# The Western Musical Canon



## Eschbeg

(This thread was sort of inspired by the Beethoven thread.)

When I say "Western musical canon," I'm not referring to the contrapuntal form (e.g. Pachelbel's Canon). I mean _the canon_: the body of music "traditionally accepted by Western scholars as the most important and influential in shaping Western culture" (to quote Wikipedia). In other words, the canon is the list of works considered to be the greatest, most foundational, most representative of "classical music." Let us propose that a listener who has not yet experienced most of these works is roughly in the same category as a reader of fantasy who has not yet read Tolkien.

It goes without saying that there has been, and there will always be, some disagreement about whether certain works are in the canon or not. (Monteverdi's Vespers? _Idomeneo_? Any Brandenburg Concerto besides No. 5?) There is also more or less universal agreement that certain works are definitely in: Beethoven's Fifth, the _Rite of Spring_, and so on.

Here's my question: is the canon closed? Is it possible for a new piece (i.e. a recent one) to join it? Is it our tacit understanding that the canon has already been established, or do we believe it is in flux? What would it take for a piece written tomorrow to eventually become part of the canon? Is it realistic to think this could ever happen? If not, if the canon is effectively closed to new works, what do you think was the last piece to become part of the canon?


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## aleazk

It's of course not closed. Pieces like Ligeti's Atmospheres or Grisey's Partiels point in a new direction, not contained in the previous pieces of the canon. So, if you want to do a comprehensive list of the stylistic landmarks of classical music you would have to include those pieces for example. The same for serialism, etc.


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## Eschbeg

aleazk said:


> Pieces like Ligeti's Atmospheres or Grisey's Partiels point in a new direction


No disagreement there. But are you saying _Atmosphères_ and _Partiels_ are part of the canon, or that they will be?


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## aleazk

Eschbeg said:


> No disagreement there. But are you saying _Atmosphères_ and _Partiels_ are part of the canon, or that they will be?


Well, for me they are. And if we are objective, they should be, because of what I said. But I don't think that the majority of the classical music aficionados would agree _right now_. Probably the professional musicians and composers would agree.


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## Mahlerian

I think the canon is going to continue to change as long as the Western Musical Tradition survives. There are a number of different canons, though: the academic canon, the popular (let's say the CD recording) canon, and of course separate canons and canonical composers for different genres (Messiaen is already becoming part of the organ repertoire, but on the fringe of the orchestral repertoire, and nowhere near the operatic repertoire, for example).


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## Eschbeg

aleazk said:


> Well, for me they are. And if we are objective, they should be, because of what I said. But I don't think that the majority of the classical music aficionados would agree. Probably the professional musicians and composers would agree.


That's pretty much my question: do you envision circumstances ever working out such that the majority of classical music aficionados come to agree that _Atmosphères_ and _Partiels_ are part of the canon? Or is that just not a realistic hope? If it's not, then that does seem to suggest the canon is at least partly "closed."


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## Eschbeg

Mahlerian said:


> There are a number of different canons, though: the academic canon, the popular (let's say the CD recording) canon, and of course separate canons and canonical composers for different genres (Messiaen is already becoming part of the organ repertoire, but on the fringe of the orchestral repertoire, and nowhere near the operatic repertoire, for example).


Yes, the distinction between the academic canon and the performing repertoire, for example, can be pretty wide. Rachmaninoff is definitely part of the latter but not, arguably, part of the former. Babbitt is definitely part of the former but in mighty distant view of the latter. And it does seem to me that the performing repertoire is more open to change than the academic canon.


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## aleazk

Eschbeg said:


> That's pretty much my question: do you envision circumstances ever working out such that the majority of classical music aficionados come to agree that _Atmosphères_ and _Partiels_ are part of the canon? Or is that just not a realistic hope? If it's not, then that does seem to suggest the canon is at least partly "closed."


Well, surely they would not agree now. I can't say in the future. Maybe yes or maybe not. I'm inclined to the yes, though. 
In 1913, most people also didn't agree about the Rite of the Spring!. As far as I know, Ravel was the only one in recognizing immediately the revolutionary nature of the piece.


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## Weston

I think acceptance takes place at glacial speed these days and therefore is not as noticeable to the general listening public as it used to be. How long did it take Mahler, for instance, to become essential as opposed to Messiaen?

I don't know what would cause this slower pace if there is one. Economics?


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## Mahlerian

Weston said:


> I think acceptance takes place at glacial speed these days and therefore is not as noticeable to the general listening public as it used to be. How long did it take Mahler, for instance, to become essential as opposed to Messiaen?


About 50 years after his death. The now evergreen Resurrection symphony was written in 1890, and took approximately 70 years to enter the canon. Before that, its status, both popular and critical, was not unlike that of the Turangalila Symphony today: an odd rarity to be revived every once in a while for people who enjoy novel "effects" and nothing more.

Going by that, Messiaen's going to have to wait a few more decades...


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## KenOC

Classical music is like a big museum. Like most museums, it can only display part of its collection at any time. This is what is called the "canon." From time to time the museum staff updates displays, receives new items, fetches dusty works from the basement, puts on special shows, and so forth -- so the canon changes over time, depending on what staff thinks people want to see. And increasingly, what they'll pay to see.

Which is a problem, because daily visits are dropping off and museum revenue is shrinking. Even the gift shop seems deserted! So staff has been cut back and the displays change less often. This of course doesn't do much for attendance! Ultimately...well, look what happened to the Liberace Museum in Las Vegas.


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## mmsbls

I know there is not one absolute canon, but if one wanted to know what was considered in the canon, where would one go? I have Dubal's "The Essential Canon of Classical Music". It seems fairly extensive to me since it lists 236 (I might have miscounted) composers in the canon. It includes Ligeti's Atmospheres and Messiaen's Turangalila Symphony, but it does not include Grisey's Partiels. That edition was published in 2001. Of recent modern composers it includes Bolcom, Schnittke, Crumb, Henze, and Berio among others. Obviously this canon is not a performance canon.

It seems to me that the canon must change. Others have pointed out that many 20th century works we would all include did not exist a bit over 100 years ago. If these works can be merged within the canon (even the performance canon), others can as well. Somehow it's difficult to imagine the canon being fixed at a particular time such that 100 years from now no post 2000 works would be included.


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## Eschbeg

Mahlerian said:


> About 50 years after his death...
> 
> Going by that, Messiaen's going to have to wait a few more decades...


Hmm... by the approximate 50-year standard, then, pieces written around 1963 should be up for canon candidacy about now. That would include works like Carter's Second String Quartet (1959), Penderecki's _Threnody to the Victims of Hiroshima_ (1960), Ligeti's _Atmosphères_ (1961), Britten's _War Requiem_ (1961-62), Riley's _In C_ (1964), and Reich's _Come Out_ (1966), among others. I'd say most if not all of these pieces are in the academic canon, but I don't think any of them are in any non-academic understanding of "the canon," with the possible exception of the _War Requiem_, which is arguably in the performing canon. Maybe a case could be made for Atmosphères being in the performing canon too.


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## Celloman

Yes, but I think we can all agree that the "canon" is not as elastic as it used to be.  The canon (as it appears in regularly-scheduled concerts with major symphony orchestras) hasn't really changed all that much in the last 50 or so years. The canon still comprises about 80 - 90% of all music being performed in these concert halls. We're comfortable with our Bach, Beethoven, and Mozart. If you think too far out of the box (maybe an occasional piece by Berio or Xenakis is ok), well, your box office receipts will be struggling before long.

