janzen@pipa.DEC (11/29/84)
Regarding the periods in western musical history. Labels assigned to periods in musical history are a fiction of scholarship. There are not periods definable by intervals of years in which all composers used the same language. There have always been many languages in Western music. Composers of the same period often compose very differently, and composers that compose alike are often separated by hundreds of years. For example, Consider the great differences in pianistic style between the contemporaneous Chopin, Shubert, and Schumann. Consider also, the great commonality of technique between Anton Webern (working about 1900-1946 when he was shot by an American MP by accident) and the Netherlands School (I recall, of the thirteenth of fourteenth century). Consider the gulf that came between J.S. Bach and his sons, as they founded classicism, and J.S. documented the Baroque. Now I'd like you to compare the contemporaneous composers John Cage and Aaron Copland (listen to Cage's Four Melodies for violin and piano, and then Copland's Violin sonata - they're almost the same piece) and see how different they almost always are. See the variety expressed in the group including Edgard Varese, Virgil Thomson, Charles Ives, Arnold Schoenberg, Randall Thompson, Roy Harris, Harry Partch. Now consider the variety of music today, and ask yourself whether any person living in a period of time could consider characterizing that time with only one style of music. Of course not. i suppose romanticism was about 1820 to 1984. Expressionism lasted from about 1905 to 1984. Impressionism lasted from about 1905 to 1984 also. Really about 1888 to 1984. Iterative Euphony goes back to 1815 to 1984. (cf LvB 6th)or just 1965-1984, dated from In C by Terry Reilly. There are about ten thousand different musical idioms in concert music today, and space prohibits me from listing all of them. I am not kidding: Ten thousand. Yrs, Thomas E. Janzen Digital Equipment, Marlboro MA LMO2-0/E05 Mon 19-Nov-1984 08:43 EST Mon 19-Nov-1984 11:10 EST