| | | | | | Chapter 3 Why Do Most People Prefer the Good Old Music of the Good Old (Dead) Composers? | | | | | | | | | Strange as this illustration may seem, it is intrinsically relevant to this current chapter, as you'll soon see. | | | | | | | | | One sun-strewn evening in late August, that incandescent peeler of the onion skins of knowledge, Colli, explained (with much mirth, I might add) how he was once asked to address the Chezlee, Ont., Bilingual Cross-Stitch and Columbine Club a delightful gaggle of "fair and forty" damsels who met bimonthly to discuss their slipped-stitch and/or proper fertilizer problems all ` a la fran aise. The one exception to this distaff exclusivity was Mr. G. D. Phineas, whose French was exquisite and his crochet-work non-pareille, so he was invited as a para-member. | | | | | | | | | The Maestro had been invited to give a guest lecture on the subject which "les girls" had drawn up, namely: | | | | | | | | | which Colli roughly translated (in his own notes) as Modern Music: Pain in the Arse or Pantheon of Bliss? | | | | | | | | | Now, while the bulk of his talk was to have been a discussion pro and con re: modern music, he wanted to start off with a dynamic introduction with his favourite theme, that being "Let's look at the past! Let's look first at | | | | |