that good. Perhaps friends in America can tell us whether Foote gets played in concert? Certainly I've never come across the piano pieces in any recital in the UK.

Thus I consider the boxed set an especially rewarding and significant event. (What also causes some delight is that its cost is also sub-Naxos. I got mine from Amazon UK - around £9 for a 3 CD set is pretty good going.)

By coincidence I read a review of the set on Classics Today first thing this morning - almost fell off my chair in astonishment at my agreement with every single word and sentence of the review. Then I noted its author is not the infamous Mr DH but one of his colleagues. I've become habitually inclined to explode whenever I look at that site - and quite a shock not to be on this occasion!

Oh, the pleasures of dipping into the unsung! Maybe he is someone whom everyone else has encountered save myself. But searching the site for the name turns up nothing, so (fingers crossed) maybe I bring a benefit to others in referring to him.

Adophe Blanc, a French composer 1828-1885. He studied in Paris, but while others gamboled about the opera house he pursued the path of chamber music. I discovered him via an impulse purchase of an ATMA disc (ACD2 2224) containing the Septet for Clarinet, French Horn, Bassoon, Violin, Viola, Cello & Double Bass Op. 40; the Trio for Clarinet, Cello & Piano Op. 23; and the Quintet for Piano, Flute, Clarinet, French Horn & Bassoon Op. 37.

Music that is not sufficient to alter the daily course of the planets, but nonetheless decidedly felicitous. I enjoyed the elegance and polish of these three works. Listening to them produced a satisfied smile upon the face following the well crafted and fastidious working out of melody. Strange to think the working life of this composer, firmly wedded to traditional forms and musical language, overlapped that of Berlioz who was busy making mayhem in the musical world.

Hopefully no-one will tell me to pull up my socks and listen to proper music!

Another little bundle of riches in the post this morning. First into the CD player is the new Sterling disc (CDA1681-2) of Kaminski's early Quartet for Clarinet, Viola, Cello & Piano (1912), and the perhaps better known Quintet for Clarinet, Horn, Violin, Viola & Cello of 1924. To fill up the disc we also have the Drei geistliche Lieder (texts in German supplied) for Soprano, Clarinet and Violin.

Stephan Siegenthaler and Kolja Lessing (plus colleagues) are the principal performers in the Quartet and Quintet, and Siegenthaler has already given us earlier CDs on Sterling including quintets by Fuchs and Thieriot (a stunner of a disc).

Thus far I've only listened to the Quartet, and am still gathering impressions. But it seems a gorgeous work, and I'm now in a quandary: shall I try it again after a break doing something else, or move on to the Quintet? (Just as well Hamlet didn't possess a CD player). Apologies: the question is of no interest to anyone else.

A robust thumbs up to Sterling for the disc. Incidentally, it has been difficult (at least in the UK) to lay hands on Sterling discs for the last couple of months. But fortunately things seem to be on the roll again. I wonder when the delayed end of the world (so to speak) will be upon us? I'm sure Mark will leap in and answer that question - I've been much looking forward to that unknown Raff work for several months.

Friends on the UC Forum might like to take advantage of some of the least expensive prices I've seen on Draeseke recordings offered by both Amazon UK and Amazon sellers.

The two CDs of the String Quartets are at prices considerably less than I paid for mine a couple of years ago.

I've also just ordered the disc of the Viola Sonatas which I've wanted for some time. The summer seems the time for grabbing bargains.

Might I propose as worthy of consideration Ernest Walker?

I've recently been exploring more Paul Juon (a highly pleasureable enterprise), and on searching for his Viola Sonata of 1901 came across a Delos disc entitled 'Gems Rediscovered'. It contains, besides the Juon work, the Op. 86 Viola Sonata by Fuchs....and a work quite unknown to me: the Viola Sonata in E, Op. 29, of Walker. Composed in 1897 it is a lovely, and (to my mind) a wonderfully lyrical work.

That gave me a Walker bug (as it were). A little more exploration turned up a British Music Society disc of cello sonatas of York Bowen (splendid!), John Foulds (less interesting), and Walker's Cello Sonata in F minor Op. 41 of 1914. Obviously later than the Viola Sonata, and this time a deeply passionate work.

