There is much talk of evolution in music. In general it seems people are taking a linear view that Gregorian Chant evolved into polyphony; that Renaissance music evolved into the Baroque style and so on. The implication is that each new development is somehow better or more approximate to some Ideal Form. How very Platonic! A subset of this notion of evolution in music is the notion that composition 'y' would be unthinkable without the existence of composition 'x'. Is it not possible that what is perceived by the modern scientific mind[set] is nothing more potent than influence? Is it not possible that what is perceived as evolution is nothing more that a change in fashion? Geoffrey Gaskell