| The history of the involvement of music of the relatively remote past with that of the present is extensive. If one considers only the present century, then the appearance of “neo-classicism” alone would provide ample evidence of this.
One has only to think of Stravinsky’s involvement with Bach (Variations on Von Himmel hoch, Dumbarton Oaks) and Gesualdo (Monumentum), or Villa-Lobos’s Bachianas Brasileiras, or Prokofiev’s “Classical” Symphony.
There is other evidence too: Webern’s doctoral thesis on Isaac and the influence of canonic technique on his music, Elgar’s luscious orchestral arrangements of Bach, and Vaughan Williams’s Fantasia on a theme of Thomas Tallis.
There is the influence that the beginnings of the “early music revival” had on modern composers: the rehabilitation of the harpsichord, for example, led directly to the composition of a number of works for the instrument, including the concertos by Falla, Martin and Poulenc; the “discovery” of Alfred Deller’s voice (in conjunction with the music of Purcell) had a direct impact on the music of Britten and Tippett, thus re-establishing a lost tradition which is flourishing today—the counter-tenor voice may be heard just as much in contemporary music as in early music. |
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