Arriving in New York, we immediately immersed ourselves in the local musical life. We heard Verdi's Aida at the Metropolitan Opera House and a symphony concert conducted by Pierre Boulez at Carnegie Hall. This composer has recently gone in for conducting in a big way, and is very succesful. But he introduced one unxpected new feature. The seats had been removed from the stalls and replaced by cushions on the floor. This was for the younger generation, who listened to the concert of serious works by Weber, Brahms, Stravinsky and the American classica Ives, either sitting cross-legged, squatting, or lying full-length on the floor. /It was the first time this experiemnt had been carried out and, judging by the reaction, it went down well. I had mixed feelings about it. On the one hand, the performance was beyond all praise. But the sight of the stalls, quite franquly, outraged me. And this is why: for us a concert is a grand occasion whereas such a relaxed approach to serious music, I feel, breeds a off-hand attitude to it.