February 13, 200917 yr How bad is it for a composer to mimic his or her mentor? I mean, I realize some of the great composers started off sounding much more like their teachers or mentors than the individual voices they are now known for - Stravinsky quoted Rimsky-korsakov in his very early works, Rachmaninoff's early sound was much more like late Tchaikovsky, Richard Strauss sounded a lot more like Brahms in his early orchestral pieces before his individualistic style came through, Wagner's Symphony sounds much less like Wagner than it does Beethoven, etc., etc., but there are also those who sounded original from the start. Do you think it is bad if you sound more like your mentor than you as a developing composer or is it an acceptable evolution of arriving at one's mature style?
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