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Date: | Fri, 9 Nov 2001 06:32:19 -0600 |
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Jocelyn Wang:
>Great music is great music, regardless of when it was written.
Absolutely.
>Whenever critics adopt such a self-inflated role, I cannot help but think
>of the eunuch analogy. All the critics combined have not contributed to
>music as much as even a single, semi-talented composer.
This is Romantic cant and shows an ignorance of critics. I can think of
at least one great contribution by a critic: Shaw's beating the drum for
Mozart as a great composer. At the time Shaw wrote, people had really
forgotten the emotional conventions of the classical style. Mozart was
generally considered a "petite maitre" of, in Shaw's phrase, "tuneful
little ditties." Mainly through his writings on the operas, Shaw taught
at least English speakers how to listen to Mozart. I submit he performed
a service for which we should all be grateful.
Steve Schwartz
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