Concerning Taste

There is, as the saying goes, no accounting for good taste. (It stands to reason that there is likewise no accounting for bad taste either, but there really should be some accounting for no taste, for that is just another name for ignorance.) I have noted that certain acquaintances of mine cannot countenance certain composers, even composers that are widely accepted as part of the established canon. A fellow cellist at Augustana could not abide Copland, for example. And my organ teacher at Notre Dame has such an antipathy towards Vaughan Williams that his music irritates him almost to distraction. I happen to like both composers quite a bit. (Just now I was listening to RVW's The Lark Ascending, which I think to be a piece of surpassing loveliness.) I think I understand, however, why they provoke such a reäction in particular individuals: more than anything else, each has a distinctive harmonic language that one either likes (or, at least, tolerates) or doesn't. In both composers' cases there is a — what word ought I to use? — a charm to their works that overcomes their compositional deficiencies. (For, indeed, neither is formally a perfect composer. Vaughan Williams, in particular, has some very clumsily-written works, from a compositional standpoint.) What can be said of those people who fail to notice this charm? Well, that's what we can't account for, I guess.

The question that bothers me — that may keep me awake tonight — is how broadly such differences in taste can legitimately differ. I would venture to say that nearly half of my Lutheran parishioners (though a smaller fraction of my Episcopalians) have no fondness at all for the established canon of organ music, which is of course what I play. Much of this can be fairly attributed to ignorance (that is, no taste); most of it, I hope. I will not pander to the lowest common denominator, in any case. But I do wonder whether there is room for legitimate dislike of such music. Classically-trained musicians, after all, are taught to appreciate a certain body of music; can a person reasonably protest the established classical canon?