They are both substantial works and not mere flibbertigibbets that are pretty, decorative but fail to deliver the goods. I'm very pleased to have got to know these two works. (One can feel a faint grunt of approval from the spirit of Brahms in the background).

Ernest Walker the composer is one and the same as Walker the academic and writer. He spent most of his life in Oxford becoming Director of Music at Balliol, and enhanced the Sunday chamber music concerts. As an obviously renowned pianist he performed with figures like Joachim, Casals, Busch, Tertis and Tovey (gosh, what company!). He also wrote the History of Music in England. first published in 1907. That's a fascinating work well worth keeping on the bedside table. It provides a viewpoint on music written in a quite different cultural framework. Some judgments in it might strike one now as frankly dotty, but being a little of a cultural relativist I think it worth remembering that judgments made within our contemporary framework are certainly not 'more true' than ones made at very different times. Anyway, enough of crude philosophising...

Some friends on the Forum often make a plea for more recordings of Jadassohn, and I am certainly with them in that. (It is actually quite wretched how so few of his works are available in commercial recordings).

Hence my delight in reading a very recent review on MusicWeb of a Querstand CD of Jadassohn's Piano Quartet in C minor Op. 77 from 1884, along with the 14 year old Mendelssohn's F minor Piano Quartet Op. 2, and Schumann's E flat major Piano Quartet Op. 47 composed in that glorious year of 1842. An immediate order and thankfully a very rapid arrival of the CD.

Not really a hotch-potch since all three Pf Quartets were composed in Leipzig but with 61 years between the Mendelssohn and the Jadassohn. The latter is composed very much in the Mendelssohnian tradition (especially its second movement which sounds almost like a Mendelssohn scherzo), but is certainly not a pale imitation of that early model. Early days yet, and I've played the work but a couple of times, but I'm hooked. Not an absolute masterpiece (as is the Schumann which is, in my view, one of the great chamber works without qualification). Written fully within that tradition, and not making you gasp with wonder at Jadassohn's innovations in working within the piano quartet form for there aren't any. Nonetheless full of wonderful flowing melodies and especially rich harmonies. Glorious stuff, and if that doesn't persuade you into buying the disc then what might tip the balance is a real top notch performance of the Schumann. In short, a full disc and 78 minutes of sheer bliss.

And has this disc, as it were, slipped under the net? I've seen no announcements of it, and were it not for that MusicWeb review it might have passed me by and in years to come I might have ended up in the village graveyard without ever having heard the Jadassohn work. Dreadful thought! But the disc now sits very comfortably on the shelves having slipped in next to that wonderful Toccata disc of the three Piano Trios.

Can't resist a final general thought. We tend to take Piano Trios, Quartets, and Quintets almost for granted for all the way down from early Viennese models such as Haydn's down to wonderful things outside the agreed boundaries of the Forum (hint: Shostakovich and Weinberg) there are so many good ones. But a bit of reflection tells me that it is actually exceedingly difficult to write for strings and piano. The latter instrument is enormously different from violin, viola and cello. A not so good work often sounds like a piano work vaguely accompanied by strings, or a string dominant work with piano providing a supporting bass line. Thus the composition of a well crafted work in which both piano and strings have a perfect marriage and play equal indispensable parts in the musical conversation between all instruments is an achievement of a very high order. Yes? Apologies for these hasty reflections from an absolute untutored amateur.

This is hardly anything to do with unsung romantics, so I'm in severe risk of being slung off. But I simply cannot resist it.

The appearance of a fairly sober review by Jonathan Woolf on MusicWeb this evening of a recent EMI set of the Beethoven sonatas reminded me of an earlier one of the same set by Brian Reinhart. I confess that when I read it I rolled about the place with giggles, and tears actually cascaded down the cheeks. On whether Mr Reinhart's claims are justified or not I will not advance any opinion. However it did strike me as one of the funniest, if not the most downright hilarious, things I have read for ages. It leaves Shaw at his sharpest way behind.

