Contemporary music is unpleasant

This objection is, undoubtedly, the most frequently encountered in this type of music. A careful survey will show that, unfortunately, this position had always stood toward any type of new music. Let us consider these few examples:

"There are barbarians who, short of any measure of ear, insist on doing music"
(Sarti, alluding to Mozart Quartets).

"Mozart had never intended to create anything unique. This is the remarkable

thing, but not the grandiosity. Stubborness, phantasy and vanity have paved the way for the birth of Don Giovanni, but not the heart. It is beyond any doubt that Mozart was endowed with remarkable gifts that made him skillful,
creative and pleasant".

"But I have not so far come upon anybody who would consider him as a real or a
reasonably efficient artist" (Musicalisches Wochenblatt, on commenting Don Giovanni, after Mozart).

"If the best of the critics and orchestras have been unable to find any
meaning to the Ninth Symphony of Beethoven, we certainly shall be allowed
not to find either".

"True, the Adagio is much beautiful, but the other movements, especially the last, seem a collection of unintelligible queer armonies" -Beethoven was deaf at the time of its composition- (Boston Daily Atlas, about Beethoven).

"Is indefatigable, almost inexhaustible in his dissonances, likely to smash the eardrum. The same in his tight transitions, his awful melodic and
rhythmic distortions".

"He has gathered everything unimaginable to produce a sense of originality"
(Relistab, about Chopin).

You can collect as many criticisms as these, set forth sometimes with
virulence and hostility, directed against those past composers now deemed leading figures in the universe of music. I believe we have today the same
type of shortsightedness in assessing the real merits of some contemporary
composers, who will probably take rank among the great of the future. So, it
would be wise not to reject certain modern music we have not even heard on
the sole basis of some "learned" statements, lest we incur on the same
mistakes the critics of Moz