Bernard Chasan replies to Ron Chaplin:

>>As long as a composer does not put someone elses name on the work,
>>why not try to enjoy the music for itself? Weren't a lot of composers
>>influenced by Mozart or Haydn? Is a classical composition, for example,
>>valid only if it was written during the years 1750 to 1820? I would love
>>to hear a modern piece written in the baroque or classical style.
>
>And indeed you have Bloch's Concerto Grosso, and Prokofiev's Classical
>Symphony and many other fine works by twentieth century composers invoking
>an ealier style.  But they use their own voices!!!!  They do not produce
>another Handel Concert Grosso or another Mozart symphony!!!  And I assume
>that since you want to "hear a modern piece written in the classical
>style", you would not want such a forgeries.

It's not necessarily a forgery.  Listen to Chavez's Piano Sonata No.
6.  To me, it's as good as a lot of Haydn's sonatas (by me, a very high
compliment), but it is indeed written in late 18th-century style.  I admit
that most imitators probably don't come up to a level within elbow-rubbing
distance of earlier masters, because masters in any period are pretty rare,
and if one assumes a style, one enters into competition with all the
practitioners of that style.  Still ...

I knew a guy (a math Ph.D. candidate, as I recall) in grad school who was
a Bach fanatic.  He founded and headed something called the "Bach Club,"
which hosted weekly talks on music (usually Bach's, but not necessarily
confined to either that composer or that period) and provided jelly donuts
to draw a crowd.  He wrote a trio sonata in Bach's style, in my opinion
almost as good as Bach's own trio sonatas - in short, a wonderful piece.
Now, I'm not crazy enough to suggest that his trio sonata will conquer the
world or even achieve a commercial recording, but I will say that it's
probably not because of the merit of the work itself, but because the
signature at the bottom isn't "J.  S.  Bach" and the manuscript doesn't
turn up in a European castle library on 18th-century parchment.  These
attitudes punish us, probably more so than the composer, since he wrote it
mainly for his desk drawer.

Steve Schwartz