OccultHawk

It's very thoughtful and I think the musicians would have a strong tendency to see it from a similar perspective. I think overall I hold it in higher regard than you do but we both agree it's difficult music. It's like wading through Finnegan's Wake. There's a lot of depth there and a lot to be discovered but it takes a lot of time. I think with a lot of 20th C classical stuff, even that which is considerably easier to swallow than this, like say Berio's Sequenza or Elliott Carter's String Quartets the tipping point to 'understanding' this music is getting to where you know what phrases and sections are coming up. I think the same level of depth is probably here, I claim it is although I have to admit these are rough waters to navigate, but instead of 4 or 8 listens, deep appreciation probably doesn't really start to surface until 40 to 80 listens. Of course, I don't know how much time I've invested in Elliott Carter's chamber music but I can tell you it's a lot and it has paid big dividends because I love it so much now.