When I was just an undergraduate music student, I learned to play Hindemith's second piano sonata. Paul Hindemith, a composer from the early part of the twentieth century, can hardly be described as "avant-garde." Still, there came an afternoon during one summer, while I was practicing the piece at home, when my father walked into the living room, settled himself in his armchair, and said, "Now, this time, play something pretty."

The harmonies in the Hindemith sonata, though fairly tame compared to some of the modern music out there, weren't those of Beethoven. They weren't the rich, lovely sonorities of the Romantic period or the easy, soothing notes of the Classical period. These harsh dissonances hurt my father's ears and set his teeth on edge. To be truthful, the sonata wasn't doing much for me, either, and I was more than happy to set it aside in favor of a sweet little Bach invention.

Why on earth do modern composers insist on breaking sharply with all things of the past at the cost of beauty? The evolution of music seems to have taken a wrong turn somewhere along the line; we've jumped from music as a medium of communication to music as a form of attack. I don't simply refer to an attack on our sensibilities, though there's plenty of that to go around. The attack to which I refer is a more subtle one, yet more far-reaching. We've entered a sort of "Emperor's New Clothes" era of music-making; we are being served newer and more absurd performances every day, and nobody can voice his quite legitimate criticisms for fear of being called ignorant or uncultured.

Much of the "music" being written today is simply ludicrous. Attend any number of "New Music" festivals being held around the world, and you will be astounded at the sheer levels of deliberate ugliness masquerading as "art." Hundreds of black-turtlenecked college students and their professors mill around, nodding with feigned wisdom and superiority as work after work of jarring noise is perpetrated upon an audience who can't, or won't, protest. Should a truly beautiful piece of real music happen to sneak onto the program, it receives only sneers and a smattering of condescending applause from those who consider themselves above such "old-fashioned naivete." The composer of such a work has "sold out," you know; it's not art if the common man can understand it.

Well, you know what? I've been to music school, and I have studied music of the twentieth century. As much as they want to portray it as deep and thoughtful, it's a load of hooey. I was at one conference where a fist-fight almost broke out between an audience member and a visiting composer who insisted, at the top of his lungs, that a listener could hear and understand the nuances and techniques of twelve-tone music upon the first listening. (Another audience member loudly and indignantly whispered that the first audience member must have wandered in off the street.)

The truth is that while there are plenty of composers who eagerly believe the humbug they're shoveling, there are just as many who know it's a crock, yet continue to shovel anyway. Don't make waves, and you'll get the performances. There was a guy in grad school with me who insisted on writing the nice, conservative music that appealed to his ear, and he was laughed out of master classes until he was willing to compromise. I wish he hadn't. He should have stuck to his guns and not let the professors "ugly up" his scores in the name of intellectualism.

The fact of the matter is that we write for an audience, and if we insist on ignoring that audience to write for other musicians, then we risk driving away the means of putting bread on our tables. The listening world doesn't want this "new music." In a hundred years, composers haven't been able to convince the world to enjoy it; pieces written in the first decades of the twentieth century are still widely regarded as "contemporary" - too contemporary for most concert-goers.

Give it up, guys. The audience wants Beethoven. Who are we to argue?