ABSTRACT
On an upper shelf in my basement I keep a row of worthless books published in the late nineteenth century with titles like Great Musical Composers, Studies of Great Composers, Imaginary Conversations with Great Composers, and more in the same strain. These generally start with Palestrina and move directly from there to Bach and Handel. Even when Wagner is last in the line, the assumption is that Great Composers are here to stay and that we would see yet Greater ones in the future. When Stravinsky died in 1971 I remember the thought being expressed by musicians young and old that he was the last of the Great Composers, and that we would not look upon his like again. My enthusiasm for contemporary music being then more pronounced than it is now, I cherished the opinion that at least three men might still be candidates for an exalted and historic role, the three being Britten, Shostakovich and Messiaen. All sorts of reasons were put forward why none of them measured up to Stravinsky’s high standing, but when, within a few years, Britten and Shostakovich both disappeared (as the French so tactfully put it), Messiaen seemed to me and many others to be without a rival as the keeper of the seal of Greatness.
