Richard Dyer bids farewell after thirty-some years as critic of the Boston Globe with an eloquent, hopeful essay on music's future: "The whole history of Western music is all there as a resource and an inspiration for the person who wants to discover it and for the composer who wants to use it. But the paramount issue remains: how to make a person want to discover it. In the final analysis that's not a question for the music business or the educator or the media, although they can help or hinder. This remains, as it has always been, the primary challenge for the creator or the interpreter, the composer who creates the message and the performer who delivers it. If the message and the performance are human, compelling, craftsmanlike, and honest, they will reach the public. `From the heart,' Beethoven wrote on the score of the Missa Solemnis, 'may it go to the heart.'"