The old rubber band has stretched just about as far as it can go. Someone needs to make a new rubber band if we really want to start expanding again. The canon is pretty close to stagnant. Just think, when was the last time you attended the premiere of a brand new opera? Or a new symphony?


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## KenOC

Celloman said:


> The old rubber band has stretched just about as far as it can go. Someone needs to make a new rubber band if we really want to start expanding again. The canon is pretty close to stagnant.


On another forum, people voted for the top fifty "greatest" classical musical works. Their average age was 206 years, placing the average date of composition right in Beethoven's middle period. I can't remember if there was anything from the last 50 years. Yes, I'd say things are a bit stagnant.


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## Sid James

Eschbeg said:


> ...
> *Here's my question: is the canon closed? Is it possible for a new piece (i.e. a recent one) to join it?* Is it our tacit understanding that the canon has already been established, or do we believe it is in flux? What would it take for a piece written tomorrow to eventually become part of the canon? Is it realistic to think this could ever happen? If not, if the canon is effectively closed to new works, what do you think was the last piece to become part of the canon?


Well it ultimately depends on who you ask. Yeah, my near obsession of ideology is what decides that answer, ultimately.

But regarding what Mahlerian said, I think there is a strong case for a number of canons. In this old post I conveyed an idea of the three canons that I read - 1. Musicological canon (music hsitory), 2. Pedagogical (teaching) canon and 3. Performance (repertoire) canon.

So in terms of the *pedagogical canon*, you got those in academe who have historically tended to be conservative. Their canon does change slowly. Hard to believe, but Brahms was considered too modern for some even as late in the 1920's and '30's. Not to speak of Wagner and Liszt. Then after the war, you had a whole lot of total serialist groupies (but serialism came about in the 1920's - so there you got a 30 or 40 year time lag in between its inception and when it was accepted into academe). In terms of more rigid forms of serialism, some elements of academia still saw that as 'the future' of music as late as the 1970's, but once things like the broader minimalist movement got under way and made big impacts, also things like the "neos" (eg. Neo Romanticism), well academia looked pretty isolated in terms of the broader trend and had to adapt. Now, there are academics who themselves compose in what can be called minimalist (or post-minimalist) and neo-Romantic sorts of styles. In the 1970's to many that would have been sheer heresy.

The *repertoire or performance side *is musicians and conductors who have tended, until recent times, to kind of be advocates for certain composers and try and update the canon. Witness for example Bernstein's pushing of Mahler and Ives into the spotlight, he's one person that made their music more performed and recorded from roughly the 1960's onwards.

So there is that mix of things, of one thing giving away to another, and if its absorbed into academia, is seen as an important musical trend from a* historical *viewpoint, and performed, recorded, disseminated widely, well you got something entering the canon. I'd say the likes of Reich and Glass for example, their more popular and known works (known at least by classical listeners, musos and teachers), well they are now canonical.

The big problem is that now there don't seem to be many conductors like Lenny, who are pushing the canon into interesting areas. There's a lot just doing old music of dead, long dead composers. There's also the HIP thing of resurrecting really old stuff, but this is after the fact rather than about living, breathing, new music. Or at least newer music - Ives was still alive when Lenny premiered his second symphony, and Mahler's widow Alma was at Lenny's performances. There was that living connection.

So what I despair about is classical become museum piece. Or worse, just innocuous ear candy. I have been talking a lot about this on the forum lately. Everyone knows key classical works for example, but are many really aware of their importance in terms of history, innovation, influence and so on? Have we lost touch with some of the basics here? If you don't understand the past properly, how can you understand the present? I'm not talking at thesis level here, I am talking of things like people saying things on this forum (admittedly moreso in the past than now) that the likes of Haydn and Mozart - even Mahler or Bruckner - didn't innovate. What?

So I am less caring of the canon or guarding it like some entrance to an inner sanctum of a temple. I care more about its actual contents, and how I can relate what's going on now with what went on in the past. If we fail to do that, make those connections and nurture them, well I think classical music will die. Or just be ivory tower which to me is the same.

N.B.:
In terms of *Messiaen*, I think his _Quartet for the End of Time _is clearly in the modern chamber repertoire (or canon?), in terms of regular live performances of it (I have had the privelege of going to two of those) and also in terms of the number of recordings. Practicalities feed into this too of course, such as the fact that it only needs four musicians, not an 80 (roughly?) piece orchestra like his _Turangalila Symphonie_.


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## brotagonist

I feel that the canon does grow over time. The passage of time is the indicator. I think there is someone on this forum whose signature reads something like "I only listen to them when they're dead and the deader the better." This really sums it up very accurately.

I feel that it is based on the composer's overall oeuvre and not just occasional pieces, no matter how great these oddities might be. Hence, I think that Ligeti's overall body of work and its quality will almost certainly mean that his works will become part of the canon... but there are other composers of the last century who never really achieved that level of genuinely consistent and important output. These latter ones will be like those composers on the Current Listening thread that many of us, who have listened to classical music for a while, know about, but only a few of us ever really bother with.

Unfortunately, it seems to me that classical music in the last 30-50 years has become so highly individualized, having really lost much of what actually makes it classical music (sometimes I don't know whether I should call it classical, jazz, popular, folk or some sort of fusion), that I am not so optimistic about there being great numbers of new composers who will ultimately add to the canon.

Why is/must the canon be thought of as bipartite: academic and performing? If it's in the canon, it should be performed. If it's not, then it can be performed as part of a program that permits its inclusion.

And that brings to mind another point: _performability_. I went to a Nono performance in 1988 in then West Berlin. They had a row of tables set up on one side of the Kammermusiksaal and Nono and his cohorts sat there with their oscillators and machines and doohickies. You couldn't even tell who made what sound, except sometimes I thought I would see a smile on Nono's face and I thought that he must just have done that one. It was cool... pretty neat sounds and all, but no amount of gadgetry is ever as neat as someone playing a violin or a piano or other instrument really well. A lot of modern music relies on electronic treatments and other devices that renders it less performable. How are you going to do a new performance of Xenakis' _ST4_ or _Persepolis_, for example? Run the program on a computer and generate some new set of stochastic probabilities?


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## Sid James

brotagonist said:


> ...
> Unfortunately, it seems to me that classical music in the last 30-50 years has become so highly individualized, having really lost much of what actually makes it classical music (sometimes I don't know whether I should call it classical, jazz, popular, folk or some sort of fusion), that I am not so optimistic about there being great numbers of new composers who will ultimately add to the canon...


I see that in some ways as being healthy. Remember that the gap between 'high' and 'low' art was not always as wide as it got at some point (I think some time in the mid 20th century?). I think that the current trends towards mixing and eclecticism is not much different for example from the past when composers in the 19th century composed both light salon pieces and more meaty symphonies and concertos for the concert hall. Or people like Gershwin and Kurt Weill did both musicals and concert hall things. This all speaks to the different canons. Maybe with increased diversity there will be so many canons, it will make it more confusing than it already is. Is boxing and 'canonisation' necessary?

But regarding your last line, you're pretty spot on. Many musicians, having been exposed to classical music when young (even studying it at a high level) end up going into rock or other non classical. Of course classical composers themselves are increasingly resistant to being boxed in a certain style or trend. One thing is these things quickly get stale as the new trend comes along.

So maybe the canon itself, or at least certain more rigid views of it, has kind of reached its shelf life?

Just offering more food for thought!


