Quote:
Originally Posted by SonatainfSharp
Why, more than once, do you ask to be compared to another [implied: famous] composer?
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Because famous composers have styles--their work has characteristics that tend to identify them to the listener. The great ones typically are models of a style or school. Everyone wants to be original, but comparisons are still useful. As a rule, artists can be loosely grouped, and that includes lesser creators such as ourselves. In trying to understand any work of art--visual, musical, etc.--it's helpful to identify points of similarity to what has gone before. Although this can lead to an excessive emphasis on categorization--pigeonholing--it is still a basic tool of appreciation. Hypothetical example:
"Artist X says he paints out of doors, he uses broken color and indistinct outlines, his colors are bright and saturated--in this painting, Artist X could be said to be an Impressionist. We don't know if he has studied historical Impressionism and has borrowed their innovations, which were original at the time, or if he actually is ignorant of them and has somehow re-invented the wheel. But he certainly has a kinship with Impressionism." (Referring to Impressionism in painting, not music)
Or, in music: First Listener: Composer Ys' music is not without passion, but that passion is under intellectual control to a high degree. In his precise and symmetrical structure, he is more reminiscent of Mozart than Beethoven. If I had to choose, I would have to say he's more Classical than Romantic."
You get the idea. I just made these up. Usually in the arts, no matter what you're doing, someone else has already done it, and usually done it better. Those are the names in the history books. And usually there have been enough points of similarity for innovative individuals to be grouped with others of (somewhat) like mind. Often this process is highly annoying to the artists, and simply serves to simplify lazy critics' homework. But it is still a fundamental tool that we all use.
I'm not suggesting I'm greater than anyone else, or belong with the immortals, just that finding characteristics in common helps us to understand something new.
W.R