Have friends on the forum looked at it? And with the same reaction? The Reinhart review is easily found by clicking on the link provided early in the Woolf review.

Enjoy! (And may moderators forgive me!)

A late Romantic, but just within the Romantic category I think.

There is a mention in the BBC Music Magazine published today that Dutton are to record (or maybe have recorded) three works by Braunfels. No orchestra or soloists mentioned, but the conductor is Johannes Wildner.

And the works?

The Piano Concerto in A major, Op. 21 (first performed in Berlin in 1911, with Braunfels as soloist and conducted by Siegmund von Hausegger)

Schottische Fantasie for Viola and Orchestra, Op. 47 (1933)

Ariels Gesang (about which I know nothing).

I have an almighty high regard for Braunfels - so this goes straight to the top of a wants list. No mention in the BBC comic as to when the disc might be released. But terrific news (at least for me!). And, golly, aren't Dutton really spreading their wings?

Does anyone - Eric maybe? - know the location of Gernsheim's Cello Sonata No. 3 in E minor? Sonata 2 is Op. 79, and No. 3 seems to have the Op. number of 87.

Presumably an allocation of an Opus implies it was published?

A few years ago the London Mozart Players / Howard Shelley recorded (on Chandos) the two symphonies of Smith, and its release was accompanied by some considerable brouhaha about Smith being the first female English composer of a symphony (that particular issue would seem to me to have some slight historical / sociological interest, but little of musical interest).

These symphonies belong to the world of Macfarren and Sterndale Bennett (both of whom taught Smith), and the A minor Symphony of 1876 (written for, but not submitted, a competition at Alexandra Palace) seems to me rather good.

However my issue relates to the chamber music. According to Wiki there are 4 Piano Quartets and 3 String Quartets, and according to the odd things I've read and my own hunches, I suspect that this music is very much worthy of revival. Scores are alleged to reside in the RAM Library. Any views out there?

One of my especial pleasures in the last couple of months has been to get to know Franz Lachner's six String Quartets. Utterly marvellous music, and I'll stick out the neck and declare them to be some of the greatest quartets of their time. Like all such masterpieces they don't seek to 'express' anything or to be 'about' something: like Haydn's quartets from an earlier age they are exuberant, exhilarating pure musical constructions, and exemplify sheer joy, wit, elegance and absolute beauty from beginning to end.

One serious puzzle I've got (not an unfamiliar puzzle on UC) is quite simply: why on earth aren't these quartets better known? (In my mind they stand higher than Schubert's including the last three, and Schubert is frequently performed in concert and I dare say if you piled up all the CDs of Schubert quartets the pile might be equal in height to the dome of St Paul's). In 40 years or so of quartet concert going in the UK I've never, ever, come across a performance of any of the Lachner quartets. Maybe there is somewhere a quartet apart from in Germany which programmes Lachner in their concerts - but I've never encountered one.

And no complaints whatsoever about the sole recordings of the quartets by the Munich based Rodin Quartet on the small, perhaps off the beaten track and (in the UK at least) hard to find Amati label. Wonderfully polished performances and excellent recordings (and copious detailed notes in the booklet).

Now to the real point of the post! I've just been looking at the website of the Rodin Quartet...and a wide beam spread across my features when I read that "in preparation" are recordings of Lachner's C minor and A minor Piano Quintets Opp. 139 and 145. I'm anticipating these recordings in the same way as the pious anticipate the hereafter: it's going to be pure bliss.

I've no idea as to whether the two quintets have been recorded, and are awaiting release; or whether the website is old and unrevised, and the recordings have been planned for some long time but are in fact no further forward. (Anyone happen to know these things?)

And then again I've never actually heard these two quintets.......but I'm pretty sure already that if recordings are released they will qualify as my most treasured acquisitions of a decade! (How about that for optimism!)

