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:
MUSIQUE MODERNE
MALADE OU MERVEILLEUSE?
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