Donald Satz wrote:

>Experience with the music is all it takes.  When new to a listener, most
>composers in a particular category sound very much alike.
>
>I know Bach when I hear him; same with Handel.

Is it because you know all their works or because you recognize the
respective composers' imprint on unfamiliar works?

I lay no claim to knowing all of Bach's or Handel's works, nor to an
ability to recognize their imprint on previously unheard works.  But I
think I know all the works by Bach and by Handel that find their way into
the radio programs I listen to and am hence able to recognize my Bach and
Handel when I hear it.  Whenever I hear something Baroque sounding that I
can't recognize, I guess, almost always correctly, that it's by Telemann.

Walter Meyer