One of my great regrets is that most of us know so little of the 'Young Polish' composers who flourished in the first part of the 20th century. In many cases this is on account of the scarcity of recordings. The number of recordings of, for example, Morawski, Fitelberg, Szeluto (plus the odd download) can almost be counted on one hand. In other cases, and Morawski forms an extreme case, the music is now irretrievably lost. The supreme composer of the period was, of course, Szymanowski, and, fortunately, his music (just about all of it, surely?) is extremely well represented on disc and often in some splendid recordings. The same is true of the small corpus of Karlowicz (and how well I remember being utterly astonished some 30 years ago when I first encountered Karlowicz - and in some rather inferior recordings and when Chandos had not even, so to speak, been conceived).

Yet one reads of a period in musical history that seems to have been astonishingly rich and especially active. My regret is that, independently, of the major figures above, the few available recordings can only give us the briefest and most limited glimpse of the music produced at the time. And of course the cultural devastation of Poland in WW2 obliterated much of this music such that so much of it cannot be grasped back from history. Tragic.

All these thoughts were reignited in me through encountering a newly released disc (on CD Accord) of three symphonic poems of Morawski. I was led to the disc by an almost offhand remark of Rob Barrett on MusicWeb in his review of the excellent Zelenski and Zarebski Hyperion disc. Just who was this Morawski, I wondered, and that led me to the present disc.

It contains the three symphonic poems 'Don Quichotte' (where the music is post-Straussian, but where, unlike Strauss's Don Quixote, Morawski does not attempt to portray the knight's deeds and exploits, but instead tries to "paint the soul" of the Knight of the Sorrowful Figure); 'Ulalume' and 'Nevermore' both inspired by Poe. Like Karlowicz both pieces express sorrow, melancholy, mournful yearning, lost love, eternal return and all the other late-romantic richly opulent apparatus. However where Karlowicz unleashes vast torrents of passionate orchestral sound, Morawski's employment of the orchestra seems to me more disciplined and to exhibit greater skill in orchestration, and thus is perhaps more subtle and powerful for it.

And for those who don't know him: Morawski was born in Warsaw in 1876, and attended Warsaw Conservatory where, like so many others, he was taught by Noskowski. In 1908 he was suspected of revolutionary activity and imprisoned. Having been released (the booklet notes tell us as the result of a substantial bribe which cost Morawski's father much of the family estate) he fled to Paris where he lived until 1930. (And think of what was happening in music in Paris between 1908-1930). Morawski then returned to Warsaw to take up a teaching position - but of course was then caught in a situation where the spectre of Nazism hovered over Poland. When Poland was overrun by the Nazis all educational institutions were forcibly shut down, and Morawski became part of a pedagogical underground. He lived on in Warsaw throughout the uprising, but most of his music was destroyed forever when his home in the centre of the city was razed to the ground. He survives the war, but exists in a twilight, dreadfully impoverished, until a fatal stroke in 1948.

The lost works, according to the booklet, included 5 operas, 2 ballets, 3 oratorios, 3 symphonies, 3 concertos, a number of symphonic poems, 6 string quartets and a quantity of instrumental music. Think of it: that quantity of music gone up in smoke or flattened by the instruments of war. On the basis of the present 3 symphonic poems I would guess that this lost music was of the highest quality, and I won't attempt to persuade anyone of the tragic awfulness of that.

I blather on at length, and maybe most have given up earlier in the post! However this music is for me a very significant discovery, and I try to twist the arm of others into acquiring the CD by saying that it is one of the best produced CDs I've come across recently. The booklet notes, in particular, are substantial, greatly interesting, and quite free of CPO style gobbledygook.

Wagner is plentifully sung, but August Stradal isn't, so hopefully this post is within the bounds of the permissible.

I've just been browsing through the Toccata website and noticed, last in the list of items "In Preparation", what is referred to as 'Volume 1' of some transcriptions of Wagner by Stradal.

Anyone know them, or even attempted to play them? Out of the large number of transcriptions of Wagner for piano, I don't think I've ever come across those by Stradal. I guess they are fiendishly difficult?

The disc will certainly be a compulsory acquisition for me in future months. Since it appears on the Toccata website, and has been allocated a number, I guess the project is reasonably well down the pipeline. Hope so anyway!

