# Where are the current composers interested in classical era styles?



## clavichorder (May 2, 2011)

There has to be someone in this world that has composed a symphony or sonata, in the classical style. The problem would be interesting anyone in something like that these days. There is not reason that the classical style couldn't be active today in the musical world, its a musical grammar after all that could yield any number of new constructions. The same could be said for any other style that is ignored these days. The problem is, people are so concerned with being innovative, which could mean any number of things. 

Does this kind of viewpoint make me a complete and total reactionary? I tend to think of myself as someone interested solely in forms that are now thought to be historical, but I don't see why conservative or radical is relevant in this case. But I'm sure that if I ever get out in the music world, and go to school to study it, I'm going to find a lot of opposition just in this way if I at all advertise this viewpoint. I ultimately would like to, even if just as a hobby, compose some classical sonatas and symphonies. So far I've heard of people inspired by Baroque music, but none that are inspired by CPE Bach, Haydn, W.F. Bach, Clementi, and Mozart.


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## 1648 (Mar 4, 2011)

Rumor has it Mozart is the only "old" composer Elliott Carter still listens to.

Personally I consider attempts to replicate the (more or less shared) language of previous composers rather disrespectful, should you want to try just that there's plenty of ways to get there - if you're scared of being branded "backwards" then teach yourself: It's not like there's a lack of literature on the subject, both historical and (relatively) contemporary.


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## clavichorder (May 2, 2011)

I'm curious to hear more of your viewpoint as to why its disrespectful. From my perspective, composers are sometimes too revered these days, and in the baroque period it was simply thought of as a craft, people borrowed ideas from each other all the time.


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## Vaneyes (May 11, 2010)

Of the living composers that I listen to (frequently or occasionally), only one is known to have (as far as I know) a Classical composer as composing influence. Glass (occasional) and Mozart.

Boulez (Messiaen, Maderna), Carter (Ives, Piston, Holst, Stravinsky, Harris, Boulanger, Copland, Hindemith), Dusapin (Donatoni, Xenakis) Dutilleux (Ravel, Debussy, Roussel), Glass (Schubert, Bach, Mozart, Boulanger), Gubaidulina (Bach, Webern) , Penderecki (Webern, Stravinsky, Boulez), Raskatov (Mussorgsky, Webern)


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## Delicious Manager (Jul 16, 2008)

Why on earth would one compose in a style 250 years old when great composers like Mozart, Haydn and Beethoven have already "been there, done that"?

It would be like asking "Why doesn't anyone write plays in Shakespeare's language anymore?"


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## CaptainAzure (May 2, 2011)

Although the classical epoch is my favourite in art musique it seems pointless to revive that period in today's compositions because how will you ever emulate never mind build upon or 'improve' the works of Mozart, Haydn and Beef Oven?


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## Aksel (Dec 3, 2010)

It seems strange to compose in the Classical style, since it's 250 years old, or thereabouts. People don't write like Shakespeare anymore, and I don't think they should be composing music Mozart could have written better.


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## LordBlackudder (Nov 13, 2010)

There are more classical composers now than there was 200 years ago.

You don't hear their music because they don't have the money to promote themselves.

You have to throw money at the big concert halls, tv, magazines and radio. If you don't have money you cannot get in.

These people will stay unknown or perhaps work in film, tv and video games. Their music in some form is heard by millions.

but i suppose there is much to discourage them from just composing music.


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## emiellucifuge (May 26, 2009)

We could also ask why on earth Mozart did not write in the style of Hildegard von Bingen (1098-1179)


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## Argus (Oct 16, 2009)

Check out the Composers section of this forum. It's full of them.

Lord Blackudder, he meant classical as in the period in the 18th century not in it's widest sense.


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## clavichorder (May 2, 2011)

Maybe this seems crazy to you guys, but I doubt you've given much appreciation of the lesser known composers/compositions from that period. Dittersdorf wrote some pretty nice symphonies. Haydn wrote more than 104 and each one has a little something special to it and is worth listening to. This "been there done that" attitude is nonsense, I didn't think I'd run in to so many people with that viewpoint here. CPE Bach is my main inspiration and in his day, not only did he compose, he improvised. I'd like to learn to improvise in a fashion after CPE Bach. 

Pop music continually thrives on its same basic forms. The sonata form is no different, just a bit more sophisticated. And let me tell you something, I don't intend to write 20 symphonies in an attempt to eclipse Mozart, it was presumptuous of you to interpret it that way, the only thing I'd like to do is construct a few symphonies with my own themes so I can better understand what it is these guys did.

Now, Bizet wrote a symphony at 17 that looks back on classical forms in the 1850s, and so did Gounod. These works had something original to them(more than I ever expect of myself), but still "looked back" so to speak. 

On another topic:

There is a book written by Nikolai Metdner that makes a case for tonal music and against atonal music. I have yet to read it, but am considering it very much after this debate.


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## clavichorder (May 2, 2011)

LordBlackudder said:


> There are more classical composers now than there was 200 years ago.
> 
> You don't hear their music because they don't have the money to promote themselves.
> 
> ...


 People who have actually written symphonies/sonatas but can't get them promoted or would like to? Media is certainly where much of the talent is going these days.


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## clavichorder (May 2, 2011)

Maybe this seems crazy to you guys, but I doubt you've given much appreciation of the lesser known composers/compositions from that period. Dittersdorf wrote some pretty nice symphonies. Haydn wrote more than 104 and each one has a little something special to it and is worth listening to. This "been there done that" attitude is nonsense, I didn't think I'd run in to so many people with that viewpoint here. CPE Bach is my main inspiration and in his day, not only did he compose, he improvised. I'd like to learn to improvise in a fashion after CPE Bach. 

Pop music continually thrives on its same basic forms. The sonata form is no different, just a bit more sophisticated. And let me tell you something, I don't intend to write 20 symphonies in an attempt to eclipse Mozart, it was presumptuous of you to interpret it that way, the only thing I'd like to do is construct a few symphonies with my own themes so I can better understand what it is these guys did.

Now, Bizet wrote a symphony at 17 that looks back on classical forms in the 1850s, and so did Gounod. These works had something original to them(more than I ever expect of myself), but still "looked back" so to speak. 

On another topic:

There is a book written by Nikolai Metdner that makes a case for tonal music and against atonal music. I have yet to read it, but am considering it very much after this debate.


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## Guest (May 3, 2011)

clavichorder said:


> Maybe this seems crazy to you guys, but I doubt you've given much appreciation of the lesser known composers/compositions from that period.


Well, it certainly seems daft to doubt that we've (who are "we"?) not appreciated the lesser known composers from the classical period.

And that's not where the "why do what's already been done?" is coming from. Or at least that's not where it's coming from when I ask that question. C.P.E. Bach and Dittersdorf and Haydn and Mozart and all the rest lived in a certain time. There were certain things going on, certain assumptions about the world and society and music. However brilliant any individual writing in that time, the time is clearly evident in their music.

That time is over.

It's 2011 now, with all its flaws, and this is a certain time that is different from Mozart's time. Certain things have happened since then, Beethoven, Berlioz, Wagner, Debussy, Stravinsky, Cage, electronics, multimedia. Just to mention a few musical things. You can't go back. Those things have happened.

