While Alan's judgment is most prudent and truly one to be recommended, Hartman's article presents a few points one might quibble with. Just for starters, while repeated emphasis is given to Rufinatscha's musical relationship to Schubert, during Rufinatscha's formative years Schubert was, reputation-wise, a rather minor composer. Sechter, on the other hand, was a well-known and exceptionally prolific composer (his 8000 works put Czerny to shame), and among Rufinatscha's Viennese contemporaries, Lachner, in fact, was the young composer to watch. Schubert 's single late session with Sechter says much more about Sechter's own considerable reputation than it does about Sechter's perceived pedagogical influence on Schubert. In short, a worthy unsung composer may well develop his craft through imitatio of other today-unsung composers. In the long haul, if not the end, it comes down not to craft or prestigious patrimony but to whether a composer has something authentic to share.