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From:  Karen Mercedes <dalila@R...>
Date:  Thu Jan 30, 2003  7:32 pm
Subject:  Re: [vocalist] More philistinism in D.C. (grrrrrr)

I don't agree with the OperaAmerica spokesman that disposability is what
we need. I think composers should write what they are inspired to write
absent concerns about the endurance or disposability of their works. And
as the examples of composers whose operas were very popular in their
own day attests (e.g., Mozart and Verdi) - along with the more recent
example of musical theatre composers like Rodgers and Hammerstein and
Lerner and Loewe, it is QUITE possible for a work to be both extremely
popular and enduring in appeal. I can't say whether Mozart or Rodgers
*intended* for their works to outlive them, but the fact is, neither
composer seems to have sacrificed QUALITY in order to pander to a lowest
common denominator of a throw-away culture's popular taste. Composers
should write what they believe to be GOOD, and leave it to posterity to
determine whether that "good" is also "enduring" or merely "disposable".

Karen Mercedes
http://www.radix.net/~dalila/index.html
________________________________
One must be something if one
wishes to put on appearances.
- Ludwig von Beethoven





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22277 Re: More philistinism in D.C. (grrrrrr)lestaylor2003 <LesTaylor@a...>lestaylor2003 Thu  1/30/2003  
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