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## Sid James

Eschbeg said:


> Yes, the distinction between the academic canon and the performing repertoire, for example, can be pretty wide. Rachmaninoff is definitely part of the latter but not, arguably, part of the former.


Well thats the stuff that makes me cry. Well, almost. Rachmaninov's output is central to the piano repertoire. Don't you think budding pianists study it at university? Of course they do, just like they study say the piano music of Beethoven or Ravel. Rachmaninov was an innovator in piano technique and had wide influence in the first half of the 20th century. But he gets a raw deal from many people online it seems. Another one like that is Puccini. I agree with what you say, there being a gap between performing and academic canons. But in my view it shows up the ivory tower mentality of academia more than there being some problem with people liking say Rachmaninov over Babbitt. However, academia today has accepted Rachmaninov, he gets performed and studied by students.

Additionally, people like Vladimir Ashkenazy have also devoted a large part of their career to performing his music (he's recorded several cycles of his piano concertos, for instance). I don't think you'd do this with a second rate composer.



> ...
> Babbitt is definitely part of the former but in mighty distant view of the latter. And it does seem to me that the performing repertoire is more open to change than the academic canon.


Well I think as I said in my first post here that academe tends to be conservative. Babbitt was the guy who said he doesn't care if his music has an audience, wasn't he? Well, that's a big tenet of Modernist ideology, the ivory tower syndrome. And I think with that, its been proven for a long time now that they basically undermined their own position, they in effect shot themselves in the foot. But I think that things have changed in the past few decades as many people have come to question the myths related to Modernist and other ideologies. People have become disillusioned and I think that's partly the reason why things are so eclectic and fluid now. & I think that's healthier than the dogmas of the past.


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## PetrB

"The canon" is OPEN ENDED.

Just think of some of what is generally thought of as in that canon, and how old that repertoire is.... Le Sacre is one hundred years old, and even then _may be_ part of that list. This sort of historical content is really determined after years and years of general acceptance and agreement, so I doubt if many of us will be alive by the time that Stravinsky, even, or Schoenberg, let alone Stockhausen or Berio, will be officially and universally recognized.

Countering that, those composers from the 20th century and more current time do seem to consistently show up in lists of major music publications, those lexicons of music written by scholars, Groves, the Larousse Encyclopaedia, etc. ... and even in Wikipedia ( 

Those who rely wholly on that "test of time" will never know, in their lifetime, whether the more current composer's works are in the canon, where many more willing to assert opinion, or less afraid to say so, do believe some of those later composers from the 20th and 21st centuries are already "in the canon."

Temporal taste comes in to play, always... the Groves article on Rachmaninoff from about the 1950's was seriously pejorative, dismissive, and downright mean-spirited catty, that author now probably dead, Rachmaninoff still doing quite nicely, and Groves still in business 

If you really need the more conservative of the cognoscenti and the majority of the listening public's approval before you make up your own mind about a composer's overall oeuvre or a particular piece, you would be dead before you could get confirmation.

Me, I'd rather not wait to be told, or have my personal opinion widely confirmed. 
Life is, literally, in this instance, far too short


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## Blancrocher

Sid James said:


> Just offering more food for thought!


I also see reason for optimism, though the general decline in musical education is a longstanding worry. The collaboration between artists working in different media particularly interests me. Filling the concert hall is one way to hear new music, but another way is to go to a movie theater: I'm curious to see if composers take new inspiration from working in film now that it's gained critical esteem (and even a canon, called The Criterion Collection!). I just listened a couple times to a recent album by Louis Andriessen and am intrigued by his collaboration with Peter Greenaway. We're probably not looking at a Stravinsky/Balanchine situation here, but I don't see why there couldn't be a duo as exciting as that in the near future.

Or perhaps I'm just giddy after a glass of good scotch? :lol:


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## Sid James

Blancrocher said:


> I also see reason for optimism, though the general decline in musical education is a longstanding worry.


It is, again I don't see figures like Lenny who was really into that, in effect a spokesperson for classical music. You know centuries ago, the English composer William Byrd said "every man should learn to sing." Well I didn't sing much in school other than basic stuff, and the teaching of reading music was rudimentary to say the least. I wonder what's going on now with this generation? I'm not optimistic in that way either, it looks pretty grim.



> The collaboration between artists working in different media particularly interests me. Filling the concert hall is one way to hear new music, but another way is to go to a movie theater: I'm curious to see if composers take new inspiration from working in film now that it's gained critical esteem (and even a canon, called The Criterion Collection!). I just listened a couple times to a recent album by Louis Andriessen and am intrigued by his collaboration with Peter Greenaway. We're probably not looking at a Stravinsky/Balanchine situation here, but I don't see why there couldn't be a duo as exciting as that in the near future.
> 
> Or perhaps I'm just giddy after a glass of good scotch? :lol:


Well its interesting you mention Greenaway. Classical music is in stark contrast to living mediums like cinema, or even live theatre, where people are still interested, very interested in new or recent things. But collaborative stuff like that is happening, has happened for a long time. Again, breaking down various boundaries and barriers between the arts is something that offers a way out of this museum piece type conundrum we're getting into rapidly with classical as it is now, as it has traditionally been since a balance between old and new seems to have been kind of out of balance, if you know what I mean - contrasting with earlier times when composers not only played old stuff, but their own stuff, and people wanted to hear it (not to speak of composers actually playing an instrument as well as composing!). By comparison, you look back and it appears to be a kind of golden age that's gone. But maybe this nostalgia isn't useful to confron the issues of today? Dunno.


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## PetrB

Blancrocher said:


> .... I just listened a couple times to a recent album by Louis Andriessen and am intrigued by his collaboration with Peter Greenaway. We're probably not looking at a Stravinsky/Balanchine situation here, but I don't see why there couldn't be a duo as exciting as that in the near future.


That first Andriessen - Greenaway collaboration was "M is for Man, Music, Mozart" made for television. There is / was a link of it on youtube, with dreadful quality of both audio and video. If you can find a good copy, I highly recommend it.


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## Blancrocher

PetrB said:


> That first Andriessen - Greenaway collaboration was "M is for Man, Music, Mozart" made for television. There is / was a link of it on youtube, with dreadful quality of both audio and video. If you can find a good copy, I highly recommend it.


I watched everything I could on youtube, but there's not much there. Tracking down dvds of their work doesn't look like it's going to be very easy either, but I'll keep my eyes open. You can bet I'll be getting tickets if they ever bring an Andriessen production through town, in any case.


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## brotagonist

Sid James said:


> Remember that the gap between 'high' and 'low' art was not always as wide as it got at some point...


I ran into the problem of Weill while trying to categorize my collection a couple of months ago. Is Weill's _Dreigroschenoper_ classical or show music? If it is classical, then what about Ute Lemper? She sings Weill's songs on many of her albums: are they classical? If not, then why is Lotte Lenya classical? There is no easy answer.

Nevertheless, I have certain expectations of classical music. I turn to classical music for the enjoyment of high art. When I cannot make up my mind whether I would call it popular or jazz or classical, I feel that it is less than high art. The music sounds banalized. I feel cheated.



Sid James said:


> This all speaks to the different canons. Maybe with increased diversity there will be so many canons, it will make it more confusing than it already is. Is boxing and 'canonisation' necessary?


I enjoy the complex academic works, but, like many classical fans, enjoy the more melodious works, too. We are a small segment of music listeners. Nevertheless, the continued existence of a form of musical high art is important to us. We demand classical music performances that are clearly distinguished from popular music.



