On 17 Jan 2007 at 17:02, Johannes Gebauer wrote: > As a matter of fact Joshua is a very serious researcher himself. He > found out something and he presented it in a provocative way. That > doesn't de-value the quality of his research. He really knows the > subject, and did his research trying to be as unbiased as possible.
Um, I know all about Rifkin (though I don't really know him personally -- I've been introduced but he wouldn't remember me, though he'd probably recognize my name). He was educated in my department, though he never completed the Ph.D. He's something of a maverick and flouts some of the conventions of musicological discourse and this has caused many of his problems. I think he has always overstated his case, because he was reacting to a climate in which his hypothesis was going to be highly controversial. Also, as a musicologically-trained performer, he was seen by many (wrongly, in my opinion) as justifying his performing decisions by interpreting the evidence to favor what he was wanting to do with his group. Yes, he knew the sources, but he always seemed to me to be making a mistake in saying too firmly exactly what they meant. I always felt there was more doubt and flexibility in the subject than his polemical approach to it justified. -- David W. Fenton http://dfenton.com David Fenton Associates http://dfenton.com/DFA/ _______________________________________________ Finale mailing list Finale@shsu.edu http://lists.shsu.edu/mailman/listinfo/finale