And just listen to, say, the neo-Baroque pieces of Stravinsky. Don't they sound unmistakably twentieth century? And if all you want to do is mimic, you could certainly do that. You might even fool some people. But why? The music of Mozart and Dittersdorf was written by creative artists in a particular time. It was genuine. And it didn't sound to its contemporaries like it sounds to us. Hence, any imitation of that would be--could be--only an imitation of surfaces, little tricks and recognizably "classical" patterns, but none of the spirit of what informed that time.

C.P.E. Bach may indeed be your main inspiration. But why an inspiration for composition? Your desire to write or to have other people write like C.P.E. would have seemed completely daft to C.P.E., of that we may be certain!

Love older musics all you want. We all do to a greater or lesser extent. But if you only love older musics, then the best paths are the performer and consumer paths. Creation is a different kind of thing, much more valuable and certainly much more, um, creative. That means, in short, NOT trying to reproduce the musics of a past time. And even mimicking and imitating is pretty dangerous, artistically dangerous (and thus morally dangerous) I would think.

P.S., and, just by the way, you can't have read very many posts at TC to have made the conclusions you've made. As Argus has pointed out, there are many people here who think that you're dead right!!


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## Couchie (Dec 9, 2010)

Well the limited harmonic language makes it a huge challenge to develop interesting chord progressions and melodies. Even Mozart and Haydn's oeuvres are summarized by a few shining stars in a sea of listless sleep-inducing crap.


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## clavichorder (May 2, 2011)

I guess I was assuming that many of these opinions are coming from people that are pro modern classical music. I am certainly not and will admit that a dislike for it is one thing leads me in this direction, aside from my passion for it. I can't pretend that my grounds for thinking this way aren't shaken a little when I hear about conservatives that thought the Beethoven symphonies were monstrosities in their day, and indeed it took me a while to get into them myself. Perhaps the same thing is going on with me right now is what I often wonder, and you will certainly say that yes, that is in fact what is going on. 

But I would just like to understand how they put together there symphonies in their time because the forms themselves fascinate me and I readily comprehend them. I have no intention of making a name for myself or earning a living. I don't care if people have attitudes about them being cheap imitations.


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## clavichorder (May 2, 2011)

Couchie said:


> Well the limited harmonic language makes it a huge challenge to develop interesting chord progressions and melodies. Even Mozart and Haydn's oeuvres are summarized by a few shining stars in a sea of listless sleep-inducing crap.


You are someone who doesn't dig the classical period much then. "Interesting" is merely interesting to what your ears have been accustomed to. This is merely your opinion. Likewise, I'm learning to accept that my opinion on modern music may be just that, an opinion. Though I will read Medtners book though to see just how well rationalized a viewpoint such as mine can be.


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## emiellucifuge (May 26, 2009)

There is no shortage of people analysing the older works in an attempt to discover their secrets. Indeed, most composition classes also involve emulation of older styles. But no serious artist would compose an oeuvre that way.


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## Kopachris (May 31, 2010)

emiellucifuge said:


> There is no shortage of people analysing the older works in an attempt to discover their secrets. Indeed, most composition classes also involve emulation of older styles. But no serious artist would compose an oeuvre that way.


Define serious.


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## Guest (May 3, 2011)

I know that emiellucifuge is perfectly capable of answering this question, but I'm reading it now, and I have an answer, too.

A serious artist is one who knows the difference between creation and imitation and chooses creation.


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## Vaneyes (May 11, 2010)

some guy said:


> I know that emiellucifuge is perfectly capable of answering this question, but I'm reading it now, and I have an answer, too.
> 
> A serious artist is one who knows the difference between creation and imitation and chooses creation.


Meaning imitation to be brief compliment, I only agree with half of that statement.


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## Vaneyes (May 11, 2010)

clavichorder said:


> I guess I was assuming that many of these opinions are coming from people that are pro modern classical music. I am certainly not and will admit that a dislike for it is one thing leads me in this direction, aside from my passion for it. I can't pretend that my grounds for thinking this way aren't shaken a little when I hear about conservatives that thought the Beethoven symphonies were monstrosities in their day, and indeed it took me a while to get into them myself. Perhaps the same thing is going on with me right now is what I often wonder, and you will certainly say that yes, that is in fact what is going on.
> 
> But I would just like to understand how they put together there symphonies in their time because the forms themselves fascinate me and I readily comprehend them. I have no intention of making a name for myself or earning a living. I don't care if people have attitudes about them being cheap imitations.


You were given some specific information from easy research, which you could have done yourself, and chose to ignore it, getting caught up in the negativity presented here. Why so?

You'd note from my examples, that re influence, a lot of great composers were left out from the Romantic era. But apparently you were not interested in influence, but actual imitation. That IMO is barking up many wrong trees.


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## Kopachris (May 31, 2010)

some guy said:


> I know that emiellucifuge is perfectly capable of answering this question, but I'm reading it now, and I have an answer, too.
> 
> A serious artist is one who knows the difference between creation and imitation and chooses creation.


Define creation then.


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## Guest (May 4, 2011)

Hahaha, good one!

(Sounds like you are suggesting that you are _not_ a serious artist.)


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## Kopachris (May 31, 2010)

I'm sorry; maybe you thought I wasn't being serious about defining creation. Your other post has placed you firmly in a philosophical discussion.

Very well; I shall define it, then. To an artist, creation is the same as expression. An artist's highest goal is to express--to express hirself, or to express nature, or to express humanity. You *(or someone else)* have stated that writing music in a style that's 250 years old is the same as writing a play in the language of Shakespeare. However, the two are not so easily compared. Music is not the same as language. If it were, then you should believe that modern popular music, with its simple tonalities and figures, is the highest art of today, because that is the musical language that the general population "speaks." Whether you agree with me or not, I believe that the greatest amount of expression in music is achieved with film music and Romantic music, which, instead of breaking the rules entirely, bends them enough to get the best of both worlds. There are, however, some ideas that are simply best expressed with an older style. If I compose a piece that starts out in the style of a Gregorian chant, then evolve it into a series of thunderous neo-Romantic "hallelujahs," is that imitation? If it expresses what I wish to express, then no, it's not. Of course, many here would consider my philosophy itself outdated, so...
:tiphat:

Besides, I've never really considered art (as a craft) to be serious. Artists can't afford to be serious about anything except their own art.


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## Rasa (Apr 23, 2009)

@OP: They are probably at their day-job in the factory


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## 1648 (Mar 4, 2011)

clavichorder said:


> There is a book written by Nikolai Metdner that makes a case for tonal music and against atonal music. I have yet to read it, but am considering it very much after this debate.


 If you're interested in reactionary whining I warmly recommend post-WWI Schenker (especially the _Tonwille_ pamphlets) and post-WWII Ansermet.


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## haydnfan (Apr 13, 2011)

I think that modern composers have more in common with the performer orientated, polyphonic stylized baroque era than they do the audience orientated homophonic classical era. Just on the grounds of aesthetics and expectations of composers, performers and the audience the classical era is dead and buried. But that is not to say that we still don't listen to the music, and it certainly has influenced composers over the past 200 years.


