There's a sign that the Millennium is at hand : the changed stance in the New York Times' music department. The Times, fielding a new generation of critics, has at long-last begun to accept compositions by Schoenberg and others deemed to have descended from that stem. It's been ironic, gratifying and not a little amusing to read the appreciative reviews, recently of a staged performance of "Pierrot Lunaire." Also the reviews and essays acclaiming Elliott Carter during the performances celebrating his 90th birthday year, acknowledging the complexity of his music, but now positively, not grudging as before. Even Milton Babbit is getting some due. And last Sunday, the lead article was a veritable paean to Schoenberg's genius, triggered by the Metropolitan Opera's upcoming performance of "Moses und Aron," a good and well-spoken piece. It's about time.

Just a couple of years ago, such an article would have been heresy. I was long convinced that those hired as music reviewers by the Times had to pass a litmus test or take a loyalty oath foreswearing sympathy to music by Schoenberg and any other who might be an overt or covert user of the dread "Twelve-tone systen," or to use the approved term of opprobrium, was a "dodecaphonic" composer.

This state of affairs started with Olin Downes, the critic from 1924 to 1955, and continued until very recently. The Times critics' reactions were predictable when composers like Roger Sessions, Leon Kirchner, Andrew Imbrie were on the programs. And so also was the fate of a host of others who drew upon what they heard in Schoenberg, Berg and Webern without ever slavishly following the 12-tone system, curious and exporatory composers whose music was far from "atonal." The terms "dodecaphonic"and "atonal" were tossed in as dismissive labels. I'm sure that many less-than-sophisticated readers read as equivalent to "communism" these denunciations, bandied about as carelessly and with little respect for the individual work being rejected, and no regard for the very different outlook and background of each composer.

Many survived being repeatedly brushed off with a generalizing adjective or two. Some of these have modified and simplified their language and approach and some there are whose music our ears have grown into. Today the Times' critics are a more flexible lot and often interesting. It's a world of many musical options and many styles meeting, happily, a more patient, open-eared, less doctrinaire reception by both those professional listeners, the critics, and their audiences. The millennium is at hand.

Meanwhile, I was astonished not to read anyone taking on Kurt Masur for his blunt and revealing response to a journalist's innocently phrased: "It would have been good in this (New York Philharmonic) orchestra's first visit to these parts (southern California) since 1986, to hear some of the American music it has been unearthing in the past few seasons at home" Masur's response: "Why play American music in America? We always take some American music when we play outside the country. Why does there always need to be nationalism inside the country? I don't think American orchestras should always play American music. And after all, you cannot very often hear Shostakovich the way the New York Philharmonic plays it."

What is he talking about? The NY Phil takes "some" American music abroad, what?--Bernstein, Copland, a couple of safe, token pieces. American orchestra always play American music? Give us a break. Why play American music in America? Where else should it be played? Somebody else going to play it? Does the NY Phil's home town paper have a position on this? Or are such remarks expected and not taken seriously.

In an upbeat news story on February 3, the Los Angeles Times reported that the L.A. Philharmonic music director Esa-Pekka Salonen made a personal donation of $100,000 towards the construction of the Walt Disney Concert Hall. The orchestra's new executive director, Willem Wijnbergen, characterized Salonen's gesture as an answer to rumors that he might accept an offer from another offer when his current contract ends in 2002. Nice.