John Dalmas wrote:

>Go back to the original premise, check the number of works written in 1799
>played in 1899, then check the number written in 1899 played in 1999.

Really, oh my gosh - could it be that the present repertory ethos of
music emerged during the 19th century? Like, really it would be just
mind boggling if it just so happened, that like, you know, the idea that
musicians should play works repeatedly to discover the depths of the work,
rather than, oh my gosh, like you know, learned a vocabulary and played an
endless string of works ther were, like totally, mere variations in that
basic musical grammar.

Oh my gawd, that would me, like, you'd expect composers to compose, like,
*differently* after the change in expectations, and that, like totally
groddy man, works would be preserved because, I mean, the social
infrastructure and artistic imperitive would be there to do that.

And it might, really, like you know, be possible that improved editions and
publications would make it so that works that, awesome man, might have been
lost or forgotten in pervious eras might be, totally, like, available in
good editions in this different era.

But that would require some examination of the social history of music and
a bit of reasoning, which seems to be forbidden in this conversation.

A very common error that people make is to assume that the final results
of social accident are a perfect indicator of intrinsic merit.  One which
seems to have been again restated by Mr. Dalmas in his campaign to have
us believe that there is a method of deciding artistic value which is
perferable to enaging the works in question in relation to a particular
function.

Stirling S Newberry <[log in to unmask]>