Krishan P Oberoi <[log in to unmask]> writes:

>A few years ago when I was an undergrad at the New England Conservatory
>in Boston, there was a composition major who insisted on handing in pieces
>written in the style of Mozart.  His submissions were consistently rejected
>by his professors on the basis that they were essentially pastiche, however
>skillfully written.  Eventually the student was forced to withdraw.  All
>of the undergrads that I spoke with at the time supported the composition
>department in their rejection of this student's work, the general consesus
>being that the role of the comp.  dept.  is to help budding composers find
>and develop their own unique voice.

If he were intentionally copying Mozart's style, then the professors might
be justified to a degree.  But if this composer's style were naturally
similar to Mozart's.  then the professors were doing him a grave injustice.
Additionally, that Mozartian style might have been one stretch along a path
that lead to something else altogether, just as some early Beethoven and
Schubert sounds similar to Mozart, yet those composers both developed a
style that was greatly individual.

Steve Schwartz <[log in to unmask]> writes:

>I would be willing to bet, however, they wouldn't have minded if he
>had turned in pastiches of George Crumb or of Warren Darcy or even (as
>is very often the case of composition students) of the faculty member he
>was studying with.

I'm sure I'm not the only one who has heard music students complain
that professors compelled them to write in styles to which they were
creatively opposed.  I have chatted with budding composers who resented
their professors' requirement that they produce atonality, merely because
it was how the faculty wrote.  OTOH, one music student told me with
remarkable candor that he only wrote atonal pieces because he lacked
talent.

Jocelyn Wang
Culver Chamber Music Series