Why do so few people like modern classical music and all its serialism, atonality and dense polyrhythms? Our brains are to blame.

So says Philip Ball in his review of David Stubbs' "Fear of Music: Why People Get Rothko But Don't Get Stockhausen." Ball writes in Prospect magazine that philistinism isn't to blame for thinking that the Pierre Boulez or Milton Babbitt is a tad unpleasant. It's how our brains are made.

For the full article: http://blogs.courant.com/bill_weir/2009/10/the-brain-and-modern-classical.html