Walter Meyer wrote:

>I don't think that, when Mozart, Beethoven, or Schubert, at least in
>some of their earlier works, appeared to be writing in the style of Haydn,
>they were "impersonating" a great composer, any more than when they later
>developed styles of their own, each distinguishable from those of the
>others.  Nor do I think that those earlier works necessarily lacked musical
>merit.  ...

Music is often derived from other music.  A master in his early years
often sounds like a predecessor- that is the way of the world.  Bartok and
Zemlinsky wrote like Brahms early on.  Both Zemlinsky's opus 3 trio and
Bartok's Quintet are well worth listening to, to say the least.  Ditto for
Schoenberg's First Quartet which contains everything he had learned up to
then.  THAT IS NOT FORGERY.  THAT IS ORGANIC DEVELOPMENT.  THAT IS ART.  A
composer who tried to replicate the Haydn style literally would be engaged
in a very different activity.

Bernard Chasan