Steve Schwartz wrote:

>>>I guess I'm saying that I don't see a categorical dislike in that
>>>controversy.

I replied

>>Perhaps, but you can find one in 17th century France in "la Guerre des
>>Bouffons" betwen partisans of French opera and those of Italian.  Split
>>hairs with that one, Steve.

Steve countered:

>I accept your invitation.  Is this war still going on?

Isn't time marching on for any contemporary conflict? In the year 2348,
today will be 348 years ago, and I doubt if the present "querelle" is
coherent enough or has aroused enough significant passion to shall have
rated a name in the musical history books of that future year.  The 1752-54
War of the Buffoons actively engaged the likes of Rousseau and Diderot as
well as Rameau.  Where are the comparable players today?

>Also, were there fights over where one or the other was actually music, or
>somehow in defiance of natural physical and physiological laws? Or was the
>fight simply over whether one form of opera was superior to the other?

I seem to recall Rameau's argument having a metaphysical and theological
bent.  Wasn't it Rameau who said in his defense that he was the first to
have made a science of music by discovering its natural principle? Or was
he just the Al Gore of his time?

John Dalmas
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