Bill Hong wrote:

>Perhaps Andrys and I are among the few on this List who strongly feel
>that 17th century music has gotten short shrift, beyond the Big Guys
>like Monteverdi or Purcell.

I dare say you will not be the only one who thinks this.  I personally
love the music of Heinrich Schuetz (1585-1672), William Lawes (1602-45),
Michael Praetorius (1571-1621), Orlando Gibbons (1583 - 1625) and
Archangelo Corelli (1653-1713) to name just a few.  I can also remember
a time a when I listened for several months exclusively to music from
the 1400s up to around 1650.  Coming back to a modernist upstart such
as J.S.  Bach was something of a nasty shock.  His church music sounded
so dramatized by comparison as to sound brazen and almost garish.  The
Matthaeus-Passion sounded like opera verismo.  Beethoven and Mahler were
both utterly unlistenable to.  Only some Anton Webern shook me out of the
feeling that after the 1500's it was just a downward spiral.  In fact I
recently wrote the following e-mail to Gimell records:

>May I please make a heartfelt request that Mr Phillips might somehow
>consider recording Isaac's magnum opus. I for one would be eternally
>grateful if he did.

I am glad to say that I received an answer saying that my e-mail had
been forwarded to Peter Phillips himself.

I think there is a sorry lack of discussion on this list of music before
the time of J.S.  Bach.  In comparison composers such as Mahler tend to get
discussed to death.  The composers of the 17th century certainly do get
short shrift.  The situations with respect to the 15th and 16th century are
unfortunately even worse.  In fact the 15th century is a particular love of
mine.  I do not think that the music of the finest Flemish composers of
this period has ever been surpassed.

Whereas in the visual arts Michelangelo, Leonardo, and Raphael are
universally renown even to the person on the street, the reputations of
their musical contemporaries such as Josquin, Isaac, Ockeghem, Brumel,
Pipelare, de la Rue, and Obrecht still languish in relative obscurity.
These are composers known only to a small core of enthusiasts.  In stark
comparison to their neglect in our age the mighty Josquin was once
universally revered for centuries after his death as the musical
Michelangelo.  In fact these composers are today frequently talked about
as being 'Medieval' composers, whereas rarely would Michelangelo be talked
about as a 'Medieval' painter.  Yet Josquin's achievements in the field of
polyphony are every bit as astonishing as anything achieved by Michelangelo
in the visual arts.  This is not to say that I personally object that
the term 'Medieval', as applied to either Michelangelo or Josquin are
NECESSARILY pejorative, as though the term were being used synonymously
with the "Dark Ages", but rather that following age old stereotypes, this
is unfortunately still how many people perceive this highly heterogeneous
period crudely lumped together as the 'Middle Ages'.

However, I still retain hope for the future.  Recently I managed, after
many years of difficulty, to get hold of the 1936-1937 Kolisch Quartet
cycle of the Schoenberg String Quartets.  This might not seem relevant
to the discussion but I read with great interest in the CD booklet, that
the small independent record company which first issued the recording,
was founded with the intention of making neglected music more available.
'Neglected music' meant not only 20th century music but also of the
so-called "Baroque" (a confused term every bit as crude as the "Dark
Ages").  The company apparently did not last very long.  It is hard for
us today to believe that so-called Baroque music was once neglected by
the recording companies.  In this respect things have changed so that
I can only hope that the current strong interest in 18th century music
will eventually spill over into the 17th century and beyond.

Satoshi Akima
Sydney, Australia
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