The Fredösphere

I usually skip Kyle Gann's tangential political opinions, so I couldn't help noticing his latest post, which is a sensible, humble request not to judge composers by their political views, their private lives, or their personalities:

Judge me by my music - but the idea that my music might someday be judged by my amateur political thought is repellent. Might as well judge Nixon’s performance as president based on his piano playing.

Wagner's antisemitism or David Diamond's rudeness do not justify the rejection of their music.

But I have committed the complimentary sin, and I'm not sorry:  I started listening to Olivier Messiaen's music long before I liked it, simply because I found his simple piety immensely attractive.  I learned to like a lot of it -- all but the most forbidding -- even while I continued to reject impatiently a lot of other similarly difficult music.

What shall we make of this confession?  Let's face it:  the rejection of the trite and facile, and the embracing of the sublime, the inspired, and the challenging, happens too rarely among us.  If some of us get a little shove in the right direction by extra-musical prods, that's a good thing, right?

Meanwhile:  you can listen to the new, improved recording of my duet Psalm 46, and you can read the score in pdf.  I'm also wondering if I mentioned my new trio "I waited patiently for the Lord" for TBB -- if not, the score, also in pdf, is available for your perusal.  As always, please email me if you want to perform any of my works.  I will gladly grant you permission, unless you catch me in one of my frequent bad moods -- although my rudeness is no reason not to perform my music, right?  So now I'm confused.