Bernard Chasan replies to me:
>>...I knew a medical resident who loved Bach's music and composed in that
>>style. He wrote a trio sonata fully as good as any of Bach's examples,
>>in my opinion. I wish someone would publish and record it.
>
>This makes me very uneasy. It raises the spectre of the computer composing
>in Bach's style, or anyone else's for that matter. What would Steve say to
>that? (He could of course say: impossible, can't happen!)
As a matter of fact, I wouldn't. It hasn't happened yet, but who could
rule it out? If that would happen, I really wouldn't get that upset.
For me, it's about the work, not about the composer. If you had another
prelude fully as wonderful as one by Bach, does it really matter where it
came from? Of course, it's a large "if."
>George Rochberg was mentioned on this liszt recently, I have not listened
>to his music for many years, but it seems to me from memory, that he writes
>in one of his string quartets, music of awesome beauty, but not HIS beauty
>- not authentic!!! It was not just a case of returning to melody and
>tonality- it was IMHO an attempt to reproduce melody and tonality created
>by 19th century masters.
I would say that's truer of his earlier works in that style. I got the
impression of him "finding himself" in a tonal context. It took him a
little time. Let me also remark that I found his 12-tone music "slick," in
a perjorative sense. His abandonment of it, motivated by personal crisis,
did his career no good at all, and I believe his turn to tonality perfectly
sincere. Not even Mozart mastered a switch to a new style immediately (up
to age 8, Mozart composed in late Baroque, early galant styles). It took
him about 10 years to get the hang of The Classical Style (to remind
everyone of Rosen).
Steve Schwartz
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