> People didn't suddenly > change from neoclassical robots into emotional beings in 1800.
Well, if we diminish the exaggeration just a bit ... I do think that enlightenment and the French revolution brought about quite a turnabout. In feudal societies, people would publicly express their feelings. That is the gap between Haydn and Mozart on the one, and Beethoven on the other hand. > > People of the social classes where lute music was played in the 16th > > through 18th centuries, led their lives much more formal than we do > > today. > > Again I disagree. Musicmaking in the late 16th and 17th centuries was just as > much a middle-class domestic affair as courtly. It certainly was. But even at home, life was much more formal than it is today. And the bourgeoisie was trying to imitate the nobility, which didn't make things easier. > And besides, do you think that > the court of James I of England was all that formal? Erm, yes. > I really don't > think that people have changed at all throughout history. Perhaps that's the point. I do think so. Mathias To get on or off this list see list information at http://www.cs.dartmouth.edu/~wbc/lute-admin/index.html