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## Kopachris (May 31, 2010)

haydnfan said:


> I think that modern composers have more in common with the performer orientated, polyphonic stylized baroque era than they do the audience orientated homophonic classical era. Just on the grounds of aesthetics and expectations of composers, performers and the audience the classical era is dead and buried. But that is not to say that we still don't listen to the music, and it certainly has influenced composers over the past 200 years.


So you're saying that modern art music focuses more on virtuosity than on connecting with the audience? That sounds about right. But is that a good thing or a bad thing in your opinion? Or do you believe that there is no "good" or "bad" shift in artistic thinking, but that the shift in thinking is merely there?


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## Guest (May 5, 2011)

Here's a similar question, set in 1811 rather than 2011:

Where are the current composers writing like Dowland and Byrd? (Does everything have to be innovative and revolutionary, like that German guy, Beethoven?)


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## haydnfan (Apr 13, 2011)

Kopachris said:


> So you're saying that modern art music focuses more on virtuosity than on connecting with the audience? That sounds about right. But is that a good thing or a bad thing in your opinion? Or do you believe that there is no "good" or "bad" shift in artistic thinking, but that the shift in thinking is merely there?


Yeah I agree with that, the underlying aesthetic that drives the classical music composer and what he wants with his work has certainly changed, and it's neither better nor worse. We are a product of our time, and the same is true for our composers and musicians. I think that there was/is a drive to create music that spoke to what they live through, and modern composers wildly experiment with sound to make this happen.


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## humanbean (Mar 5, 2011)

So, basically what I gather from the counter-arguments in this thread is that only composing in the current-day style is appropriate? How is this any less noble than what you call "imitating" from a style 250, or even 600 years ago? Much of modern-day music that is well-accepted among academic circles is "imitation" of post-romantic, or minimalist, or serialist styles established several decades ago. What if someone 200 years from now enjoys minimalist music and feels this is the best vehicle to express their music? They can't do this under your logic because the time period of the style has long past?

There are many contemporary composers celebrated in this forum that were/are heavily influenced by the styles popular during the periods of Mahler, Shostakovich, Schoenberg etc. Are you saying it's perfectly okay to imitate a style say 100 years ago, but anything beyond that is inappropriate?

Furthermore, I find it hypocritical that many of the people making these arguments like the music of the classical era. It's like saying "yeah I enjoy this music, but only if it was made by a composer born several hundred years ago. If a living composer composed something greater than the finale to Mozart's 41 in the same style, then it's complete hogwash and should be ignored. It NEEDS to be designed within the constraints of Minimalism/Post-romanticism/[other popular contemporary style] in order to be accepted." THAT is some ridiculous logic.

[sorry if I sound a bit incoherent at the moment, it was 12am when I found this thread but after reading the responses I felt a need to reply.]


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## violadude (May 2, 2011)

Wow! @Clavichorder! You sure have come a long way. You sounded like a totally different music listener just 10 months ago!


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## clavichorder (May 2, 2011)

humanbean said:


> There are many contemporary composers celebrated in this forum that were/are heavily influenced by the styles popular during the periods of Mahler, Shostakovich, Schoenberg etc. Are you saying it's perfectly okay to imitate a style say 100 years ago, but anything beyond that is inappropriate?


violadude, I believe I have! But this statement by humanbean makes perfect sense as well. Still, my interests which were once so narrow have broadened considerably.


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## violadude (May 2, 2011)

clavichorder said:


> violadude, I believe I have! But this statement by humanbean makes perfect sense as well. Still, my interests which were once so narrow have broadened considerably.


Well, I know you certainly still have a fondness for the classical period, as you should. But I believe today you would never say things like:

"I tend to think of myself as someone interested solely in forms that are now thought to be historical"

"I guess I was assuming that many of these opinions are coming from people that are pro modern classical music. I am certainly not and will admit that a dislike for it is one thing leads me in this direction"


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## clavichorder (May 2, 2011)

violadude said:


> "I guess I was assuming that many of these opinions are coming from people that are pro modern classical music. I am certainly not and will admit that a dislike for it is one thing leads me in this direction"


This one is indeed particularly dated. My sensibilities sometimes regress and I can't listen to anything very minimalistic, completely 12 tone(aside from Berg and Webern(he's short)), or overly experimental(Schnitke, some Ligeti), and I still can't care about John Cage as anything more than a philosopher, BUT, but, but but, composers as far advanced as Dutilleux are here to stay in my pantheon, easily encompassing Shostakovich and Mahler and some of the other composers that I before had little time of day for.


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## violadude (May 2, 2011)

clavichorder said:


> This one is indeed particularly dated. My sensibilities sometimes regress and I can't listen to *anything very minimalistic*, *completely 12 tone*(aside from Berg and Webern(he's short)), or overly experimental(*Schnitke, some Ligeti*), and I still can't care about *John Cage* as anything more than a philosopher, BUT, but, but but, composers as far advanced as Dutilleux are here to stay in my pantheon, easily encompassing Shostakovich and Mahler and some of the other composers that I before had little time of day for.


In due time, my friend.


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## ComposerOfAvantGarde (Dec 2, 2011)

clavichorder said:


> There has to be someone in this world that has composed a symphony or sonata, in the classical style. The problem would be interesting anyone in something like that these days. There is not reason that the classical style couldn't be active today in the musical world, its a musical grammar after all that could yield any number of new constructions. The same could be said for any other style that is ignored these days. The problem is, people are so concerned with being innovative, which could mean any number of things.
> 
> Does this kind of viewpoint make me a complete and total reactionary? I tend to think of myself as someone interested solely in forms that are now thought to be historical, but I don't see why conservative or radical is relevant in this case. But I'm sure that if I ever get out in the music world, and go to school to study it, I'm going to find a lot of opposition just in this way if I at all advertise this viewpoint. I ultimately would like to, even if just as a hobby, compose some classical sonatas and symphonies. So far I've heard of people inspired by Baroque music, but none that are inspired by CPE Bach, Haydn, W.F. Bach, Clementi, and Mozart.


I haven't read this whole thread yet, but I think the question of the OP is rather silly. Professional contemporary composers are recognised by listeners as contemporary composers because their music would hardly be confused with music by Mozart. Beginner composers of this day and age would often start off writing in styles of composers who died at least 150 years ago to get a feel of what it would be like to compose music that they like to listen to quite often. I know in my early works I tried to imitate composers such as Mozart and Vivaldi (even Tchaikovsky once) but then I felt the need to compose music that doesn't imitate other styles because I realised that all composers should have their own way of doing things and their own way of thinking, and that is how they come up with their own original music.

When I talk to young teenage composers I would usually ask them to describe their music in their own words. They would often proudly say things like "My music is late classical in style" or "This composition is in the style of Bach" and I am happy that they can imitate music of those old, dead composers because that is how they learn. People learn from imitation. Even sometimes I imitate other composers as an exercise to learn new things and it really works. But I always go back to my own voice, use my knowledge of other composers' styles and draw on their counterpoint and melodic writing but always incorporating these techniques in music that (I hope) doesn't sound like it could be written by anyone who lived 250 years ago.