Sid James said:


> Of course classical composers themselves are increasingly resistant to being boxed in a certain style or trend. One thing is these things quickly get stale as the new trend comes along.


This is where the desires of the composer and of the audience often diverge. Fans adore Messiaen because he had his own style and stuck to it, but academics say he did nothing new in the latter part of his life, hence his later works are stagnant.



Sid James said:


> So maybe the canon itself, or at least certain more rigid views of it, has kind of reached its shelf life?


Perhaps for composers of the last 50 years or so, but I think it would be difficult to abandon some concept or measure of greatness. This recalls the metaphor of museum that was made earlier, which is how we typically celebrate and preserve our cultural heritage.


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## starry

Sid James said:


> I conveyed an idea of the three canons that I read - 1. Musicological canon (music hsitory), 2. Pedagogical (teaching) canon and 3. Performance (repertoire) canon.


I've understood the canon to mean nowadays musicological/pedagogical, which are largley the same thing. Perhaps in earlier times things entered the canon sooner and it was more from an immediate performance perspective. Now I suspect it is more from a musicolgical one. That means inevitably it won't be updated very quickly.

And PetrB beat me to my point on this. Why wait? You don't really need a musicologist to tell you what is good, and certainly if you are waiting for their verdict on the last 50 years you will be waiting for a while. If you have enough listening experience yourself you can come to your own conclusions and there is enough music out there which you can hear now for you to do that. Times have changed for the better in that sense, we don't have to wait on experts much anymore.


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## peeyaj

Western Musical Canon = classical music composed by Dead White Guys


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## Taggart

The idea of a canon is that it a list of the great and the good. It represents standards of "good taste". It doesn't matter what art form we're talking about. It serves two purposes - it educates people in "good taste" and provides them with standards of comparison to judge other works whether more modern or older. It embodies a set of value judgements about what is "good".

The problem comes when somebody does something "new" which doesn't fit into our standard patterns whether it's Satie and free rhythm (no bar lines) or 2nd Vienna and non-tonalism (or whatever) where we have the question - "is this music as we understand it?" (rather like Start Trek - "It's life but not as we know it"). A literary example would be Joyce in his later stages - Ulysses or Finnegan's Wake - where the boundaries of what is literature are challenged.

At this point there will be large amounts of very serious academic discussion and something will be chosen as canonical - if it matches this exemplar, then it's OK.

As to the performance canon, there are two parts - the exam syllabi where people select pieces to test performers skills and what performers like to play. The first tests whether performers have the basic skills and musicality to perform (adequately) the canon, the second is much more a matter of performers choosing what suits their skills and techniques in order to produce a good performance. Now that we don't have performer- composers they don't have the Lisztian luxury of writing something to show what they can do so they have to go off and dig up something that they like and can make a show of.


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## Sid James

> ...
> I enjoy the complex academic works, but, like many classical fans, enjoy the more melodious works, too. We are a small segment of music listeners. Nevertheless, the continued existence of a form of musical high art is important to us. We demand classical music performances that are clearly distinguished from popular music...


Well I myself don't really see that much need for distinguishing things, especially since so many things are at the fringes between classical and non classical. I just see it as a case of those different canons I mentioned. Sometimes of course they overlap, an item might tick boxes with all the canons, and maybe that's when you get things kind of entering posterity, entering the museum so to speak?



> This is where the desires of the composer and of the audience often diverge. Fans adore Messiaen because he had his own style and stuck to it, but academics say he did nothing new in the latter part of his life, hence his later works are stagnant.


I understand what you mean in terms of a composer whose style doesn't develop or progress enough, or not in a linear way or not show radical change from their earliest to final works. They are often given a raw deal by writers on music, or critics or listeners. Mendelssohn is a good example, although I can't really comment on Messiaen. Perhaps someone else can? I thought he was held in pretty high regard across the board.

However, I got little time for heavily ideological assessments of composers. It often negates reality. For example, Mendelssohn with his early 'fairy music' in the Midsummer Night's Dream Overture, composed in his teens, that kind of fuzzy technique would influence many, including the more radical Berlioz and also Saint-Saens who was in his younger days seen by many as a radical. The atmospheric effects in that and Mendelssohn's other works like The Hebrides (Fingal's Cave) where pretty much unheard of in their time. Also, look at his work in resurrecting Bach.



> Perhaps for composers of the last 50 years or so, but I think it would be difficult to abandon some concept or measure of greatness. This recalls the metaphor of museum that was made earlier, which is how we typically celebrate and preserve our cultural heritage.


Yeah well the problem is, its in danger of dying out, this museum concept is kind of failing. I elaborated my opinion on that above. I know the thing about classical music being called classical for a reason - same way as the origins of the word goes back to classicism, to the antique. However, if classical music is to remain a living artform, well it can't afford to be antique, or not all of it.

Getting back to Mendelssohn, it was he in the mid 19th century who pioneered a new concept when he was at the helm of the Liepzig Gewandhaus orchestra. To not program only new music, which was the norm before that, but to mix new music with old music on the same program. No wonder he was the first 'back to Bach' guy, so for him it was a matter of building a museum in some ways but also maintaining a commitment to new music.

In the last half century or so, the balance has tipped towards old music, to it all being by dead or long dead composers. New or newer stuff is more or less a token. There's also this ghettoisation, or maybe a less loaded word is diversification. You got groups specialising in all sorts of things, from early music to HIP, to modern and contemporary to the standard repertoire based chamber and orchestras.

Again, there is diversity but there is also this splintering and segmentation. Are we all big one happy classical music family or just separate groups of (warring?) tribes? So I got misgivings about the situation, on the one hand its very diverse and eclectic, on the other there is this feeling that classical music is kind of being strangled by the canon (or canons), its kind of calcifying and fossilising.


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## Sid James

starry said:


> I've understood the canon to mean nowadays musicological/pedagogical, which are largley the same thing. Perhaps in earlier times things entered the canon sooner and it was more from an immediate performance perspective. Now I suspect it is more from a musicolgical one. That means inevitably it won't be updated very quickly.


Well I separate the two as musicology being the study of music and its history, while pedagogy is more concerned with its teaching, in other words what aspects of that knowledge should be passed on to those studying music, especially at high school and university.



> And PetrB beat me to my point on this. Why wait? You don't really need a musicologist to tell you what is good, and certainly if you are waiting for their verdict on the last 50 years you will be waiting for a while. If you have enough listening experience yourself you can come to your own conclusions and there is enough music out there which you can hear now for you to do that. Times have changed for the better in that sense, we don't have to wait on experts much anymore.


Well thats what, in a way, I argued in that old thread I alluded to above in my first post here:

http://www.talkclassical.com/15439-canon-your-canon.html

That was a bit of a rant, but from the second paragraph of that opening post I argued that everyone builds their personal canon. That's fine. But my problem, which I was upset by then regarding how I'd been treated on this forum, is that some people have a tendency to think their canon should be everyone's canon. This feeds into all the ideological warfare that has gone on in music too. A group of people might value something or a certain view of something and attempt to make it universal (or argue it is valued as such) when it is not.


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## Taggart

Sid James said:


> Again, there is diversity but there is also this splintering and segmentation. Are we all big one happy classical music family or just separate groups of (warring?) tribes? So I got misgivings about the situation, on the one hand its very diverse and eclectic, on the other there is this feeling that classical music is kind of being strangled by the canon (or canons), its kind of calcifying and fossilising.





