Jocelyn writes:

>No one has any business going into a museum, saying "I don't like Van
>Gogh's use of green in that picture.  I think it should be yellow, so
>I'll change it." Just as it's Van Gogh's decision, and his alone, how his
>art should represent both his soul and his techniques, so it is Bach's,
>Beethoven's, and that of all composers great and not so great what form
>their works should take.  You and others are free to quibble about the
>merit of the works, but take them as they are they are and don't abridge
>them.

Some ghosts from the past reveal their thoughts on the color green:

   "Should the Sonata not be suitable in London, you could omit the
   largo and begin straight away with the fugue--or you could use the
   first mov't and then the adagio, and then the scherzo--and omit
   entirely the fourth mov't with the largo and allegro risoluto.  Or
   you could take just the first mov't and the scherzo and let them form
   the whole sonata.  I leave it to you to do what you think best."
   (Beethoven on the Hammerklavier) "Variation when passages are repeated
   is indispensable." (CPE Bach in a forward to his "Sechs Sonaten fur
   Clavier")

   "The symphony went magnifique and had the greatest success.  There
   were forty violins; the wind instruments were doubled, there were
   ten violas, eight cellos, and six bassoons." (Mozart, {not Stokowski!},
   in a letter to his father)

   "On entering a fermata of languidness, tenderness, or sadness, it is
   customary to broaden slightly...." "When the execution is such that
   one hand seems to play against the bar and the other strictly with
   it, it may be said that the performer has done all he can do.  As
   soon as the upper hand slavishly follows the bar, the essence of
   rubato is lost." (Bach on rubato)

All quotes compliments of HC Schoenberg's "The Virtuosi."

John Smyth