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## ComposerOfAvantGarde (Dec 2, 2011)

^Having said that, I'm only 14 and I know I still have a long way to go with composition and I do imitate other composers sometimes but always using my own voice. Composing music that imitates the past is very relevant and shows who and where we are as part of musical history as well as teaching us about music history etc., but in the end if all composers wrote in the style of Bach we'd get bored of the same old stuff even if every piece sounds different. Human beings evolve, change and adapt and that's what happens to our music too.


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## clavichorder (May 2, 2011)

ComposerOfAvantGarde said:


> I haven't read this whole thread yet, but I think the question of the OP is rather silly..


I had to start somewhere, you said it yourself. I pretty much agree with you these days. This was in a time where I found even the slightest amount of composing difficult. It reflects my compositional limitations, and my listening experience was even hindered by what I could grasp and kind of write.


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## clavichorder (May 2, 2011)

violadude said:


> In due time, my friend.


I did say that I _sometimes regress_. Even these days, I'm starting to listen to that stuff!


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## Truckload (Feb 15, 2012)

I hope there will be many composers in the future brave enough to write what pleases them and their audiences, even if it is in the "classical era" style or the "romantic style". I am sure it must be difficult for a young (or old) composer to challenge the status quo, but some do. 

When Rachmoninoff was writing, many of the reactionary establishment dismissed him with the same arguments as those used in this thread. The Rhapsody on A Theme of Paganini was written in 1934. Twelve tone atonalism had been around since 1908.

Howard Hanson, Romantic Symphony, which I am sure has been more listened to, and probably made him more money, than all of his other work combined.

I would hate it if people stopped writing murder mysteries just because Doyle allready did that in the 19th century.


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## clavichorder (May 2, 2011)

I don't know what to think myself anymore. It remains for time to tell whether I'll even be a good enough composer to do anything very cool at all.

I kind of hope this thread falls back into the bowels of talkclassical though.


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## violadude (May 2, 2011)

Truckload said:


> I hope there will be many composers in the future brave enough to write what pleases them and their audiences, even if it is in the "classical era" style or the "romantic style". I am sure it must be difficult for a young (or old) composer to challenge the status quo, but some do.
> 
> When Rachmoninoff was writing, many of the reactionary establishment dismissed him with the same arguments as those used in this thread. The Rhapsody on A Theme of Paganini was written in 1934. Twelve tone atonalism had been around since 1908.
> 
> ...


Yes, however, all the examples you included are pieces that didn't just copy the past, but included at least a few stylistic details relevant to the time they lived in.


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## Truckload (Feb 15, 2012)

clavichorder said:


> I don't know what to think myself anymore. It remains for time to tell whether I'll even be a good enough composer to do anything very cool at all.
> 
> I kind of hope this thread falls back into the bowels of talkclassical though.


It isnt about art music, so if I am breaking the rules by bringing up pop music please forgive me, but do you know the story behind Ricky Nelson's "Garden Party" song? The short short version is that he was booed off the stage at a concert when he started to play some of his newest songs. He was of course very distraught about it, but in response he wrote his greatest hit "Garden Party" about that experience. The message of Garden Party is the most sage advice any artist or potential artist could ever receive "you cant please everyone, so youve got to please yourself."


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## Truckload (Feb 15, 2012)

violadude said:


> Yes, however, all the examples you included are pieces that didn't just copy the past, but included at least a few stylistic details relevant to the time they lived in.


You are absolutely right. Prokofiev "Classical Symphony" paid homage to the traditional forms but he used a modern orchestra and his own melodies and his version of classical harmony. But arent you glad he did!

Most composers are too vain to NOT want to personalize what they write. It takes a healthy ego to write art music and expose yourself to all that negative criticism.


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## clavichorder (May 2, 2011)

Pleasing myself is what I try to clear my mind back to when I get too particular of an idea of what I want to sound like. My teacher tells me that he just started composing by "doing what came to him." I find it difficult not to try make a conscious effort to sound like something, but really, the only time I've ever been able to composer is when I wheedled my way around my consciously imposed restrictions and parameters. I think that those who try to sound "up to date" miss something just as much as those who try to sound historical, and vice versa. So, I have to remind myself just to do what I do.


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## clavichorder (May 2, 2011)

Truckload said:


> Most composers are too vain to NOT want to personalize what they write. It takes a healthy ego to write art music and expose yourself to all that negative criticism.


Boy does it. One of the things that has held me back all these years, is my lack of confidence in myself, my tastes, and lack of resistance to other's opinions. On my less certain days on this forum, I'm saying one thing, being proven wrong, and then saying another thing.


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## violadude (May 2, 2011)

clavichorder said:


> Pleasing myself is what I try to clear my mind back to when I get too particular of an idea of what I want to sound like. My teacher tells me that he just started composing by "doing what came to him." I find it difficult not to try make a conscious effort to sound like something, *but really, the only time I've ever been able to composer is when I wheedled my way around my consciously imposed restrictions and parameters*. I think that those who try to sound "up to date" miss something just as much as those who try to sound historical, and vice versa. So, I have to remind myself just to do what I do.


There's absolutely nothing wrong with that. That's how Stravinsky composed from what I have read.

"The more constraints one imposes, the more one frees one's self. And the arbitrariness of the constraint serves only to obtain precision of execution." -Igor Stravinsky


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## Delicious Manager (Jul 16, 2008)

humanbean said:


> So, basically what I gather from the counter-arguments in this thread is that only composing in the current-day style is appropriate? How is this any less noble than what you call "imitating" from a style 250, or even 600 years ago? Much of modern-day music that is well-accepted among academic circles is "imitation" of post-romantic, or minimalist, or serialist styles established several decades ago. What if someone 200 years from now enjoys minimalist music and feels this is the best vehicle to express their music? They can't do this under your logic because the time period of the style has long past?
> 
> There are many contemporary composers celebrated in this forum that were/are heavily influenced by the styles popular during the periods of Mahler, Shostakovich, Schoenberg etc. Are you saying it's perfectly okay to imitate a style say 100 years ago, but anything beyond that is inappropriate?
> 
> ...


I think you use the pertinent word here - *IMITATION*. There are plenty of composers from ALL periods of musical history who have taken inspiration from and paid homage to styles of the past. However, while I don't see anything wrong with using a past style as a springboard for one's own compositional style, to slavishly IMITATE it is pointless, if not only because the music is likely to be vastly inferior to that written by the great composers of the original period. What, for example, would be the point of writing some mediocre _ersatz_ Mozart or Brahms when the 'real thing' already exists? It would be a little like writing pale imitation Chaucer, Shakespeare. Goethe or Pushkin in the literary style of their time; it would be synthetic, convoluted and irrelevant.

Without one's own personal compositional voice, one is not a composer, but (at best) a talented parodist - a sort of musical parrot. What, pray tell, is the point in that?


