BARK, BARK

“Dissonance Eventually Becomes Consonance.”

No, this line won’t be found in Orwell’s “Nineteen Eighty-Four,” but in The Times’ music review of a Santa Fe opera by Martin Bernheimer (“ ‘Tempest’ in Sante Fe Premiere,” July 30).

The Times’ curmudgeonly music critic has for years sneered at us benighted boobs who enjoy the “Schmaltz” of Beethoven, Verdi, Puccini, Johann Strauss, Jerome Kern, et al. We are inexcusably ignorant, in the Bernheimer view. WE are even stupid enough to be able to hum their tunes.

This difference of opinion is, of course, like the chicken-and-egg debate. But, it would be interesting to know whether in the year 2485 if people, as we know them today, still exist, will be listening to the “Schmaltz” or will still be able to hear the din of Shostakovich, Henze, Hindemith, Webern, Ives and their ilk.

JOSEPH C. CASWELL

Los Angeles