[Nicolai P. Zwar]

It’s funny that Thor mentioned his craving for potato chips, for example, because I was just thinking about the food analogy as well: no doubt there are certain predispositions of food that we particularly long or crave, on the other hand, there are a lot of what is usually called acquired tastes, such as Roquefort cheese, which is not something I would have even tried as a kid and now love.

There are, or better there used to be, as no biologist really believes that anymore, the theory, that when human beings are born, they are basically “blank” beings, and then only their nurturing, parents, society, etc. shapes them into who they are, but we know today that’s not really true. Quite the contrary, when human beings are born, they are totally “individual”, babies have very different personalities and predispositions to things totally independent of any outside influences. However, when they grow up, nurturing, parents, family, society, school etc. has a tremendous influence on how their personalities develop. So there is a part of our personality that is “ingrained”, and a part of our personality that is “learned”, but since we are complex biological beings, we cannot just cut clear lines to determine what is what.

For example, while I was always having music around and found music enjoyable, it was when I was 14 that I seriously started to collect records and had a more than passing (obviously) interest in music. It’s also funny Thor mentioned Stockhausen and Webern and Penderecki, as those were composers I had no issues with. Those interested me early on. I found certain types of music appealing early on, including Beethoven, Stravinsky, Schönberg, Bartók, etc, while I needed much longer to warm up to Brahms or Bach, both of whom are now among my all time favorite composers. So Brahms and Bach were more of an acquired taste for me than Schönberg or Stravinsky or Bartók… I’m sure there are those for whom it is the other way around.

One thing I considered a musical insult to my taste was just about anything with the label “easy listening”. I despised the kind of albums Henry Mancini produced out of his film scores, that was just bland, boring, meaningless drivel to me. It wasn’t until I had some exchanges with the late Guy McKone that I reconsidered and at least partially revised my abhorrence. It took me a long time to really get into Ralph Vaughan-Williams… I bought my first album of his music in 1999, and it took me until 2014 to really branch out… but then I was hooked. Now I have several symphony cycles of his work and other stuff, he’s a fascinating and great composer, but back when I was a teenager or in my 20s, I wondered why anyone would listen to this old-fashioned British guy when there was so much exciting “new” music by the likes of Stockhausen, Boulez, Ligeti, etc… that sparked my interest more.