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## pjang23 (Oct 8, 2009)

Delicious Manager said:


> I think you use the pertinent word here - *IMITATION*. There are plenty of composers from ALL periods of musical history who have taken inspiration from and paid homage to styles of the past. However, while I don't see anything wrong with using a past style as a springboard for one's own compositional style, to slavishly IMITATE it is pointless, if not only because the music is likely to be vastly inferior to that written by the great composers of the original period. What, for example, would be the point of writing some mediocre _ersatz_ Mozart or Brahms when the 'real thing' already exists? It would be a little like writing pale imitation Chaucer, Shakespeare. Goethe or Pushkin in the literary style of their time; it would be synthetic, convoluted and irrelevant.
> 
> Without one's own personal compositional voice, one is not a composer, but (at best) a talented parodist - a sort of musical parrot. What, pray tell, is the point in that?


I totally agree with your points. The thing is, I don't think anyone actually advocates for slavish imitation. Rather, people who are interested in composers who incorporate the past into their own unique voice sometimes get written off as wanting just slavish imitation.


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## Crudblud (Dec 29, 2011)

Truckload said:


> Most composers are too vain to NOT want to personalize what they write. It takes a healthy ego to write art music and expose yourself to all that negative criticism.


I don't think this is true these days; with the internet it is totally possible to hide yourself from the public while still presenting your own work. I share my music freely through this medium, but in "real life" I try my best to avoid even talking about it, let alone actually sharing it. The anonymity makes it much easier for people like me to share ideas and creations because they have the safety net of knowing that criticism can simply be shut off at any time.


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## clavichorder (May 2, 2011)

Delicious Manager said:


> Without one's own personal compositional voice, one is not a composer, but (at best) a talented parodist - a sort of musical parrot. What, pray tell, is the point in that?


Even in those days, I never meant that I'd do that, though plenty of people accused me of it. That's misinterpretation, sir. I fancied I'd have my own voice that would build off the styles I cited. Anyway, this thread may prove interesting grounds for discussion now, but recognize that the user in question who originally posted this question isn't the same listener he was.


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## humanbean (Mar 5, 2011)

I really do not see any issue with imitation. If a composer is composing something that they enjoy, I say go for it. Despite 20th-century mindset, a composer does not have to be innovative to be good, in my mind.

But I do agree it is great if one decides to combine an old style with modern day music theory, such as Prokofiev's Classical Symphony, as mentioned above, or Bartok's Divertimento or Stravinsky's Dumberton Oaks. Actually, one of my favorite composers, who incorporated this into his music, is Felix Mendelssohn. While his style and form is mostly conservative compared to his contemporaries, he incorporated several aspects of Romanticism as well.


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## Guest (Feb 20, 2012)

humanbean said:


> So, basically what I gather from the counter-arguments in this thread is that only composing in the current-day style is appropriate?


Part of what makes something a "style" is recognition. If you're doing something unprecedented, then it will take a little time for your auditors to recognize the shapes and patterns, enough to identify it as a style.

This is easier to do the older the music. Everybody knows the baroque style, so it's easy to imitate. But the composers of what we now call baroque music weren't looking to the past to imitate medieval or renaissance styles; they were writing new music. And probably didn't notice the similarities between themselves as clearly as we do. If baroque era composers had done as you suggest, we would never have gotten the baroque music we love and that, apparently, some people love to mimic.

Same with any other era.



humanbean said:


> What if someone 200 years from now enjoys minimalist music and feels this is the best vehicle to express their music? They can't do this under your logic because the time period of the style has long past?


Minimalism started around 1960 (or earlier) and is still being done, though the minimalism of 2012 is quite different from that of fifty or sixty years ago. If the time period of a style is long past, two things happen: it's easier to imitate it, because it's familiar, and it's less valuable to imitate it, because the circumstances under which it was originally created no longer apply. Plus other things have happened. It's been hundreds of years since Bach wrote. One could say that he wrote what was current at the time, but it would probably be better to say that what he wrote came to be seen, later, as representative of the time. He did not write, however, to be seen, later, as representative, of course. He just wrote music. How it turned out to sound was the result of all sorts of things--social, personal, religious, political things--none of which pertain any more. If they still did, we'd still be writing baroque music, and Beethoven and Dvorak and Wagner and Stravinsky and so on would never have happened.



humanbean said:


> Furthermore, I find it hypocritical that many of the people making these arguments like the music of the classical era. It's like saying "yeah I enjoy this music, but only if it was made by a composer born several hundred years ago. If a living composer composed something greater than the finale to Mozart's 41 in the same style, then it's complete hogwash and should be ignored. It NEEDS to be designed within the constraints of Minimalism/Post-romanticism/[other popular contemporary style] in order to be accepted." THAT is some ridiculous logic.


Well, as you've stated it, it is ridiculous. But is that what's being said? I don't think so.

One, it's not hypocritical to like music of the classical era but want current composers to be doing something else. We're not in the classical era any more. (Not that Mozart and Haydn _were,_ you know. The term "classical" wasn't coined until 1810 and didn't become associated with a particular era until much later than that. During what we now call the "classical era," people were just writing music--not "classical music." Music.) We want music to be authentic, not a pastiche. Not a reproduction of patterns and shapes without the spirit of the time that informed those patterns and shapes, that made them possible in the first place.

Two, "If a living composer composed something greater than the finale to Mozart's 41 in the same style" is a null set. It's a flat impossibility. Composing something "in the same style" is to do something quite alien to what Mozart did to produce the finale to his 41st symphony. Composing something "in the same style" would do nothing more than mimic the things that we now see as constituting a style but without any of the spirit.

Three. It's 2012. Maybe you don't like 2012. Maybe you think 1812 was better. (Though if your house were in the path of Napoleon's army, you might not like that so much.) Maybe you just don't like the musics of 2012 (and how many of them do you know?). Maybe you prefer the musics of 1812. Well, that's fine. You're a consumer. You can consume whatever you want. Creators are different, at least when they're creating. They may like consuming early music as well. I know several living composers who report as liking Bach best. But they don't write music that sounds anything like that--or anything like Schoenberg or Cage or Glass, for that matter.

Here's some music by someone who adores the music of Bach:

http://www.electrocd.com/en/bio/ferreyra_be/oeuvres/

Click on the play button next to _L'autre rive._


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## clavichorder (May 2, 2011)

some guy said:


> it's *easier* to imitate it, because it's familiar, and it's less valuable to imitate it, because the circumstances under which it was originally created no longer apply.
> 
> Two, "If a living composer composed something greater than the finale to Mozart's 41 in the same style" is a null set. It's a flat *impossibility*. Composing something "in the same style" is to do something quite alien to what Mozart did to produce the finale to his 41st symphony. Composing something "in the same style" would do nothing more than mimic the things that we now see as constituting a style but without any of the spirit.


Those two things contradict each other. So its both easier and impossible?



> How it turned out to sound was the result of all sorts of things--social, personal, religious, political things--none of which pertain any more. If they still did, we'd still be writing baroque music, and Beethoven and Dvorak and Wagner and Stravinsky and so on would never have happened.


There is nothing magically binding musical language to time periods. Music is a craft and a mental process inside the head that I believe, works completely apart from reality, and is not bound to external stimulus apart from other forms of music. You can't say that its bound to be made at a certain time a certain way as though its a scientific fact, that's ********. Stravinsky himself said "music is powerless to express anything at all". I don't know what that means, but I think it has some relevance here.