Sid James said:


> But my problem, which I was upset by then regarding how I'd been treated on this forum, is that some people have a tendency to think their canon should be everyone's canon. This feeds into all the ideological warfare that has gone on in music too. A group of people might value something or a certain view of something and attempt to make it universal (or argue it is valued as such) when it is not.


The main point of a "canon" is to say *this* is what we mean by "classical" music. It is a definition by example because we lack sufficient vocabulary to state exactly what we mean or rather that our referents only make sense when you have studied the "canon" and share the common experience.

The trouble is that when we want to develop or change, the canon does become a straight jacket because it's lacks the standards we want. And exactly the same arguments develop because those who resist our changes don't understand us because our referents only make sense when you have studied what we are trying to do.

Stability is good because it gives us something to pass on, fossilisation is bad because it represents an opposition to growth and development. We need stability but we also need an openness to the new so that we can see the good therein. But we must be able to say that the emperor's new clothes look decidedly thin in a friendly and welcoming manner without being derided as old fogies.


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## brotagonist

Sid James said:


> ...the problem is, its in danger of dying out, this museum concept is kind of failing.... Mendelssohn... pioneered a new concept... To not program only new music, which was the norm before that, but to mix new music with old music on the same program... for him it was a matter of building a museum in some ways but also maintaining a commitment to new music.


(Many) orchestras are financially bankrupted, required to turn to playing the pops, concertized versions of the Beatles and the Who, and film music to keep audiences coming out. Yes, this does appear to be a problem.

The greater audience might be going for this watered-down stuff, but I don't see it as competition for the Stones or Lady Gaga, and it alienates the real classical audience that wants Vivaldi, Beethoven, Brahms and Tchaikovsky. ...And a few of us want Maderna, Schnittke and Messiaen thrown in. I would like to see a less formal performance setting, such as in parks, cafés, concert halls with relaxed seating that can be moved around, (food and) beverages served at intermissions, etc.... a social environment one would actually want to visit to hear music.

Classical music seems to have a learning/adaptation curve that few people are prepared to scale, you can't dance to it, pieces tend to be lengthy and are not consumed in little bites, it has a high culture reputation that is counter to today's throw-away culture, composers of the last few decades appear to be dumbing down classical music with minimalism and fusion experiments that I see leading to the absorption of classical into the margins of mainstream popular music, somewhere between New Age and electronic dance music and jazz and film soundtracks. It is certainly not easily resolved.

I like Mendelssohn's idea. It reflects my own personal canon, which is a mix between music of the past and (more) contemporary music. I am not ignoring composers of the last 30 odd years, but I think there simply hasn't been enough elapsed time to determine with any real accuracy which ones are wearing the emperor's new clothes and which ones are wearing the thin duds Taggart spoke of. Classical music demands the perspective of time.


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## Taggart

brotagonist said:


> I would like to see a less formal performance setting, such as in parks, cafés, concert halls with relaxed seating that can be moved around, (food and) beverages served at intermissions, etc.... a social environment one would actually want to visit to hear music.
> 
> Classical music seems to have a learning/adaptation curve that few people are prepared to scale, you can't dance to it, pieces tend to be lengthy and are not consumed in little bites, it has a high culture reputation that is counter to today's throw-away culture, composers of the last few decades appear to be dumbing down classical music with minimalism and fusion experiments that I see leading to the absorption of classical into the margins of mainstream popular music, somewhere between New Age and electronic dance music and jazz and film soundtracks. It is certainly not easily resolved.
> 
> ...
> 
> Classical music demands the perspective of time.


That's the trouble with romantic and later music where you go for these massive great symphony thingies.

What's wrong with a bit of Dowland - much of his stuff was songs - or a short concerto grosso. If you want to dance - there's a whole range of danceable pieces - starting (inevitably) with Mr Playford - we even have a local dance group doing everything from the 14th century through to the 19th century.









Then again Norwich attracts dancers - look at Will Kempe - Shakespeare's jester - who danced a Morris from London to Norwich in 1599.









As to food and drink, we're going to a do next week in Norwich Cathedral - a Vivaldi string concerto and a Corelli Concerto Grosso, plus Vivaldi's Stabat Mater (with Michael Chance), Leonardo Leo's Salve Regina (Emma Kirkby) and Pergolesi's haunting beautiful Stabat Mater with both our soloists - where there's a buffet beforehand (extra cost) where you can meet and chat with the players. Lots of lovely short, easily accessible music exactly as the doctor ordered.

Baroque does it better!


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## Eschbeg

Sid James said:


> you got those in academe who have historically tended to be conservative. Their canon does change slowly.


It's interesting to me that the academic canon is the one being characterized as conservative and slow to change. I agree that it is, but I hadn't considered it any slower than the performing canon. Aren't Berio, Ferneyhough, and Gubaidulina more likely to be taught in a classroom than performed in a concert hall?

It seems like the academic and performing canons are relatively coextensive for pre-20th century repertoire, give or take a Piccini (academic) here or a Puccini (performing) there. But they noticeably diverge after about 1930, with academia embracing the Schoenbergs, Boulezes, Reichs, and del Tredicis. Of these, the performing canon has only embraced the Reichs. By that measure, at least, the performing canon has been much slower than the academic one. Is there another measure by which the performing canon appears faster than the academic one? Who are some recent composers that the performing canon has embraced that the academic one hasn't? I can see a case made of Eric Whitacre, maybe. Anyone else?


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## Sid James

Thanks for all your responses to my earlier thoughts, Taggart, brotagonist and Eschbeg. I will try to reply to them collectively, partly to avoid repeating myself. I really got nothing much new to say about this, and in some ways I can see both sides (or many sides) in terms of discussions of the canon(s). That pull between tradition and innovation, for example. The tensions between respecting the old and promoting and exposing the new.

In many ways, this is more relevant to those in academia - those who study music, who write books and papers on it, and those who are responsible with passing on that knowledge to the next generation of musicians - than it is to someone like me, a mere listener.

However these tensions have been apparent in music throughout its history, especially since it got institutionalised. Your mention of Satie, Taggart bought to my mind his connections in music. Early on as a young man, in the late 1870's he tried to study at the Paris Conservatoire, but he barely survived a year there. That institution was pretty much establishment and conservative then, not much accomodating to someone like him, with different ideas and priorities. Debussy got his degree there, but he was viewed with suspicion by many of his teachers and my impression is that he looked back on his time there negatively.

However in terms of Satie, he ended up completing his degree as a mature age student, enrolling in 1905 in the newly establish Schola Cantorum, which was headed by d'Indy and Roussell. I know d'Indy was a big fish in the back to Bach movement that swept Europe in the wake of Mendelssohn, in the late 19th century. Saint-Saens was too, and they both revered and promoted the music of Bach and also Mozart and Haydn, at a time when it wasn't so fashionable as it became later, after the First World War. Talking to that, Nadia Boulanger, a leading Neo-Classicist pedagogue in that later period, was taught by Faure who had been taught by Saint-Saens. She actually studied at the Conservatoire, but that link with Saint-Saens suggests that in her own teaching, she reflected less conservative values. No wonder the likes of Copland, Carter, Piazzolla and a host of others beat a bath to her door.

What I'm trying to say here is that there where the same debates about the canon and what should be taught in universities 100 years ago, as there is today. The only constant thing in music seems to be change, but some issues remain constant. They are hard to resolve fully because things keep changing. That dissafection with conservatism which made d'Indy and Roussell set up their alternative music school, and led Boulanger to teaching privately rather than under the umbrella of some fossilised university gives a clue to how polarising the canon and the values we attach to it are. Its controversial, but I'm glad this thread has remained civil and open to all our diverse views.

