ABSTRACT
Discussing the influences on any artist is a tricky business. Establishing musical influence is especially so, for it can be like trying to capture fog, the hard evidence melting away the closer it is examined. Moreover it takes myriad, unpredictable forms. Parsing what derives and does not derive from one composer or another is hard to do with any certainty, for although the analogy of fingerprints is often used, the reality is often less specific and closer to sharing eye or hair colour. Identifying a composer’s use of models, or even quotations, is one reasonably clear form of establishing influence, but even here the presence of a model or quotation does not of itself provide an indication of its function or meaning in relation to its source. While such direct allusions are natural and vital pieces of evidence, they do not tend to address broader notions of influence, a deeper entrenchment of an aspect of one artist’s aesthetic in that of another.
