brass quintets and rigidity

>>I beg to differ. I believe if the average music listener heard a brass
>>choir play in 12tet, they would say they were out of tune.
>
>I don't think so. They may notice something was wrong, but I don't think
>they'd realise it was the tuning.

Gentlemen, such sweeping statements. Who is this average music listener?
Last week I had the pleasure of hearing the American Brass Quartet in a
very intimate setting. This is arguably the world's best quintet, and
their intonation is astounding -- in everything from early music to the
latest Sampson quintet featuring "cloud"-like tone clusters. Everyone in
my party commented on the intonation, as did another fellow I happened to
overhear afterwards.

>Yes. But isn't it striking that so many other genres of music DO
>encourage improvisation, rearrangement, etc.? How, and importantly
>WHEN, did classical music become subject to this rigidified attitude?

Never! The best composers and performers have always borrowed and
experimented. Bach made folk songs and sacred hymns into fugues, wrote
dances in the style of Scarlatti... Ravel orchestrated Musorgsky... ELP
re-orchestrated Musorgsky... The Byrds sang Dylan... Dylan sang folk
music... Glenn Gould played everything as strangely as possible... In Jazz
they don't even bother to notate everything.

-Carl