Well, one obvious starting point would be to focus on their deep immersion in the world of folk song. Kodály and Bartók toured the country together, mapping out and documenting, and later incorporating it into their music in very different ways, with this fascinating blend of the source music, their take on it, and then something completely different. Enescu also incorporated folk music inspiration into his compositions, but again the way he does it is not quite like Bartók and Kodály. I for one find that fascinating.

But apart from what they share, it is also interesting to hear what more-or-less contemporaries have to say, how they respond to their own time and what has come before. And that goes equally for juxtaposing the world of the Viennese waltz/polka and what was to come shortly thereafter. I think Schoenberg et al.’s relationship to the “old” Vienna is more complex than categorising them into respectively kitsch and “real” art.

I won’t bombard you with quotations, just this one from Berg on his (and Schoenberg and Weberns) arrangement of Strauss-waltzes: “In this manner it is possible to hear and judge modern orchestral scores stripped of all sound effects that an orchestra produces and all of its sensory aids. Thereby invalidating the common criticism that this music owes its effects solely to its more or less rich and striking instrumentation and does not possess all of the features which were formerly characteristic of good music: melodies, richness of harmony, polyphony, perfect form, architecture, etc.”

Polyphony, perfect form, architecture… doesn’t exactly fit with your view that they found this music kitsch. And before you object: yes, he says “formerly”, so I’m not saying they don’t have another way of thinking what constitutes “good music” in their time. But I am saying that you miss something of the picture when deliberately trying to neglect the baggage of these composers. And that is what I meant by “simplistic categorisations”.

Barenboim’s objections to period performance are no more credible than were Karajan’s. Of course this is only my own taste, and I don’t think I ever claimed it was anything else.

I’m sure that Schoenberg’s remark to his pupils was ironic at the very least. Or maybe I’m back to square one in trying to understand music at all. I’ve spent my life listening to, studying and performing music, and I find Strauss and Schoenberg as dissimilar as can possibly be.

On your other soap box, however. I agree that the period performance revolution has reinvigorated our approach to established scores. Likewise, it has sometimes railroaded us all into thinking that everything goes ludicrously fast or must be played with reduced forces. Barenboim’s quip of “how do you know what it sounded like? were you there?” may be silly, but it unmasks the great hitch at the heart of the debate. Taste is one thing, dismissing other people’s is quite another.

Furtwängler’s approach was fine in its way because of its time (although I still find it basically impossible to listen to), but he exerts such a malign influence over Barenboim that I find it perverse. I cannot help thinking of the historically informed performance movement as being one of clarity and respect for the score which I simply don’t find in Barenboim’s music making.

I still can’t see how Schoenberg making orchestrations of Strauss is any indication that they wrote even remotely similar music. I’m unable to detect even the slightest resemblance between that polka and the Variations. The result is, whichever way I look at it, perverse.

Schoenberg once said to Berg “Strauss, now there is a great master.” It wasn’t a joke. Hence his instruction to both Berg and Webern that they write arrangements of the waltzes for the Verein für musikalische Privataufführungen. And there is decidedly more kunst than kitsch in a number of the waltzes.