Jon Gallant writes:

>I haven't listened to the snippet, but let me hazard a guess: a
>quintet by a 19th century woman composer could be Louise Farrenc

We have a winner!  (Well, I'm calling it such, despite the hedging "could
be".)

>---but then it would
>be not so much Brahmsian as Beethovenish/Mendelsohnian.

I aint getting into that, except to say that I think I've also observed
Farrenc referred to as Schubertian/Beethoveny.

The snippet is from the first movement of her second quintet (in E, op.
31), played by the Schubert Ensemble of London, recorded on ASV Living
Era, a terrific disc which also has the 1st quintet.  Two jewels, these
quintets.

>Appropos the mystery theme, someone commented that it is easy to absorb
>someone else's tune, then imagine that one has made it up oneself.  Hmmm,
>that's virtually all I do when I improvise on the piano, except that I am
>SOMETIMES able to remember whose tune I started with.  Maybe that is
>actually the basis of original composition, except that the composer draws
>on and reassembles tiny bits of previously heard music.  Could it
>be that "creativity" is really a form of very fine-grained reconstruction?

Throw in some accidental and wrong notes and that might just account for
most of it.

Nice going, Jon Gallant! (Dave, tell him what he's won...)

Rick

[A great big virtual pat on the back.  -Dave]