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As debate continues in several languages over who will still be heard 50 years from now, several readers have asked how accurate our forecasting can be.

Well, let's go back to 1959 and ask which living composers, in the view of listeners at that time, would be likely to endure.

Shostakovich, for sure - he was the flagship musician of the Soviet Union, and everyone thought the USSR was forever.

Stravinsky had just produced Threni.

Britten was receiving more opera stagings than any of his contemporaries.

Bernstein and Copland were universally renowned, if only for West Side Story and Appalachian Spring.

Samuel Barber had just opened the new Met with Vanessa; Rodgers and Hammerstein were reaching apotheosis with the Sound of Music.

None of these selections would have appeared contentious or doubtful. Hindemith, still alive, would have seemed a dead cert. Kodaly, likewise.

The last one might have been a modernist - Berio, Boulez or Stockhausen - but who could have forseen the importance of Cage and Feldman, the emergence of Ligeti and Sondheim, the birth of the Beatles?

If anyone had put it to the test, Khachaturian and Menotti might have made it into the top ten.

Please don't attempt to cast a retro vote, but I'd be interested to hear your thoughts. 

Simon Mawer's reflective novel The Glass Room, shortlisted for the Man Booker prize and one of my reads of the year, digresses midway into a sub-story about a shortlived composer.

Vitezlava Kapralova, born in 1915 in Janacek's town, Brno, was a star pupil of the conductor Vaclav Talich and, in Paris, of the composer Bohuslav Martinu, whose lover she became (Martinu, though married, had two or three long-term liaisons, but that's another story).

In 1937, Kapralova conducted the Czech Philharmonic and, a year later, the BBC Symphony Orchestra in her own Military Sinfonietta. She married Jiri Mucha, the Jugendstil painter's son in April 1940 and, forced to flee Paris after the German invasion, died of tuberculosis in Montpellier two months later, aged 25. 

Her music, edgy and mildly adventurous, fell into disuse. You can hear samples (and see a picture of her) here. The only CD recording appeared last year on Koch.

There is, however, a rare chance to hear her Partita for piano and string orchestra live in Marylebone, London, tomorrow night (Helios Chamber Orchestra), and her string quartet in Gateshead next week (Skampa Quartet). The first is a UK premiere and free Czech beer is promised to those attending. Details here.

Kapralova's is a singular voice, precocious and secure. If you admired Mawer's novel as much as I did you will want to investigate its unofficial soundtrack.

Late extra: Victor Eskenasy has just sent me a picture of the spot where Martinu met Kapralova. I shall try to upload it here.

Of 3,200 people who read or engaged with the debate here, on twitter and on facebook, as well as an uncounted readership on radio and newspaper sites, just over 100 eligible ballots were received. Some ticked one composer for posterity, others voted for the full ten options.

The results of the poll are not in any way scientific or universal. There is a bias towards US and UK composers - understandable since the debate is conducted in English - as well as a slight tendency towards certain composers who have current or recent performances.

Nevertheless, there are conclusions to be drawn and I shall attempt to lay them out for discussion below. First, though, the results of the popular vote.

Last Composer Standing

1 John Adams

2 Arvo Pärt

3 Steve Reich

4 Philip Glass

5 Pierre Boulez

5= George Crumb 

5= Henri Dutilleux

8 Osvaldo Golijov

9 Thomas Ades

10 Henry Mikolai Gorecki

Since the next three are bunched pretty close behind, I shall add them to the bench as first-change substitutes:

11 Einojuhani Rautavaara

11= Stephen Sondheim

13 Harrison Birtwistle

This poll started with a claim of mine that Gavin Bryars would last the test of time. A three-way discussion ensued with experienced colleagues - Tim Page in California and Andrew Patner in Chicago - yielding a short list of five whom we thought we certs for the future. So what have we discovered?

- Minimalism is here to stay. It will still be heard in 2059.

- Few who voted for Glass also chose Reich, and vice-versa. There is a minimalist schism.

- John Adams has as many strong detractors as he has passionate fans. He provokes contention, always a good sign in a composer.

- Meredith Monk and Kaija Saariaho were the highest ranked women composers.

- While Dutilleux has benefitted from prolonged exposure in Boston, similar promotion in LA and London has not worked for Magnus Lindberg. Will New York do the trick?

