Bernard Chasan replies to me:

>>Let's take it from the other end.  Suppose you came across a piece of
>>music and you didn't know the composer.  The only thing you could say
>>about it was that it was written in a late Classical style.  Do you really
>>have to know who the composer is before you can decide whether it's any
>>good?
>
>Of course not, if the work were an authentic contemporary product of
>the classical era.  But if the work was a recent imitation, no!!!

But that's simply a variation on knowing the composer.  Now you know the
time period, and for you, that knowledge affects the worth of the piece.
Implied in this, I think, is the assumption that an "imitation" is less
worthy than "the real thing." In many cases, it probably is.  After all,
how many composers are as good as Haydn? However, I can imagine a musician
on the order of Elliott Carter or Carlos Chavez writing such a piece
firmly in the Haydn-Mozart style and quite as good as most pieces by those
composers.  Again, it seems strange to me that a work loses *aesthetic*,
rather than market, value simply because you now know when it was written
or who wrote it.  I admit that a painting "in the style of" van Gogh
appreciates or depreciates based on van Gogh really painted it.  However,
I've yet to be convinced of the logic that uses this criterion to judge the
work's merit, which is quite a different thing from its price.  In short,
knowledge which has nothing to do with how the piece works seems to decide
how well the piece works.

Steve Schwartz