Expert: Gary Goldberg - 7/1/2009

Question
if, for example, there is a musical piece(particularly for a piano), and nobody knows whether or not it is a work by bach or beethoven... is there a way to know who really made it? do these artists have a certain style one can distinguish from the other? thanks and it would be a great help if you caould answer this question...

Answer
In the case of Bach and Beethoven their output was so large (especially
in the case of Bach) it would not be terribly difficult to match the style.
The biggest difference would be the quality between a forgery and
a work by one of the masters, even allowing that not all of their
works were works of genius.

There have been various people who claim to "channel" the works of
dead composers. Some of these people write fairly decent music,
but it is not to be compared with that of the deceased composer, either
qualitatively or stylistically.

Now, a short enough piece might be a fair, even skilled, imitation of the style of
a well-known master, but in the real world musicologists would
also ask questions about the piece's provenance.

In sum, it isn't so much that Bach and Beethoven were as unique as, say, Gershwin but
that the volume and overall quality of their work provides a good
database to compare against any possible forgery