- Is the music of Boulez appreciated more widely as a result of his popularity as a conductor?

This debate is all about the qualities we perceive in living composers and whether they will pass the test of time. Some correspondents regard the criterion of durability as irrelevant to art, and they may well have a point. But how we in 2009 judge the value of living composers is not an insignificant factor and I shall make a mental note to take another straw poll a year from now to see if our opinions have changed.

In the meantime, discuss, dispute, gnash teeth and celebrate in the comment space below. Thank you all for taking part, and thank you also to many bloggers and tweeters who helped to spread the word.

Congratulations to John Adams, the Last Composer Standing.

In light of technical and security difficulties - think Afghan election - polls for the most durable composer will remain open until 1800 EST (2300 GMT) Monday Nov 16. The response has been far heavier than expected and the spin-off discussions will run and run.

Early returns show Pärt leading by a tiny margin from Reich and Adams, with Glass and Golijov strongly in pursuit.

There is a heavy weighting towards US composers of a minimalist/anti-modernist tendency.

It's not too late to change the result. I've been surprised by the absence of, for instance, Tan Dun, Magnus Lindberg (the New York Phil's resident), Kalevi Aho, Michael Nyman, Michel van der Aa, Wolgang Rihm (just one vote so far) and Penderecki (though two other Poles are, as it were, polling well).

Vote now for the composers most likely to be heard in 2059. Vote here, or tweet @NLebrecht

A fleeting thought while listening to Gavin Bryars has led to a sweeping discussion as to which 10 living composers will still be played in 50 years' time. We've whittled it down to five certs: Birtwistle, Boulez, Rautavaara, Reich and Sondheim.

But the other five places are still open and being hotly contested on twitter and Facebook.

The probables include Adams, Bryars,Glass, Kurtag, Lachenmann, Pärt, Riley, Sallinen,
Sciarrino and John Williams, with a late rush of votes for James MacMillan and Gorecki.

The possibles are Ades, Carter, Crumb, Dalbavie, Dusapin, Dutilleux, Gubaidulina, Kilar, David Lang, Muhly, Saariaho and Turnage. What, no Magnus Lindberg, Meredith Monk or Kalevi Aho?

Voting ends Sunday night. Post your views and votes below, or tweet them to @NLebrecht.

If ever you need to know what's wrong with the Metropolitan Opera and its press puppet, the New York Times, look no further than the opening paragraph of last weekend's puff piece for tonight's production of Janacek's From the House of the Dead. Here goes:

Just as a diva regards her Metropolitan Opera debut as proof that she has arrived, a Met premiere confers on a work a lasting seal of approval. On Thursday, that honor will fall to Leos Janacek's From the House of the Dead...

Read that and weep. Which part of that sentence and a half might not have been written by a publicity agent? And which other city newspaper would so pump up its opera house to state that until a work has been staged there it simply doesn't exist? Why, the late Mr Janacek must be jumping out of his grave with joy at the news that his last work is finally getting the seal of approval after 80 years of neglect.

Never mind that House of the Dead has been staged by every major European house and festival over the past four decades, or that Janacek is a box-office cert in most opera cities, a trailblazer for social realism on the opera stage. He became a fixture in London in the 1950s through the advocacy of Rafael Kubelik and Charles Mackerras, in Paris and Berlin soon after and in Milan during the Abbado years. Operagoers in Europe regard Janacek as staple rep. 

New York, though, takes no risks. It was 1991 before the Met got around to staging Katya Kabanova, the composer's most powerful work after Jenufa, and its public still regards the Czech as as esoteric innovation. Looking at the Met website, there are swathes of vacant seats for the new production.

Despite lagging behind the rest of the world on this and many other creative fronts, the Met and the Times manage to pretend that they are the umbilicus mundi of opera, the seal of approval without which the art form would wither and die. It's a tragic case of self-delusion and one that inflicts sustained damage on the advancement of opera in the United States.

The Met is, beyond contention, one of the world's important opera houses. But while its present chief Peter Gelb deserves credit for dragging it halfway into the 20th century (forget the 21st), its inflated self-image has, with the Times's help, stultified the art and New York's expectations. The Met is a monolith, a near-monopoly with a tame newspaper in tow. The only seal ever bestowed by the Met is that of certified safety.  

