Some of Ravel's works were considered too avant-garde for comfort at the same time Stravinsky was being attacked: but even his harshest critic would agree there is an inherent musicality to everything in Ravel's oeuvre that is missing from much music of the last half-century. Elgar was so shocked by what he heard at the first performance of Arthur Bliss's Colour Symphony in 1922 that he described it as "disconcertingly modern". Like Stravinsky and Ravel before him, Bliss was not afraid, particularly in the second movement, "Red", to experiment with instruments, with rhythm, with dynamics and with, to put it bluntly, noise. When we hear it today it does not sound radical at all: and that is precisely because although Beethoven wrote nothing like it, he would have understood the language perfectly.

Music is not just for the gratification of the composer and his friends. It is written, usually, for public performance; and these days, as I have said, the public have often paid more handsomely than they realise for the privilege. I am all for music being written that makes people think more broadly about the art form and challenges their prejudices about it. But I deplore music without the qualities many of us regard as important — notably coherence, but also an emotional appeal — and which is inflicted upon us thanks to the Arts Council or the BBC. Why are so few pieces written in the last half-century in the repertoire? In the 1960s one living composer was a household name, even, I think, in households where music was not that important: Benjamin Britten. Many had also heard of William Walton. More to the point, they knew some of their music — the War Requiem and Young Person's Guide to the Orchestra, notably, but also Belshazzar's Feast and Façade. There are no household names today because most composers have lost the knack of writing music that combines inventiveness and originality with wide popular appeal — an appeal that comes by seizing the imagination of the listener.

There is one contemporary composer I would go far to listen to, and that is James MacMillan, who embodies all the qualities I have mentioned above. Renowned for his devotional works, he also wrote a challenging, radical but intensely memorable piano concerto in 1989, inspired by watching Celtic play a football match, and called The Berserking. Dr MacMillan is a man of genuine, towering talent who understands the relationship a writer of music should have with audience. Others try to follow that maxim and deserve support — notably Oliver Rudland, whose opera Pincher Martin was premiered to acclaim last summer. Even the critics, who long seemed keener to ingratiate themselves with composers than to assist the public, have had enough: a Times critic last month described the "melodies" in a work performed in the Barbican's contemporary music series as "truly emetic". The joke's over, chaps. We've had enough of you jotting down dreary, unpleasant noises and passing them off as music. If any of you has any talent, and would care to write something the discerning public might actually want to hear, please feel free to do so.