I found the Toccata disc of Stradal Liszt transcriptions truly amazing. (But, come on, Toccata - that was also announced as 'Volume 1', and that was two years ago. Fingers crossed we'll be treated to a Volume 2 one day.)

I'm having a welcome attack of the raptures over a fairly recent Chandos disc, that unless a thread has escaped me has not received any comment on the forum - what is announced as "Volume 1 of British Works for Cello and Piano", and performed by Paul and Huw Watkins (lots of possible interest here for a geneticist!).

The works are Parry's earlyish Cello Sonata in A major (1879-80; revised 1883), Delius's Cello Sonata (1916), a little piece, Hamabdil (Hebrew Melody), by Bantock (1919), and John Fould's Cello Sonata Op. 6 (1905; revised 1927). One comment - although a comment purely about my own shelves and not about the world - is that all these works were unknown to me and, as far as I know (but I'm bound to be wrong!) have not received previous recordings. I wonder what might lie in store with an eventual Volume 2?

The Parry, in my view, is an absolute masterpiece without qualification. By chance I just happen to be reading Jeremy Dibble's book, and have reached Ch 7 which, among other things, deals with the first performances of the Cello Sonata, String Quartet in G, the Piano Concerto, and then Prometheus Unbound (gosh, what a project that would be for Chandos if someone could stump up the money!) Dibble narrates Parry's initial lack of satisfaction with the Cello Sonata. After a run-through he wrote "First two movements were satisfactory (but) the last would not go at all, and was as rough as a hedgehog. Consequently I came away feeling miserable."

Parry revised the work for its publication in 1883, but seemed to remain unhappy. For after a performance in 1885 he's grumbling "...it all sprawls about and is too long and indefinite".

Not for me to make comment on Parry's own judgements - but I think he's hugely wrong! I found the whole Sonata ..... well, magnificent. The second movement is one of those things where you scarce draw breath.

Maybe enthusiasm carries me away? But imagine some bizarre scenario presents itself where you're in a leaky boat with the scores of Parry's sonata and the Opp. 38 and 99 Brahms sonatas, and one score must be used to plug the hole and enable you to reach dry land. Perhaps, for me, the two Brahms' sonatas would survive - but only just, and it would be a close thing. I consider the Parry that good, and it is astonishing that the two Brahms are regularly played and have countless recordings, whereas (I believe) this is the first recording of the Parry. (It is also interesting that the Parry sonata, whilst in the same league as Brahms, is utterly unlike Brahms in terms of either structure or musical language).

Am I out on a limb here, or do others know the work and respond to it in the same way?

I have fewer raptures with the Delius sonata. Delius is not quite my thing. Lyrical, yes. But I begin to twitch when Delius's endless melodic raptures become, yes, quite unending. In this sonata it is the cello that seems to do all the work, with the piano merely accompanying, and there's little sense of dialogue between the two instruments. After all the best chamber music is a conversation between players - but here the piano merely nods in approval at the cello.

A nice little piece by Bantock, and again I haven't previously encountered it. It derives from an entr'acte that he wrote for Arnold Bennett's play 'Judith' in 1919 (and there was I who would never guess that Bantock and Bennett once collaborated).

And after all that, I still haven't tackled the Foulds sonata.

And to end a (characteristically far too long - apologies!) post with one claim that I'm still mulling over. The excellent notes by Calum MacDonald with the Chandos release contain the claim: "The start of the era of the 'British Musical Renaissance' is conventionally held to have begun with the premiere at the Gloucester Festival in 1880 of (Parry's) dramatic cantata 'Scenes from Prometheus Unbound'". 'Conventionally'? Who says? Plausible? I don't dispute the claim, but am rather 'agnostic' about it. Should this judgment, delivered in a somewhat matter of fact way, be accepted?

Wetz occasionally pops up in these pages. I've recently revisited the three symphonies - what mightily fine and impressive works! (I'm less impressed by the Violin Concerto, which rather seems to lose itself).