*I would say generally that I'm less concerned about what people listen to, and more concerned about ossification of ideas.* Of when things go towards the dogmatic and highly ideological terrain which tends to polarise more than is necessary, and shut certain people out. As I said, the connections between music interest me the most, and in some ways that is where we are at history, we can look back and see all those connections. We don't have to be beholden to some rigid dogma or some politically correct type of view. We can assess things in our own way and pick and choose how to satisfy our needs as listeners. In effect, as someone said, build our own canons.

Of course its trickier for those in academia, charged with nurturing and teaching the next generation of musicians. A music degree lasts something like 3 or 4 years. They have to decide what to include and what not to include in the curriculum in that short space of time. Again, this is why such debates rage on in academia but not so much amongst listeners. Years ago I had a conversation with a person of many years of experience listening to music, as well as consuming arts generally, and he didn't care much for the canon. However I am interested to some degree, I have made a couple of threads around this topic myself over my time here, and I like to read about it in books. It is interesing but ultimately I don't know how to resolve it, all I can do is try understand these differing viewpoints, and maybe try to connect things in my own way. I am a big picture person rather than focussed on too many details.


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## Rapide

The western musical canon is an evolving one - one that gets enriched over time due to progress in musical development and of course musical tastes, which is key.


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## brotagonist

Sid James said:


> ...this is why such debates [about the Western music canon] rage on in academia but not so much amongst listeners.


Haven't you noticed that about 90% of threads are asking what people should first listen to when starting out in classical, which composers are the greatest, which are their greatest works, which are the best symphonies, etc.?

It concerns me continually. What should I buy? I can only listen to about 2 discs a day and I already own enough to keep me busy for at least a year without repetitions. What is so important that I should bump listening to the fabulous works that I love and have collected _to another year_? I am truly at the point where I need to be very critical: realistically, I simply do not have time for much more... and I still continue to acquire a few albums every few weeks. The idea of the most important, the greatest of the great, etc., is really a personal canon consideration.

I think you have made a very good case against the performing canon, one that I can accept. The performing canon is limiting. I want to hear more music, different music, but not to the exclusion of the familiar.


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## Blancrocher

brotagonist said:


> I think you have made a very good case against the canon, one that I can accept. The performing canon appears to be limiting. I want to hear more music, different music, but not to the exclusion of the familiar.


One problem with the performing canon is that venues need to sell tickets, and the people willing to pay the most are generally more conservative in their tastes (or else when people pay more they want a sure thing). When I get out to an unusual contemporary music event it's usual at a smaller and out of the way place, though I'm grateful when larger venues present unconventional repertoire. For the performing canon to be enlarged, I expect there would have to be greater public investment or private donations--neither of which seems very likely, unfortunately.


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## brotagonist

Blancrocher said:


> One problem with the performing canon is that venues need to sell tickets, and the people willing to pay the most are generally more conservative in their tastes...


Unfortunately, this is true. The local orchestra, for example, pretty well only performs the "sure thing" that the season ticket holders want to hear. I understand the economics of the programming. I have unceasingly wished for the addition of one extra "unconventional" piece, as an educational bonus, of sorts. Could that really be so detrimental to the bottom line? Couldn't it build and prep patrons to digest a more varied musical repast?


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## Taggart

Blancrocher said:


> For the performing canon to be enlarged, I expect there would have to be greater public investment or private donations--neither of which seems very likely, unfortunately.


Depends. We're into HIP, started with David Munrow back in the 70's. It's a bit of a niche market so people do it almost as a hobby. Yes there are major stars within that, but you can get a little local orchestra doing odd British Baroque - Avison, Mudge, Arne, Boyce etc. - on a shoestring, supported by "friends" and it works. It is supported by e.g. the guy who makes their harpsichord, their luthiers who make the baroque fiddles and bows and sell gut strings. We have a number of small orchestras in the area but mostly those playing the later repertoire seem to be paying the standard stuff. Obviously the bigger shows - Royal Philharmonic and Nigel Kennedy - are *very *standard repertoire.

The question is why can't the other eras of music do the same thing?


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## drpraetorus

Closed cannon are dangerous as they tend to explode.


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## PetrB

Taggart said:


> Depends. We're into HIP, started with David Munrow back in the 70's. It's a bit of a niche market so people do it almost as a hobby. Yes there are major stars within that, but you can get a little local orchestra doing odd British Baroque - Avison, Mudge, Arne, Boyce etc. - on a shoestring, supported by "friends" and it works. It is supported by e.g. the guy who makes their harpsichord, their luthiers who make the baroque fiddles and bows and sell gut strings. We have a number of small orchestras in the area but mostly those playing the later repertoire seem to be paying the standard stuff. Obviously the bigger shows - Royal Philharmonic and Nigel Kennedy - are *very *standard repertoire.
> 
> The question is why can't the other eras of music do the same thing?


You've overlooked a big cost factor -- HIP performances do not involve royalties being paid to perform the work, or that constant percent paid for each recording sold. Much from the modern era and all repertoire from later than that involves those costs. I.e. HIP performances and recordings are far less costly to produce: music from the more distant past is more readily consumed, and a much easier sell.


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## PetrB

Eschbeg said:


> It's interesting to me that the academic canon is the one being characterized as conservative and slow to change. I agree that it is, but I hadn't considered it any slower than the performing canon. Aren't Berio, Ferneyhough, and Gubaidulina more likely to be taught in a classroom than performed in a concert hall?
> 
> It seems like the academic and performing canons are relatively coextensive for pre-20th century repertoire, give or take a Piccini (academic) here or a Puccini (performing) there. But they noticeably diverge after about 1930, with academia embracing the Schoenbergs, Boulezes, Reichs, and del Tredicis. Of these, the performing canon has only embraced the Reichs. By that measure, at least, the performing canon has been much slower than the academic one. Is there another measure by which the performing canon appears faster than the academic one? Who are some recent composers that the performing canon has embraced that the academic one hasn't? I can see a case made of Eric Whitacre, maybe. Anyone else?


If you tout yourself as "an authority" or are anyway regarded as one, I'm sure caution enters and influences what is said -- the authority not wanting to go out on a limb and later shown to have been mistaken about choices named.

Re: Academe and those four year undergraduate degrees.
In the arts, there are no past works no longer valid, as there are in science, physics, etc. Since the program is current and is teaching the next generation going into the arts, it is natural that program would not only cover but emphasize more current works and techniques.

The greater the cumulative body of material, the less of it you can cover in any depth in just four years (recall, too, most of those music students are learning to perform, voice or instrument.) The past eras of the canon are certainly covered, at least more than a mere cursory scan, but nonetheless are not / can not be gotten into in great depth or detail -- four years is just not enough time.

To rectify that, I would say a conservative estimate of what would be adequate is more like an eight-year study. Try flogging that to the public, the students. Hey, want to study the fine arts? Get ready to spend eight years for an undergraduate degree vs. four years for any other discipline! (...and good luck with that 

Of course the performing canons for pre-20th century repertoire generally agree -- those lists of the canon are from a cumulative set of influences, the academics, the musicians, and the general public. When that old music on those lists was new, there was more divergence of opinion. The time needed for the list to form, agreed upon by all those sectors listed, will almost always be decades at the least.

