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The Composer Has No Clothes
The composer Tristan Foison was a plagiarizing fabulist. His brief success reveals the rot at the heart of the classical music industry.
Like Claude Debussy, Foison earned the Prix de Rome, which sends composers to work on a magnificent Italian estate, and won prestigious competitions for piano, conducting, and composition in Paris, Rennes, Prague, and Leningrad. Desenclos, Gallois-Montbrun, Jacques Chailley, and Pierre Sancan all actually studied at the Conservatoire National Supérieur, and their pieces demonstrate the stolid craftsmanship and profound aesthetic conservatism associated with the institution, especially before the upheavals of May 1968. Though two decades old, Foison’s brief success reveals the rot at the heart of the classical music industry, where name-dropping passes as a substitute for ability; where many audiences would rather be coddled than challenged; and where a résumé is grounds for utter suspension of disbelief.
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