However, to the question: Wetz, I believe, composed two string quartets. On the basis of the compositional skills displayed in the symphonies I'd think the quartets must surely be works deserving of serious attention? They haven't - to my knowledge - ever been recorded. Has anyone heard them or got a view of them?

I note that Grand Piano will be releasing (in the UK) Volume 3 of Raff's piano works performed by Tra Nguyen on 29 October, and subject to postie doing her job, I shall be rejoicing on that day. One member of the Forum will no more need to be told of the release date than he needs to be reminded that night follows day, but for others of us it forms a red letter day in the diary.

It seems to me that Grand Piano has established itself very quickly as an especially welcome and valued label. Whether it is Raff or Weinberg I especially like the idea of a series devoted to a composer (and usually where other labels haven't ventured) performed by the same pianist. Not only interesting repertory, but top drawer performances and recordings - and in the case of Raff (someone blushes) accompanied with detailed and illuminating notes in the booklet.

My only regret about the Raff series is that I gather Vol 3 will be the last in the series? That's a great pity, since there must be enough Raff piano music to fill up 20 or so CDs!

News of the imminent release by Querstand of Hiller's 'The Destruction of Jerusalem' sparks off a cluster of questions:

First, a quick perusal of works and documents on 19th century musical history demonstrates clearly that Hiller was viewed as a major figure in his own time. Why the current neglect? Schumann is quoted in Grove as saying that "despite mastery of formal techniques...[his music]...lacked that triumphant power which we are unable to resist". Is that a fair judgment?

Second (and I suppose it is the same question), there is an extensive body of compositions in most genres, and nearly all of it unrecorded, and (at least in the UK) unperformed in concerts. Why? I gather that the (6?) operas did not fare well. But then there are a significant number of quartets and trios. At the present time (lucky us!) there are new young String Quartets emerging all over the place (and I'm generally dazzled by their high level of competence), and many are casting round for distinctive material on which to stamp their own mark and hence establish themselves. So why the neglect of the Hiller quartets?

Third, what of the 1840 oratorio Die Zerstorung Jerusalems itself? Does anyone know it? Any good?

The only music of Hiller's with which I'm familiar are the piano concertos (the Howard Shelley disc on Hyperion), and some piano works (Alexandra Oehler on CPO). Judged by those two discs I certainly want to hear more Hiller. So why just two discs of a composer once reckoned to have a central place in 19th century German music? (OK, yes I know bits of Hiller are available on other discs. But these two are the only easily available 'mainstream' recordings).

Apologies for yet another question - but I'm just trying to get myself a little wiser, and what could be wrong with that!

Last week whilst undertaking my favourite occupation, namely grubbing around in S/H CD shops, I came across an interesting looking German CD on the Dreyer Gaido label of Emilie Mayer's Symphony 5 in F minor. Worth a go, I thought.

As far as I recall I haven't come across this name before. Some casual snooping around reveals 8 symphonies, 8 string quartets, 3 string quintets, 2 piano quintets, 8 piano trios, songs, and other chamber and orchestral music. An impressive list, methinks, and all that chamber music certainly whets my appetite.

And for those who like these things, this month is actually the 200th anniversary of her birth. She died in 1883, and the more numerate among us should have little difficulty in working out her date of birth.

It seems she was highly regarded in her day. But now, for good or ill, is certainly highly forgotten.

Do we have here yet another 19th German composer of significant note?

Simple enough question(s): what should one make of Kurt Schwertsik? Which of his works might have an enduring value? Is he a phoney maverick? An ultimately uninteresting musical parasite upon the tradition, or what?

I feel a little awkward in asking such questions here because, after all, the forum centres upon unsung, or neglected, romantic composers (and I, for one, am glad of the restriction for otherwise I'd have to wade my way through all sorts of posts on subjects that lie outside my own particular preferences and prejudices).

However Alan did set a precedent when, a few weeks ago, he asked what others thought of Hovhaness. That set up quite a flurry, and among the general mud-slinging (mine included!) there were some especially interesting points made, and I came away a little wiser (yet with little inclination to give Hovhaness another try).

So: Schwertsik?