That being said, its much more satisfying to just create what you want to create, without consciously copying anybody too thoroughly, and its nice to be a part of things going on in the present. People will not be as nice to you and frankly, there is good stuff going on these days.


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## Guest (Feb 20, 2012)

clavichorder said:


> Those two things contradict each other. So its bother(sic) easier and impossible?


No contradiction. It's easier to imitate; impossible to produce. Easier to mimic the characteristic shapes and sounds of a style; impossible to produce them from the inside, as it were.



clavichorder said:


> There is nothing magically binding musical language to time periods. Music is a craft and a mental process inside the head that I believe, works completely apart from reality, and is not bound to external stimulus apart from other forms of music.


History, I think, tells a quite different story. But even the "other forms of music" part would be enough to make my point, which is that you cannot write in a vacuum. Other music has happened. You can't write like Bach, because you also know Beethoven and Dvorak and Wagner and Stravinsky.

And Schoenberg and Cage and the Beatles and U2 and Louis Armstrong as well, perhaps.

In any case, I wasn't talking about magic. But everything that happens has an effect. Political, religious, moral, scientific, literary, social--all those things have gone into making each person, along with all the various genetic information passed along by one's ancestors, along with all the unique and individual experiences that go into making each unique individual. It's not a matter of "external stimulus" so much as it is that everything that goes on goes into making you into you and us into us. The things that went into making Mozart into Mozart no longer apply. If they did, we wouldn't have had anything other than a whole bunch of Mozarts, all making the same kind of music. The things that went into making the 18th century the 18th century no longer apply. If they did, we'd still be wearing wigs and defecating into straw in the corners of our rooms.


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## Truckload (Feb 15, 2012)

clavichorder said:


> There is nothing magically binding musical language to time periods. Music is a craft and a mental process inside the head that I believe, works completely apart from reality, and is not bound to external stimulus apart from other forms of music. You can't say that its bound to be made at a certain time a certain way as though its a scientific fact,


Bravo! Well said. Mozart himself was in no way an innovator. He perfected. What if some billionaire offered a prize of $1,000,000 to the composer who could write a symphony in the style of Mozart? Don't you think that there would be music written just as beautiful, and timeless as Mozart's music?

Mozart wrote for money. He NEEDED to make money. He had a family to feed and house.

Newness for the sake of newness is a dead end street in a bad neighborhood.


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## ComposerOfAvantGarde (Dec 2, 2011)

Truckload said:


> Bravo! Well said. Mozart himself was in no way an innovator. He perfected. What if some billionaire offered a prize of $1,000,000 to the composer who could write a symphony in the style of Mozart? Don't you think that there would be music written just as beautiful, and timeless as Mozart's music?
> 
> Mozart wrote for money. He NEEDED to make money. He had a family to feed and house.
> 
> Newness for the sake of newness is a dead end street in a bad neighborhood.


I'll be up for the challenge!


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## Guest (Feb 21, 2012)

Truckload said:


> What if some billionaire offered a prize of $1,000,000 to the composer who could write a symphony in the style of Mozart? Don't you think that there would be music written just as beautiful, and timeless as Mozart's music?


No.

(That message was too short. It has been lengthened to satisfy the cyber gods. All hail the cyber gods.)


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## clavichorder (May 2, 2011)

Lately I have been composing "pastiche" with great success. Isn't anything wrong with making music that sounds good to you, there's more right than wrong with that notion.


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## Guest (Apr 18, 2012)

You can't be serious. After all this thread, and this is where you've ended up?

Wow.

Anyway, here's a wee quote. I don't know who said it first. I can find out in a bit.

"It is the composer's duty to write music that you do not yet like."


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## clavichorder (May 2, 2011)

Its just like the modern artist who berates the skilled painter for trying to make money on visual art that resembles the classics, when the modern artist probably lacks the technique to paint things as they actually appear anyway.

I'm done some guy, I don't agree with you at all. I think you are the one who is misguided. And what I do does absolutely no harm to the world, everyone I've played my pieces for has liked my compositions, found them interesting and fresh.


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## Delicious Manager (Jul 16, 2008)

clavichorder said:


> Lately I have been composing "pastiche" with great success. Isn't anything wrong with making music that sounds good to you, there's more right than wrong with that notion.


While, of course, there is nothing wrong with this for your own pleasure, don't expect other people to take it too seriously. As I said much earlier in this thread, what is the point of imitating composers from 200-250 years ago who, in all likelihood, said it all (and at a very elevated level) at that time?


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## PetrB (Feb 28, 2012)

clavichorder said:


> I'm curious to hear more of your viewpoint as to why its disrespectful. From my perspective, composers are sometimes too revered these days, and in the baroque period it was simply thought of as a craft, people borrowed ideas from each other all the time.


I think there is a wholesale misunderstanding about 'replicate,' which I think did not at all appear in the OP.

You were talking of course about form and format, not the content.

I think anyone would agree if you are going to write in the form as well as in the style of, say, Mendelssohn, then why bother. but Different things can, appropriately, go into a similar form or format.

As far as the old Sonata-allegro 'Sonata' or Symphony,' well, it does seem that is rather out of fashion altogether at the moment. I won't lament that but two things about it should be said - it is still, one way the other, the springboard for many a very contemporary work, and it is, like the key of C major, not 'over forever.'

Me, I've had enough of it with the old and am not enamored of the idea of a new work in the old format. The idea would have to be appropriate to the format, and, well, I'm quite content with all there is from the early baroque up through the sixties, and later.

No amount of format is going to make the piece itself interesting -- that must come from the content, and the play of ideas, whether built upon sonata allegro floor plans or on some other basis. 
The big deal, whatever old form or procedure you use, it to make and keep the piece fresh, and that is one effing tall order.


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## PetrB (Feb 28, 2012)

LordBlackudder said:


> There are more classical composers now than there was 200 years ago.
> 
> You don't hear their music because they don't have the money to promote themselves.
> 
> ...


Oh please - yes, there are tens of thousands of people who write 'original' and yet very uninteresting music, tonal or otherwise, some of them are arch-conservative, some even directly composing 'a la ______.' You just cannot count them, seriously, as part of the body of contemporary artists anymore than you should count those who failed to come up with much of any real quality, regardless of period style, in art schools.

Film composers are highly skilled, deft and remarkably fast at their craft - some (a lot in my experience) of that music is 'generic' but it servers a purpose and the craft, at the least, is to be admired -- many of them should never be considered 'classical composers' by the very nature of that craft - they are categoric genre-spinners, not 'originators.'


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## PetrB (Feb 28, 2012)

Truckload said:


> Bravo! Well said. Mozart himself was in no way an innovator. He perfected. What if some billionaire offered a prize of $1,000,000 to the composer who could write a symphony in the style of Mozart? Don't you think that there would be music written just as beautiful, and timeless as Mozart's music?
> 
> Mozart wrote for money. He NEEDED to make money. He had a family to feed and house.
> 
> Newness for the sake of newness is a dead end street in a bad neighborhood.


