...All right, all right I've had enough of this discussion.  I promise not
to drag it out any more.  But before that a few last comments!!!

Todd McComb wrote:

>The term "baroque" is pejorative on its face, yet Baroque music has become
>very popular.  These sorts of things are not very important.

No, my complaint is that the term "Baroque" has become meaningless.  It
might as well be called "Rhubarb".  My objections have nothing to do with
the fact it might had originally had a pejorative meaning.  The word has
long shed its original pejorative meaning, to leave behind an empty shell
of a word whose only functional purpose is to act as a pigeonhole.  Why not
just talk about music of the 18th century, or of the time of Bach?

Have you read the post in which Monteverdi is being called a Baroque
composer??? No longer do we have to worry about Monteverdi being a
pre-Baroque composer, a Mannerist, or a late Renaissance man, but we
just lump him together with J.S.  Bach.  Grief.  Why not call Gesualdo a
Baroque composer then? Why not, after all some people lump him together
with Monteverdi as being "typical" mannerists.  Why not call J.S.  Bach a
Mannerist then? It makes just as much sense.  All these terms obviously
mean whatever you want depending on which side of bed you got out of this
morning.  Monteverdi's own esthetic division between the Prima Prattica
and the Seconda Prattica seems immeasurably more logical, but no we must
announce things with the pomp and ceremony of some important sounding
"title", preferably associated with some long-winded "-ism".  After all
it's a nice illusion that one, when you think you have exhausted everything
about something by giving it some long complicated sounding label.

>In France, Ockeghem is very much a late medieval composer and Josquin
>(with his approach to text and access to the printing press late in life)
>is transitional.  I use the typical US reference to Dufay as the beginning
>of the musical Renaissance in the FAQ, but I use the French in my own work,
>because that is my formal aesthetics school.  It is a personal affectation
>as well, because under this usage, when "Renaissance" music happens, it is
>no longer music I personally enjoy very much.

I am still deeply trouble that we need to argue at all whether Ockeghem or
Josquin are late Medieval or early Renaissance.  Who cares? I appreciate I
write in vein because the pigeon holing instinct is too strong.

>This is how categories often are.

I tend to disagree that it HAS to be this way.  The mindless and redundant
pigeonholes such "the Baroque" or "Medieval" have been maintained out of
intellectual laziness.  I also appreciate that these pompous sounding
expressions can lend one an air of authority, when really it is all
hocus-pocus.  They turn out to be meaningless "magic words" when placed
under proper scrutiny.

>> Traditional Historico-Esthetics Periods ... should no longer be used.
>
>I have to say that I am bemused by your passion on this issue.  I think you
>know as well as I do that nothing can stop people from continuing to use
>the categories they've learned.

I know that I have little chance in convincing the world to give up deeply
engrained bad habits.  So I thought I'd end with a little display of these
magic words.

Schoenberg.  Yes Schoenberg that Bach inspired neo-Baroque man who wanted
like Bach to treat his themes with the age old crab walk and on their
heads.  A Renaissance man too, a painter, a writer and theorist to boot.
Yet so many of his words are hailed as neo-Classicist in vein, but damned
as not only too Romantic, but for being too much that Modernist for which
he is still so despised.  He even wrote a little piece, a Serenade with a
little setting of Petrarch like a madrigal of Ye Olde.  So perhaps he too
can be hailed as being neo-Renaissance, or is it neo-Mannerist? Oh, we are
becoming too confused.  So let us agree to label our Arnold "Expressionist"
then.  The term he would never have recognized himself by, but never mind,
as long as we have a nice little box to stuff him into.  We can't have him
confused with the impressionists, never mind that he did more tone painting
than any of those Frenchmen.  So let us make up another rhubarb word to
pigeon hole him away under.  That will help when we come to write the
appropriate chapter in the history textbook.  After all we will sound so
much more important if we can speak of the "Expressionists" along with the
"Mannerists" and "Classicists" and the "Romantics" too.  That ought to
impress them!  And if they should see through it and find that wool is
being pulled over their eyes then we can announce "these pigeon holes -
they are traditional" and we must abide to them come hell or high water.
What you fool - you cannot see that their meanings are self-evident?
Question not and be silent!  Act as though you understand what these words
mean like all other learned souls, lest they take you for a fool.  If you
pretend hard enough you will start to believe them yourself.

Enough of this now. Pet peeve over...

Satoshi Akima
Sydney, Australia
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