strathspey@strathspey.org:1145

Etienne Ozorak

Re: Jean Milligan

March 2, 1995, 4:09 p.m. (Message 1145, in reply to message 1113)

I see the Milligan-bashing that Andrew Smith refers to as a blip on  
the screen of a larger prevailing attitude in society -- that of a  
society still trying to overthrow the legacy of a rigid social  
structure.  As author Jacques Barzun notes, successive generations  
usually regard those just past "with hostility when close in time,  
but with increasing fondness as great issues lose their power to  
threaten established ideas and become the "truth" in their turn.  It  
is the situation of the children toward the revered grandfathers."  


There is another curiosity which is distantly related to the  
Milligan-bashing theme.  I read with interest in "Scottish Fiddlers  
and their Music" about the decline of Scottish dance in the early  
1800s.  In this book, the author points out a decrease in interest in  
Scottish dancing between the end of the Gow era  (c.1820) and Scott  
Skinner's golden years (c1880-1927).  What the author does not point  
out is that this chronology corresponds to the radical shift in  
larger musical circles from Clasicism to Romanticism.

What this has to do with Miss Milligan follows.  The classic school  
emphasises order, harmony, balance, form and structure (such as Bach,  
Mozart) while the Romantic school emphasizes the individual,  
subjective, irrational, imaginative, personal, spontaneous,  
emotional, visionary and transcendental (such as Wagner).  While I  
must emphasize that I am not a musicologist or social historian, it  
seems to me that there is a parralel between the changing values of  
the 1800s and the changes in attitudes between the fifties and today  
(as the pendulum swings from "classic" to "romantic" values).   
Judging by the prevailing winds and the fact that she was a product  
of her time, Miss Milligan can't help but be on the firing line

Anyone care to unpack this?

Etienne Ozorak
Meadville, PA  USA