But in some of LaChiusa's works I noticed where at times a good melody line was happening where he quite a few times chose to "go another way" and sound off-kilter to my ears.
But it could very well be that the way you expected him to go was something others have already done? ;-)
BTW - all good composers use dissonance as a matter of course. Bach is full of dissonance, as is Mozart, etc. But I assume you know that lol. At least you didn't use the word "atonal" which applies to some of Wozzeck but not to LaChiusa. :-)
