At 03:48 PM 2/9/05 -0500, Christopher Smith wrote: > >On Wednesday, February 9, 2005, at 03:02 PM, Andrew Stiller wrote: >> I cannot think of a single composer, in any genre, who having been >> considered great at the age of 150, came to be considered >> insignificant, or even minor, at any later time. >> >> Composers, living or dead, do tend to go out of fashion around age 75. >> Formerly, this led inexorably to oblivion, but since ca. 1780, those >> of lasting merit get rehabilitated after a few decades in the >> doghouse. As far as I can see, this is a one-time, one-way process. >> > >That is an astonishing concept! (And I don't mean that badly, I just >had never heard it before!) It takes a musicologist with a huge amount >of study and information to be able to see a trend like that and >express it so clearly. Maybe I am so impressed because I can't do that, >but I am impressed just the same.
There's nothing astonishing about it. Considering that key phrase "since ca. 1780, those of lasting merit get rehabilitated after a few decades in the doghouse," that means nothing is especially provable as we're hardly 150 years past the rehabilitation of anybody, much less the wholesale rehabilitation that came in the mid-19th century with the birth of musicology. Plus, it's investment and recycling of the past, and you've already heard my p.o.v. on that one -- the creeping "greatness" of the past. Dennis _______________________________________________ Finale mailing list [email protected] http://lists.shsu.edu/mailman/listinfo/finale