" Mozart himself was in no way an innovator " Interesting take on what is just known to be otherwise.


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## pjang23 (Oct 8, 2009)

some guy said:


> You can't be serious. After all this thread, and this is where you've ended up?
> 
> Wow.
> 
> ...





clavichorder said:


> Its just like the modern artist who berates the skilled painter for trying to make money on visual art that resembles the classics, when the modern artist probably lacks the technique to paint things as they actually appear anyway.
> 
> I'm done some guy, I don't agree with you at all. I think you are the one who is misguided. And what I do does absolutely no harm to the world, everyone I've played my pieces for has liked my compositions, found them interesting and fresh.


Modernists: Telling everyone else how to write their music since 1900.

Write for the people that actually matter in your life, and ignore all those who are enraged that you aren't obsessed with claiming your spot in history or your place in the ultimate pantheon. I commend you for bringing music to those around you and am glad to see someone else who believes that bringing joy or tears to grandma with his own creation is worth more than the approval of the nameless thousands who want to take it all away from you and tell you to stop composing for being disobedient to their own narrow aesthetics.


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## Cnote11 (Jul 17, 2010)

I honestly don't think it has "all been said". Do people not like Stravinsky's neo-classical music on here or something? There isn't any reason a composer can't use any form, any instrument, any sound that they want when composing. There is still great and original music to be made in any style.


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## clavichorder (May 2, 2011)

Delicious Manager said:


> While, of course, there is nothing wrong with this for your own pleasure, don't expect other people to take it too seriously. As I said much earlier in this thread, what is the point of imitating composers from 200-250 years ago who, in all likelihood, said it all (and at a very elevated level) at that time?


I won't expect people like you to take it too seriously at any rate.


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## neoshredder (Nov 7, 2011)

clavichorder said:


> Its just like the modern artist who berates the skilled painter for trying to make money on visual art that resembles the classics, when the modern artist probably lacks the technique to paint things as they actually appear anyway.
> 
> I'm done some guy, I don't agree with you at all. I think you are the one who is misguided. And what I do does absolutely no harm to the world, everyone I've played my pieces for has liked my compositions, found them interesting and fresh.


I'm supportive of your idea. Screw the naysayers. Do your thing.


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## Cnote11 (Jul 17, 2010)

I do understand the idea of pinning a sound to an era. The culture and politics of the time do go into defining art of an era. But nobody complained when Romanesque artwork came about. Nobody cried when Byzantine characteristics were taken up in later art. Nobody whined when the characteristics of Anglo-Saxon art were appropriated into other art later. If I love the sound of the harpsichord and I want to compose in that voice then I damn well will do what I please. The sounds may have come out of a certain situation, but that doesn't mean those sounds are inherent in nature to be defined as that era. We may associate a certain characteristic with a certain culture like the Romans, but until it was conceptualized as being so it wasn't Roman in nature.


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## PetrB (Feb 28, 2012)

clavichorder said:


> There is a book written by Nikolai Metdner that makes a case for tonal music and against atonal music. I have yet to read it, but am considering it very much after this debate.


I'd say save your time: you will find, good arguments, but inconclusive from:

1.) Composers who wrote successful tonal music
2.) Composers who wrote successful atonal music

Point? You're reading a tome from a member of the choir, who successfully wrote Tonal Music. Of course they will argue 'against' atonality.

Reading a tome from a member of the other choir, who successfully wrote Atonal music, will be an argument for atonality, of course.

Really, even the Atonal is 'tonal.' centering around a pitch or interval, and that establishes, in a general sense, tonality. One can even fit in a I - V or I - IV relationship in a serial work, and it will be 'serial' and 'tonal.' Don't let some textbook categories, made distinct for teaching purposes only, make you believe they are hard and fast 'rules' or conventions.

Current composers don't even care to discuss or think about either, but use, quite readily one, the other or both in combination, as their needs suit. I recommend the usual student essays with the restrictions of staying tonal, then staying atonal in another set of pieces, and eventually, between the two, WITHOUT FEELING YOU HAVE TO COMMIT TO ONE OR THE OTHER, you will more and more find the tonal language which best suits you.

Reading about it, from party A or party B, is more a guilty but unproductive intellectual pleasure - something for the older farts who are 'just entertaining' their brain cells, or who like a fun discussion without hoping for a decisive outcome. I don't think, really, with so much else to learn, tend to and practice, there is any benefit in wondering much about the value of each until you have first hand gotten your hand into them, and worked them enough to see what they can and cannot offer -- often you will find both / either without any real limits, but one will do a type of function better than another, again, without adding a 'value' judgement, you will come to your own likes, evaluations and conclusions.

As a young person getting into composing, your other thoughts, writing in the form And Manner of C.P.E. Bach, for example, is a very legitimate exercise - classic training is going through all the old techniques, getting a handle on them, and each of those will teach you more and more how You can make music, in general, work.

I can not imagine many a young composer coming up with a truly fine neoclassical work until they had somewhat fully absorbed the gamut of theory and form which went into classical period music.

The monumental and lovely 'Rake's Progress' by Stravinksy could not have been written by a composer who was not fully conversant with a great deal of the music of the past.... and that neoclassical work is still, today, very very Fresh.

I think people have mistaken your project intent as 'becoming the composer who writes in the style of C.P.E. Bach' as a sort of mission to bring music back to that era and its forms and aesthetics. In which case, the fact C.P.E. Bach wrote all the C.PE. Bach there is worth having, that would be, uh, pointless.

My harmony training involved a fair amount of model writing, an ostinato in the period style of the Baroque, expected to also use the harmonic language of the time; a romantic era song, again, Ditto as to harmony, style -- and more... none of that made me become 'imitative or replicating,' but gave me experience, direct, with further understanding of what may have only been intellectual understanding of the theory.

One student comp, an essay into strict early serial modes (the row was eleven pitches), led to a triptych of songs, sounding 'new' enough -- yet I found they had a very 'Germanic' late-romantic and dark 'expressionist' cast - I think I went with what that language, limited a bit to its first period, did best, and 'where it came from.'

Model writing is of huge benefit. Write your model piece(s) - do not expect the world to beat a path to your doorstep.

There is a sort of musician who is very busy writing near-replicate work 'in some old style or other.' We do not hear of them because there is just not enough interest in a 'product' of which there is already so much excellent music.

The moment that model early classical writing takes a turn to being 'something new' you probably have a neoclassical piece on your hands, something else entirely, and perhaps of general interest to musicians and the public.

I'm more than fond of a lot of 20th century 'neoclassical' though it should more appropriately be called neoBaroque, or in the case of Martinu, often enough using earlier renaissance forms, 'neorenaissance,' lol.

Don't let misconceptions of your intent here keep you, in any way, from essays in model writing: model writing is hugely beneficial, and though an 'exercise' or 'student work' nothing to be at all ashamed of.