I find it rather sweetly naive that anyone would think there might be a definitive / authoritative list of more current works upon which they could rely. That great contemporary piece written yesterday has not yet stood on its feet for more than a moment, and even though a number of supposed experts say it is a brilliant new addition to the overall body of music, it has not yet gotten through all those filters of academe / performers / public.

You citation of Eric Whitacre not being embraced by academe is a rather perfect case. Knows how to write, but has not, by one standard, contributed anything truly new to the development of music. It is a sort of pretty modernism, extremely popular, and like the Harry Potter books, clearly not great literature yet quite good enough to capture the public imagination; and like the Harry Potter books generated an interest in reading to a generation who barely read anything, Whitacre's music has drawn many, including young people, to contemporary classical -- that last of course a good thing. A pretty sounding modernism that even high school choristers find appealing is not though, a major development of musical importance any more than a great populist storyteller has made an important contribution to "literature." The debate about Puccini (not Piccini) still rages, and is similar, yet he is in the popular canon at least.

Performers, soloists, small or large ensembles, will play what they can, and very contemporary music they like, IF they also find an audience for it. There is no telling how much is beloved by other musicians yet which is not performed because it would be economic suicide for the performers. Often enough, performers and performing organizations have and do go out on a limb and schedule something they know will not be generally popular because they like and believe in the music so much.

Never underestimate the near screaming conservatism of the majority of the concert going public, though; 
for that matter simply recognize that most people seek the familiar over the new, are not so adventurous, and stay mainly within their comfort zones. Conversely, never underestimate the lack of discriminatory powers of that smaller polarized group who advocate nothing but the new -- they are often more sensationalist than discriminating.

There are those who are so angry and frustrated that the old canon is so crowding the programs of current venues that there is no room or marketplace for their contemporary music, and they would do away with all the old canon to make room for the new, the heat of their motivation burning off any reasonability of that argument.

Contemporary works, other than a few reliable contemporary critics... well, you're on your own. If you want to find what will enter the canon in perhaps fifty to one hundred years from now, stay young and wait


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## brotagonist

drpraetorus said:


> Closed cannon are dangerous as they tend to explode.


It's called a _bomb_.

Could a closed canon be responsible for performance bombs? ;-)


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## Vesteralen

My local symphony orchestra does not represent what could be called a large-market metropolitan area, yet they still find a way to have a composer-in-residence every year and they program usually from 8 to 12 pieces from living composers every year.

Could they do more? Ideally, yes. But, practically? Probably not. The average casual concert-goer does not attend a symphony concert expecting to hear the kind of music most living composers write. If they have any knowledge at all of classical, they are probably expecting Beethoven, but secretly hoping for Rachmaninov.

Under the circumstances, I'm actually proud of the fact that they make an effort to do as much as they do for living composers. I guess it's not the same everywhere, though.


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## apricissimus

Do works drop out of the canon?


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## brotagonist

The performance canon is sort of a master list of musical art works that are regularly performed... but 99% (fictitious statistic) of listening is to CDs (or other recorded media), not to live performances. On CD, vast amounts of the oeuvres of many composers are available and heard by a lot of fans, so what is performed (finds its way to the ears of listeners) goes well beyond the _official_ performance canon. This appears to somewhat negate the concept of performance canon.

I wonder if sales of recordings influence the addition to/deletion from the performance canon. I hope my acquisitions can influence in some small way what performers might select for performance ;-)


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## Eschbeg

apricissimus said:


> Do works drop out of the canon?


That's a question I was tempted to tack on to the OP. I can't realistically see any circumstances under which _Don Giovanni_ would be removed from the canon (academic or otherwise). For slightly less exalted works like, say, Monteverdi's _Orfeo_ or Donizetti's _Lucia_, I suppose it's possible... but something tells me if that were to happen, people would claim these works were never really in the canon to begin with.


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## Blancrocher

Eschbeg said:


> For slightly less exalted works like, say, Monteverdi's _Orfeo_


 You just made me choke on my breakfast, Eschbeg!


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## aleazk

The academic canon and the performance canon will always have some tension between each other. 
The academic canon, seeks for logical coherence, consistency in the presentation and developments of the ideas, as well as interesting ideas.
The performance canon seeks for ear candies, show off pieces, and generally pieces which make fast visceral impressions. 
Of course, these sets are not always disjoints. There are a lot pieces which are both things.
However, there are pieces in these sets that will never be accepted by the other, at least in the immediate/medium term future.


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## Sid James

apricissimus said:


> Do works drop out of the canon?


Well, I think its safe to say that composer's reputations or popularity can wax and wane, they go through peaks and troughs.

A good example is Sibelius who was regarded highly for a long time, from roughly the 1890's to the 1920's. Then he came under severe criticism from some quarters, in terms of not going atonal or serial. His overt sensitivity to criticism I think definitely played a factor in his premature retirement, for something like the last 30 years of his life. His final major works where from the early to mid 1920's, Symphony #7 and Tapiola. However, gradually his reputation made a comeback on the European continent (his reputation more or less stood firm in Anglo countries, where serialism and atonality or the more aggressive ideologies associated with them never took much root). So you got Morton Feldman saying that famous and almost cliched quote while humming a tune from Sibelius' Symphony #5, "The people who you think are radicals might really be conservatives. The people who you think are conservative might really be radical." That was sometime in the late 20th century, when all that ideological hoopla kind of died down and evaporated. Sibelius was then seen as a radical, in the way he influenced composers like Feldman, and also Ligeti and Glass.

Other composers whose music dipped in and out of the canon, depending on what ideological fads where going (esp. among critics of the day), that I can think of include:

Saint-Saens

Rachmaninov

Haydn, Mozart (esp. in the 19th century)

Bach (had a dip of about 100 years until Mendelssohn revived him - and it was Mendelssohn who, as I said, started to program more and more works from the past in his concerts at Liepzig. So was Felix one of those guys who kind of invented the canon? He also set up the music academy at Leipzig with Schumann which I think is still going)

Another thing to notice is, when these guys reputations dipped, you had other composes elevated. So a kind of creation of a dichotomy by the critics and some academics. So Saint Saens was degraded whilst Berlioz was boosted. Same with Rachmaninov being put down and Scriabin put up. There was Adorno's elevation of Schoenberg and rubbishing of Sibelius. & the worse one I think is how as Beethoven's reputation as an innovator got stronger and more widely accepted throughout the 19th century, Mozart's and especially Haydn's was downgraded (yet they prefigured most of Ludwig van's innovations in their late works alone - so?). Bach's music was still known by those in the music industry during his 100 year dip but not much to people outside it (except maybe as church music, maybe?). I think Handel's reputation remained firm throughout that period, probably largely on the back of The Messiah, which was hugely popular in the UK ever since it was first performed.

So basically to answer your question "yes." But good or even great music rarely stays out of the canon(s) for long. Sooner or later things are rectified and its the more biased ideological positions of the critics and academics doing their turf wars that is exposed as something that is outdated. The music, despite all these vicissitudes, survives and can end up being more accepted and popular than it ever was. As the tide turns, its real values can also be rediscovered, as Feldman's quote aptly demonstrates.


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## Sid James

brotagonist said:


> Haven't you noticed that about 90% of threads are asking what people should first listen to when starting out in classical, which composers are the greatest, which are their greatest works, which are the best symphonies, etc.?
> 
> It concerns me continually. What should I buy? I can only listen to about 2 discs a day and I already own enough to keep me busy for at least a year without repetitions. What is so important that I should bump listening to the fabulous works that I love and have collected _to another year_? I am truly at the point where I need to be very critical: realistically, I simply do not have time for much more... and I still continue to acquire a few albums every few weeks. The idea of the most important, the greatest of the great, etc., is really a personal canon consideration...


