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From: Provan@LLL-MFE.ARPA
Newsgroups: net.music
Subject: past famous composers
Message-ID: <5524@brl-tgr.ARPA>
Date: Wed, 31-Oct-84 11:55:18 EST
Article-I.D.: brl-tgr.5524
Posted: Wed Oct 31 11:55:18 1984
Date-Received: Sat, 3-Nov-84 20:05:00 EST
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Organization: Ballistic Research Lab
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i've heard that argument about composers never being recognized in their
own time a hundred times.  i'm sure it's true, but i can't help feeling
that it masks something going on here.  maybe there's a music historian
that can help me out here, but has there been a time before where composers
were so aware that they'd only become famous after they die?  has there
even been a period of such intense experimentation?  the current trend is
to try ANYTHING.  i once met a composer who never used octives.  the reason,
after being boiled down, was that it's been done before.  in the composers
i used to hang around with, the worst insult you could throw at someone was
to say something they wrote sounded like some known work.  the renegade in
the group was a guy that wanted to write music for movies.  the great composers
have always had a healthy disrespect for what's come before, but has there
ever been such an overwhelming feeling that EVERYTHING from the past should
be discarded?  are the great composers the ones that don't go too far?

there certainly is a lot of slock out there, but i think Copland, for example,
is every bit as enjoyable as, say, Beethoven.  i can see how someone could
say he wasn't as good as Beethoven, but i can't see how someone could say
he's garbage or irritating.