Gosh Mimi, I don't know where to start.

Mimi Ezust writes ...

>Bill Pirkle wrote:
>
>>... does a composer really "own" their style?
>
>I should say so!  Most of us can identify our favorite composers' styles
>after hearing a few measures.  If we cannot identify the composer, we can
>at least get within throwing distance ...

I was asking if the composer "owned" the style, not could they be
indentified by it.  Put another way, does the composer have exclusive,
non-transferable rights to the style as if imitating it violates something.
I see a composer's style a their contribution to the art of composition, as
Chopin taught us to expand the harmonies from inside an octave to inside a
tenth.  Surely he did not feel that he had invented something that he had
exclusive rights to, so why should we.  In art, there were artists that
showed us how to use perspective, coloring and shading, subject treatment,
brush strokes, etc.  Nobody thinks that using these is copying someone's
style.

>>This seems to fly in the face of the concept of a etude, say Chopin,
>>where he was attempting to teach his style to others.
>
>No way.  He was attempting to teach his students some performing
>techniques.  He was being a piano teacher, not a composition teacher.
>But he did it so musically that the listener can be fooled!  These are
>no ordinary teaching pieces.

Do we really know what Chopin was trying to teach?.

>Somehow I doubt that the really great composers were thinking about
>teaching while they were composing.

Surely they realized that someone was going to "learn" something from
them.  Don't you think that they felt that they were advancing the art of
composition? Many modern composers were out to show that there was no need
for a tonal center, that the piano was actually a percussion instrument,
etc.  Surely Bach was trying to teach something.  What they were trying to
teach us is how to composer music in their style and I think that it was
implied that it is OK for use to use it.

>Do you think Brahms was stealing when he took the Haydn theme and glorified
>it, or that Beethoven in his many sets of variations (See Diabelli, for
>instance) was stealing? Words fail me.  I DO NOT AGREE.

I did not say I disagreed with writing variations, etc.  I do agree.
I even agree that it OK for a composition to be in the style of another
composer.  It is not only OK to write varitations on a Beethoven theme,
its OK if they sound like Beethoven wrote them.  I do not think these styles
are dead they are just waiting for someone to continue using them.  If,
in our search to be different, we follow the artists, we are sure to have
music that is atonal, amelodic and arythmic, then modern CM will sound like
modern art looks.  Why can't one compose a symphony today that sounds like
it came from the 19th century?.  What's wrong with that?.

>>As I have said before (on this list, I think) The only question concerning
>>a piece of music is "did you enjoy hearing it, and would you like to hear
>>it again sometime".  What else matters?
>
>I'm sure that many of us could make long lists of what else matters.

I would like you to offer MCML a long list of what matters except the music
itself - enlighten me.

Bill Pirkle