Surgery opens next Monday, Nov 9, at 1400 on WNYC Soundcheck, but the website will open for patient registration before the end of this week. Do check the site for details.

A description of the practice can be found here. All musical ailments sensitively treated. If you have any life crises that might be helped by a piece of music, do send us a mail. And please ask friends to take their aches and pains to The Record Doctor.

On Sunday night Nov 8 the Record Doctor, wearing another hat, will be speaking at HIR Riverdale on the elimination of Jewish ritual from modern American literature.

HIR is located at 3700 Henry Hudson Pkwy, Riverdale, NY,10471.

And at 8pm Thursday Nov 5, he'll be speaking in Detroit: http://www.jccdet.org/bookfair/november5.shtml

Busy week ahead.

Amid the hoopla and hullabaloo of Gustavo Dudamel's arrival in Los Angeles, few seem to have noticed that he has quietly renewed as music director in Gothenburg, Swden, for the next three years.

The Swedes can never be faulted for discretion. Over the last four years they have enabled the Venezuelan wonderstick to learn his repertoire out of the world's limelight, working with a band that expects a conductor to push out the envelope every time he steps on the rostrum.

Gothenburg, I have written elsewhere, is top dog among Scandinavian orchestras, a league apart from the Stockholm Phil, where Alan Gilbert toiled for eight dull years. It was led for quarter of a century by Neeme Jarvi and the Dude took over after a nervous interregnum with the Swiss conductor, Mario Venzago.

If Dudamel has hit top spot on i-Tunes with Mahler One this month, that triumph is founded on the grey winter hours he put in among the impassive Swedes. 'I love the musicians of this orchestra and the work we do together,' said Dudamel, on signing the contract, 'you cannot imagine my enthusiasm for continuing to build on what we have achieved.'

Credit for his Gothenburg grounding belongs to Ed Smith, Simon Rattle's former sidekick in Birmingham. Smith is leaving Gothenburg in the New Year but he will continue to advise the orchestra and its whizz-man in his ever-immaculate way.

Sitting in the fug of London's Northern Line in the summer of 2007, Christopher Fox began to compose a vocal piece on the small ads in the freesheet London Lite.

He called it 20 Ways to Improve Your Life and it has just been released on record by the Cambridge a capella group, The Clerks. The work is a telling reflection of the trash that gets thrust in our faces every time we board public transport - Give your sperm a life, don't run low, launch your career - and it may well endure as a relic of our disposable age.

London Lite was scrapped this month by its publishers, mourned by none.

You can find Fox's CD on Signum Classics here. Enjoy.

Attempts by Liz Forgan, chair of Arts Council England, to defend her veto of the Mayor of London's candidate are sounding more plaintive than her usual robust self. In a letter printed yesterday in the Guardian, whose ownership Trust she chairs, Dame Liz bleated that she was trying protect the ACE from political interference and to promote the cause of candidates who are more qualified than the Mayor's.

Hmmm... let's examine those two points. The ACE is yoked by the present government to a Department of Culture that controls all major decisons. The appointment of Liz as chair was a token of her Labour credentials. There is nothing non-political about the ACE any more.

And who are the other candidates she prefers? Tim Marlow is an art curator and presenter with no experience of the performing arts where the ACE spends its buggest bucks. Patrick McKenna is founder of Ingenious, an arts and media investment company whose involvement in the public-funded ACE would raise serious questions of conflict.

And then there is Nicholas Snowman, a former Arts Council official who ran London's South Bank Centre for 12 years, turning into the biggest guzzler of public funds with the least to show for its spend. Nicholas and I go back a long way and I would be the last to deny his many merits as an arts administrator. London, however, is his weakest link and the Arts Council his Achilles Heel. He would have made an appalling appointment, exposing both himself and the ACE to accusations of being an insider's club.

None of these considrations crossed the mind of Dame Liz when, in a burst of political bile, she vetoed Veronica Wadley as the ACE's member for London. Veronica, my erstwhile editor and close associate, has no history in the arts. What she offers is a blazing commitment, demonstrated by doubling the arts coverage in her newspaper and campaigning for every arts cause. More than any other editor in my time, she made the arts central to editorial policy.

She would have brought - and will eventually bring - great initiative and fresh ideas to her public role. It's a pity Dame Liz could not see that. It cheapens her greatly and fatally weakens the ACE.