[Smt-talk] a la mode

[Nicolas Meeùs]

Ildar,

Be reassured. If you prefer 19th-century readings of Greek theory to 
better informed 20th-century ones, I have nothing to add.

But I won't accept your disparaging comments about Otto Gombosi, which 
are unfair and dishonest. The 1956 Acta musicologica necrology by John 
Ward that you quote without giving its reference begins with the words

    "With the death of Otto Gombosi, on February 17, 1955, musicology
    lost one of its most original minds. The loss is all the more tragic
    for having come so early in his career, before completion of nearly
    all the books and editions planned during the last years of his life."

Gombosi died at the age of 53. And Ward's statement to which you refer 
("iconoclast") reads:

    "Gombosi was an iconoclast. Nothing musicological was settled for
    him; whatever had been accomplished in the field needed, from his
    point of view, re-examination. To question was as much a part of his
    nature as it was to refer all questions back to the musical evidence."

And Ward concludes:

    "His death leaves his colleagues and students inestimably poorer and
    robs musicology of one of its most adventurous minds. How
    characteristic of the man that he should have left a legacy of ideas
    certain to germinate and cause arguments and stimulate thought for a
    long while to come. This is surely the way he wished it!"

Now, if you prefer to linger with old ideas and to reject "ideas certain 
to stimulate thought for a long while to come" as "revisionist", so be 
it. Gombosi was a very attentive (and competent) reader of ancient Greek 
theory, and this is what my previous message was about. Let's stop here, 
we ain't speaking of the same things.

Nicolas Meeùs
University Paris-Sorbonne



Le 2013-12-03 13:49, Ildar Khannanov a écrit :
> [...] As for Nicolas' fighting with the "19th-century mistakes," this 
> revisionist activity cannot take us forward. [...] Well, as for 
> Gombosi, he (as Acta Musicologica describes him) had scattered ideas, 
> unpublished books and was an iconoclast. [Etc.]

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