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This page is a Daily Archive of entries for Tuesday, May 20, 2008 listed from newest to oldest.
There seems to be a tradition in early baroque and classical music of taking another composer’s piece and rewriting it to demonstrate your superior writing, deriving masterful variations from the other composer’s weaker theme. The gesture can be flattering or insulting, a respectful tribute or machismo in a powdered wig. We see it in its polite form in Bach’s Musical Offering, where Bach composes a clever, showy masterpiece based on a challenge and melody issued to him by Frederick II.
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