Jeff Sackmann

Thanks for this, it's a fascinating subject.

At risk of anticipating your follow-ups, I have two suggestions regarding art. I don't think they apply as well to science.

If a work is considered to be among the greats, the older it is, the more foundational it has become. An enormous amount of great music since Beethoven is, often very deliberately, developing Beethoven's ideas further, or introducing new ideas by tweaking what Beethoven (or Mozart or Bach) did. Thus, what the art is gets tied up with the foundational works. In mining terms, finding a motherlode also seems to mean shutting down (or, at best, reducing focus on) other mines. It's impossible to imagine western classical music without Beethoven, in part because such a significant amount of it is Beethovian. Had some very talented and charismatic musician come along at the right time from the Balkans, maybe that foundational slot would be taken by someone/something else. If this is correct, there's bound to be some historical figures that are considered head-and-shoulders above the rest, and they must be quite old. A contemporary person cannot fill this role, though it's conceivable that a contemporary person would fill this role for people 200 years down the road.
The effectiveness of Beethoven's and Shakespeare's works relies on performance. While there are attempts at period authenticity, the most popular recording of the 5th symphony or performance of Hamlet is not that, and hasn't been that for a long time. This relates to (1) in a couple of ways:
1. There have been centuries of "testing" to optimize the experience of these works, and it is ongoing. (This point is less relevant to, say, novelists, even if people are constantly re-interpreting Dickens.) Ranking Shakespeare #1 is really ranking centuries-of-optimizations-Shakespeare #1, which puts David Mamet at a pretty big disadvantage.
2. Foundational works impact performance practice. At risk of oversimplifying, teenage violinists go to conservatory to learn how to play Beethoven. Even in the unlikely event that they never play Beethoven, present-day composers write for musicians trained to play Beethoven, not Harry Partch. Not all music requires virtuosity (or violinists), but huge subfields of the arts involve creators devising works for performers who were trained for old stuff.

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Jeff Sackmann

Thanks for this, it's a fascinating subject.

At risk of anticipating your follow-ups, I have two suggestions regarding art. I don't think they apply as well to science.

If a work is considered to be among the greats, the older it is, the more foundational it has become. An enormous amount of great music since Beethoven is, often very deliberately, developing Beethoven's ideas further, or introducing new ideas by tweaking what Beethoven (or Mozart or Bach) did. Thus, what the art is gets tied up with the foundational works. In mining terms, finding a motherlode also seems to mean shutting down (or, at best, reducing focus on) other mines. It's impossible to imagine western classical music without Beethoven, in part because such a significant amount of it is Beethovian. Had some very talented and charismatic musician come along at the right time from the Balkans, maybe that foundational slot would be taken by someone/something else. If this is correct, there's bound to be some historical figures that are considered head-and-shoulders above the rest, and they must be quite old. A contemporary person cannot fill this role, though it's conceivable that a contemporary person would fill this role for people 200 years down the road.
The effectiveness of Beethoven's and Shakespeare's works relies on performance. While there are attempts at period authenticity, the most popular recording of the 5th symphony or performance of Hamlet is not that, and hasn't been that for a long time. This relates to (1) in a couple of ways:
1. There have been centuries of "testing" to optimize the experience of these works, and it is ongoing. (This point is less relevant to, say, novelists, even if people are constantly re-interpreting Dickens.) Ranking Shakespeare #1 is really ranking centuries-of-optimizations-Shakespeare #1, which puts David Mamet at a pretty big disadvantage.
2. Foundational works impact performance practice. At risk of oversimplifying, teenage violinists go to conservatory to learn how to play Beethoven. Even in the unlikely event that they never play Beethoven, present-day composers write for musicians trained to play Beethoven, not Harry Partch. Not all music requires virtuosity (or violinists), but huge subfields of the arts involve creators devising works for performers who were trained for old stuff.