In response to my strong opinion that music written in the style of a
master is a forgery, but that when this issue arose earlier, people
strongly disagreed with me, Steve Schwartz writes:

>I hope I was one of the people who disagreed.

Indeed you were.

>Let's take it from the other end.  Suppose you came across a piece of music
>and you didn't know the composer.  The only thing you could say about it
>was that it was written in a late Classical style.  Do you really have to
>know who the composer is before you can decide whether it's any good?

Of course not, if the work were an authentic contemporary product of
the classical era.  But if the work was a recent imitation, no!!!  The
"composer" is simply impersonating a great composer.  The hard creative
work, the lifetime of learning, development, setbacks, tragedy and triumph
was the heritage of another.  Now some montebank comes and tries to share
the unearned glory.  The results cannot be authentic.  A composer who
starts off by intending to write in the style of a long dead master cannot
be considered, IMHO, a serious composer.  The montebank may be a computer-
no matter!!!  I have little doubt that soon we shall have Mahler's Eleventh
Symphony, the Brahms Fifth, Bartok's Seventh Quartet, etc.  I will take no
pleasure from this nonsense and I wonder if, ultimately, Steve will either.

Bernard Chasan