Dave Taylor has it right, I think. Sony, once the personification of innovation, quality, and vision, now has none of them. That <I>is</I> the beginning of a lingering death.

Fiona Maddocks writes a fine rebuttal to Norman LeBrecht's <A HREF="http://www.scena.org/columns/lebrecht/070124-NL-tchaikovsky.html">grous… dismissal</A> of the BBC's Tchaikovsky Experience.

That's Spengler's argument in this <I>Asia Times</I> essay, at any rate. Within that discussion, however, Spengler muses about why modern art is so much more popular with the public than "modern" music&mdash;and <I>that's</I> the <I>hmmm</I> part of his essay&mdash;that music, unlike the plastic arts, can only be experienced within time.

Joseph Epstein muses on entering "early old age."

"An audience member unhappy with the sound in their part of the auditorium can change seats, but we [concert pianists] cannot," Byron Janis says. "Therefore the position of the piano on stage is of utmost importance&mdash;moving it only a foot in either direction can make an enormous difference in the sound and therefore in the performance."

Not necessarily the firstest with the mostest.