On Feb 9, 2005, at 12:02 PM, Andrew Stiller wrote:
First of all, Janacek is not "an opera composer"--he wrote important music in a wide variety of genres, and even were all his operas to be forgotten the remaining body of work would be more than sufficient to maintain his standing as a major composer.
Thanks. I gathered that from one of the other posts as well. My background is overwhelmingly from the world of opera, and that's the only way I knew Janacek.
As to your other point, From the late 18th c. on (that is, since the time when the idea took hold that great works of art have permanent value), 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.
I assume that by "age of 150" you mean 150 years after birth*. When I wrote the first post I thought I had examples, but now that I do the math, I find the ones I had in mind went out of fashion around age 75-100 and thus don't meet your test. I'll ponder this a bit and let you know if I can think of any others. If I can't, I'll assume you're right and I was wrong.
mdl
*At first I found it odd that you're counting age from the birth of the composer rather than the composition of the music, but now that I'm thinking of examples, the pattern does seem to work out that way, doesn't it? I wonder why that is.
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