Krishan P. Oberoi tells of the NEC composition student who insisted on
composing in Mozart's style:

>Eventually the student was forced to withdraw.  All of the undergrads that
>I spoke with at the time supported the composition department in their
>rejection of this student's work, the general consesus being that the role
>of the comp.  dept.  is to help budding composers find and develop their
>own unique voice.

What if his voice was similar to Mozart's? It seems incredibly wrong to
me that the NEC composers and budding composers should have taken this
attitude.  I would be willing to bet, however, they wouldn't have minded
if he had turned in pastiches of George Crumb or of Warren Darcy or even
(as is very often the case of composition students) of the faculty member
he was studying with.  It's a real consequence of the idiotic notion of
Zeitgeist (which becomes a reductio ad absurdum at least two different
ways) and the fact that most composers have very little critical training.
Pace, Jocelyn, but criticism does perform a useful task for an artist.  At
the very least, it allows composers to make good choices about their work
before they begin to put notes on paper.

Steve Schwartz