With luck history will never have the final say on anything we do! Otherwise we are toast. Of course Janacek is great --just listen to him. What's not great about it? That he was unknown in his time (I'd kill for a career as unknown as this) sez nothing about his artistic merit -- it is political. Small country -- small art -- who cares -- kind of thing. I mean people may not go for 'his kind of thing' at some point -- but likewise Mozart. Will that suddenly make Mozart not great?
I remember when it was fashionable to call Richard Strauss second rate-- often his is not my kind of thing -- but second rate?
At this point it just comes down to fashion.
Jerry


On 8-Feb-05, at 9:05 PM, Mark D Lew wrote:

On Feb 8, 2005, at 3:52 PM, dhbailey wrote:

I don't think it has anything to do with faith -- history will be the final arbiter, regardless of how great we currently may think any composer (currently living or long dead) might be.

Sorry, I wasn't clear. When I said "the permanence of history's verdict", I didn't mean to challenge the authority of history generally, only of this particular verdict. Andrew suggested that history's verdict on Janacek is "long since" in. I think it's way too soon to say that. I can think of a dozen opera composers who were considered great 75 years after their death but were discarded by history 50 years later. (Plus a few more who were great for a century, then discarded for a century, and then revived again.) Maybe Janacek will join them, or maybe he won't. But I don't think history has had its final say on him yet.


--
On Feb 8, 2005, at 3:18 PM, Lee Actor wrote:

I think you're overstating the case somewhat. [...]

Yes, I think so too. I meant only to give a short-hand version.

mdl

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Gerald Berg

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