Well I think thats a good point but it largely doesn't apply to me. Well, not when I first got into classical, which was before internet. I mainly come here to talk about music. However I have discovered some things, and also sought opinions of people on pieces or recordings which I eye for purchase.



brotagonist said:


> The performance canon is sort of a master list of musical art works that are regularly performed... but 99% (fictitious statistic) of listening is to CDs (or other recorded media), not to live performances. On CD, vast amounts of the oeuvres of many composers are available and heard by a lot of fans, so what is performed (finds its way to the ears of listeners) goes well beyond the _official_ performance canon. This appears to somewhat negate the concept of performance canon.


Well I see it as a good and bad thing. Good as more access and choice. Bad as in before recordings, people had no choice but to go to live concerts. They literally had to get their backside on a seat and pay for that seat, thus supporting the group. Their money wasn't going to some corporate globalised conglomerate that owns like half a dozen recording labels. Everything was smaller then, but you had classical as a living artform, not a musuem piece, or mainly that as its turning into, and has tended since 100 or 150 years back.

The other thing is that the 'fun' and social aspect about performances that Taggart was talking about, well was more or less wiped out after 1945. It became more like some museum or temple of culture. This is changing now though, at many concerts I attend they talk about the works, either as part of the concert or at a pre concert talk.

There was also a negative trend which I put down to critics who assess these things more or less as recordings. How good is the musician in almost mechanically reproducing something? That is how some assess live performances. Even recordings are assessed more and more on robotic technical proficiency, rather than the many other things that make up a good performance. You know, before all this, criticism was done by musicians themselves. Guys like Berlioz, Schumann, Hugo Wolf where critics as well as composers and performers. With increased specialisation, you got the critics elevated to a position (by some) which I don't think they deserve. Or largely not. & how much damage have these people done to musicians' and composers' reputations over the past 100 or so years? A lot!

Even though there are some critics who I respect, but they tend to be less critics and more musicologists or musicians. Since that link got weaker, and focus on the music itself became less and other things took hold (the perfection fad, or some fad in terms of ideology), I think its caused some problems. I mean I have read reviews where the critic says something like 'this Beethoven performance is just how the composer would have wanted it.' How the hell does he know? Did he go to a seance and talk to the composer's spirit or something. I mean this is ridiculous.

So in a more joking way, since these various splinterings of classial music, you got:

The Temple of Culture - the concert hall or opera house
The Guardians and High Priests of Culture - the critics and academics
The Men in Suits - Recording Execs, promoters, agents, public relations men, the bean counters, and various other hangers on
The Tribes of Culture - various groups and fans, sometimes warring, sometimes reconciling

All of these have their fetishes and totems...then you get the poor musicians (the vast majority of whom are not millionaire conductors, soloists or opera singers, or composers who've made a name for themselves), who somehow have to negotiate through all this quagmire, and manage to make a buck or two out of it!

Good luck to them, I say!


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## tdc

Eschbeg said:


> I can't realistically see any circumstances under which _Don Giovanni_ would be removed from the canon (academic or otherwise). For slightly less exalted works like, say, Monteverdi's _Orfeo_... I suppose it's possible.




I am shocked and disturbed by this comment! 
Monteverdi's Orfeo is not slightly less exalted than Don Giovanni in my world. It is exalted to the highest level an opera could be exalted.


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## science

Well, it's certainly performed less often than DG. 

Maybe Massenet is an example of someone who has fallen out of the canon. Offenbach may be well on his way too.


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## StlukesguildOhio

Maybe Massenet is an example of someone who has fallen out of the canon. Offenbach may be well on his way too.

Really?







...


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## StlukesguildOhio

Just a little of what is currently in print. By way of comparison, there are fewer discs available by both Alban Berg and Arnold Schoenberg (and both result in fewer hits on Google searches) yet no one would speak of either Berg or Schoenberg falling out of the canon... at least no one outside the usual "Atonal Sucks" threads. Personally, I suspect French opera as a whole is as underrated... or unknown... outside of certain circles, as is Russian opera.


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## hpowders

Of course the canon is not closed. Depending on who the expert is, this so called "canon" is not etched in stone.
I will subscribe to the canon that includes Charles Ives and William Schuman, for me, as required listening as Beethoven.


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## science

SLGO, I think Massenet was performed more often in the past than now. I may be wrong about that, but that's how it seems to me. 

Recordings, of course, can only proliferate.


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## Mahlerian

StlukesguildOhio said:


> Just a little of what is currently in print. By way of comparison, there are fewer discs available by both Alban Berg and Arnold Schoenberg (and both result in fewer hits on Google searches) yet no one would speak of either Berg or Schoenberg falling out of the canon... at least no one outside the usual "Atonal Sucks" threads.


I'm not saying that Massenet is falling or has fallen out of the canon (he still has at least two or three operas firmly entrenched in the repertoire that don't look like they're going anywhere), but it's difficult to compare based on recordings because Berg and Schoenberg wrote considerably fewer works than Massenet overall.

Now, Meyerbeer _has_, outside of the occasional aria, dropped out of the canon, but still has more recordings on the market than Berg or Schoenberg according to Arkivmusic. But most of those recordings are of individual arias, rather than whole works.


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## StlukesguildOhio

I'm not saying that Massenet is falling or has fallen out of the canon (he still has at least two or three operas firmly entrenched in the repertoire that don't look like they're going anywhere), but it's difficult to compare based on recordings because Berg and Schoenberg wrote considerably fewer works than Massenet overall.

At the same time I suspect it is misleading to look at sheer numbers of recordings or performances when considering not merely Massenet and Offenbach... but also Gluck, Donizetti, Rossini, Bellini, Puccini, and even Verdi & Wagner when one considers the scale of undertaking involved in performing or recording opera.


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## Mahlerian

StlukesguildOhio said:


> At the same time I suspect it is misleading to look at sheer numbers of recordings or performances when considering not merely Massenet and Offenbach... but also Gluck, Donizetti, Rossini, Bellini, Puccini, and even Verdi & Wagner when one considers the scale of undertaking involved in performing or recording opera.


Of course, I'm aware of how resource-intensive opera is. It is a mark of distinction that Berg has one opera in the repertoire and one on the fringe. Schoenberg has one on the fringe (a Welsh company is putting on Moses und Aron this season) and one that's an odd curiosity (only two recordings of Von Heute auf Morgen actually exist...). Massenet having two operas in the repertoire and a few more on the fringe, as well as several curiosities, puts him ahead on that count.

This all makes the very different worlds of concert music and opera difficult to compare.


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## tdc

science said:


> Well, it's certainly performed less often than DG.


True. For the record in no way was I suggesting I think Orfeo is better than DG, just that I would like to think Orfeo's status in the "canon" is untouchable. Perhaps it is not, but I think if this is the case than there probably are no untouchable works in the canon.


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## science

StlukesguildOhio said:


> At the same time I suspect it is misleading to look at sheer numbers of recordings or performances when considering not merely Massenet and Offenbach... but also Gluck, Donizetti, Rossini, Bellini, Puccini, and even Verdi & Wagner when one considers the scale of undertaking involved in performing or recording opera.


Then why did you do that?


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