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## neoshredder (Nov 7, 2011)

Cnote11 said:


> I do understand the idea of pinning a sound to an era. The culture and politics of the time do go into defining art of an era. But nobody complained when Romanesque artwork came about. Nobody cried when Byzantine characteristics were taken up in later art. Nobody whined when the characteristics of Anglo-Saxon art were appropriated into other art later. If I love the sound of the harpsichord and I want to compose in that voice then I damn well will do what I please. The sounds may have come out of a certain situation, but that doesn't mean those sounds are inherent in nature to be defined as that era. We may associate a certain characteristic with a certain culture like the Romans, but until it was conceptualized as being so it wasn't Roman in nature.


I think he is referring to the song structure of that era. He probably has studied it in depth. But yeah the same instruments of that era would also be used. It's a great era and would love to hear an extension to that era by modern composers.


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## Cnote11 (Jul 17, 2010)

"Atonalism"' is jut another tool in the toolbox, as with everything else. I do not understand the cults that grow up around these camps.


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## Cnote11 (Jul 17, 2010)

neoshredder said:


> I think he is referring to the song structure of that era. He probably has studied it in depth. But yeah the same instruments of that era would also be used. It's a great era and would love to hear an extension to that era by modern composers.


Well, that was a reply to some of the ideas floating around in this thread. As I stated in my previous post, there isn't anything wrong with using forms. The same forms are used in art a lot. The same forms are used in writing. Again, a tool in the box that you can employ to form a composition. I don't see why we should shun any of it.


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## PetrB (Feb 28, 2012)

clavichorder said:


> Its just like the modern artist who berates the skilled painter for trying to make money on visual art that resembles the classics, when the modern artist probably lacks the technique to paint things as they actually appear anyway.


I'm somewhat surrounded by representational painters, all with a more than decent base of classical technique: they can draw, they know color theory and their materials, they can paint. Some of them imbue the work with something akin to 'meaning' - a very few: the majority 'just make pictures' thinking the technique and a chosen subject 'is enough.' It is not. Please make a distinction when you say such things, after all there are composers who are making 'sounds like' good contemporary composers, but who also have absolutely nothing to say, and they too, are technically competent.

There are many people with a full and impressive technique, (after all, that can be learned and acquired with practice) but there are far fewer among those who have anything of interest to say. This is generally the same in contemporary music, classical music performance, visual arts, theater, i.e. the arts across the board, whether authoring or performing.

There are scads of music theoreticians, experts in and about music theory - any of whom could pop off a more than creditable C.P.E. Bach concerto or a piece sounding like ______, or _______, or ______ of any period. Where then, are all the wonderful contemporary works from them, being played by orchestras all the time and embraced by the public?

Do not mistake technique for content, ever.


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## clavichorder (May 2, 2011)

PetrB said:


> Do not mistake technique for content, ever.


I find "content vs. technique" a nebulous and possibly false dichotomy(TC million dollar word). But I'm not going to argue anymore. I enjoy making this kind of music and refuse to take a put down in any way. Music that one enjoys making, that is music with content.


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## neoshredder (Nov 7, 2011)

Btw, If I was a composer, I would try to spend as little time online as possible. Distractions are not good for progress. Haydn probably didn't have much to do other than making music. Lack of entertainment/distractions made this type of writing possible. I do enjoy your posts here but I would enjoy posts about your works more. Keep it going.


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## ComposerOfAvantGarde (Dec 2, 2011)

neoshredder said:


> Btw, If I was a composer, I would try to spend as little time online as possible. Distractions are not good for progress. Haydn probably didn't have much to do other than making music. Lack of entertainment/distractions made this type of writing possible. I do enjoy your posts here but I would enjoy posts about your works more. Keep it going.


Distractions work for _me..._


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## neoshredder (Nov 7, 2011)

I like the idea of composing being your entertainment. Everything else is work and boring. I also like the idea of coming to this board to show what great music you've made. I just think that this day and age, too much entertainment is out there. Hard to focus on whatever goal you have set for yourself.


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## thecritic (Jun 9, 2012)

I am a professional of music and am very dissapointed with the current status of the so called "Classic Contemporary Music" regarding its relationship with the public. Contemporary music is since the very beginning of the 20th, very far from the public.Many people liked Haendel, Beethoven, Liszt and Verdi in their days. Very few people like 20th classic music.

I have done some opinion polls among hundreds of persons, regarding his tastes in music: most 20th century classical compositions, including Stravinsky, Bartok etc, were considered " very ugly and unpleasable", being the Baroque, Classic, and early Romanticism the favourite classic music for these people(amonst which there were some music students and professionals).

Contemporary literature is alive, as it was in 19th, 18th, 17th centuries....but the so called contemporary music, and other 20th musical styles, already far from us like those of Bartok and Stravinsky are not enjoyed by people.

If you compare an adventures book from the 18th -its style, its contents, its language etc.- it differs very little with a contemporary literary publication, enjoyed by the public. Instead...a composition by C.P.E. Bach(although many common people like them) is very far from what an "ortodox" view of modern composition style, which has to be (as common people say) "ugly" , to be considered by the "elite" a decent and acceptable contemporary piece. 

Then: If contemporary literature(and cinema stories) is its main structures so similar to those of past ages, Why couldn´t a modern composer to create, let´s say, a concerto in the 18th or early 19th style? Why not? You are reading many stories and watching many films which could have beed conceived in 1850. You,all, are reading not avant-garde books, nor going to the cinema to see "experimental" films: You are reading stories and watching films which stories may have been written in 1700, or 1800.


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## thecritic (Jun 9, 2012)

Why writers -even good writers- could repeat 16th, 17th, 18th, and 19th centuries structures, and can enjoy the public´s favour while the contemplrary composers should be some kind of not well understood prophet, far for success?


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## PlaySalieri (Jun 3, 2012)

I think literature followed music for a while in the 20th Century - try reading "How it is" by Samuel Beckett. But otherwise you are right - literary novelists - thankfully - hope to sell their books - and write accordingly.
I know a contemporary composer who has had operas performed - his early works sound beautiful - but obviously under the influence of Richard Strauss - ok for his student years - but as he said - he will only succeed with a work and it will only be accepted by producers and get the money for production if it is truly new.


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## thecritic (Jun 9, 2012)

You are right: literature only tried those paths in the first decades of 20th, then it left it. Obviously, the public and the producers are, for the artist, one of the most importants clefs of his work..Aeschylus, Shakespeare and Cervantes wrote for the public, as Monteverdi, Corelli, Haendel, Haydn, Mozart, Beethoven, and Verdi composed -mainly- for the public.


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## thecritic (Jun 9, 2012)

And now...please, remind this argument(using it -together with the literary argument- I get to keep silence and without arguments to some lecturers ridiculizing the posibility of composing not in the style of a composer, but in the style of a period: baroque, classic, romantic): 1- If using a composition style used in the past doesn´t make any sense, please don´t read any more any horror, love, war stories, as it were already cultivated(in its main features as today) many centuries ago. Save your money instead. 2- Renaissance, Baroque(remember the Opera) and Classicism, were no more than periods were all artists tried to imitate the style of the past. However, as imitating 100% is a very difficult task, the Greek-Roman past, could´t be absolutely and exactly as it was in heir original times. Authors trying to imitate, always leave a track, a detail of them, so, Renaissance, Baroque and Classicism, are reputed are the highest splendour art periods, when their artists only tried to imitate. 3. Iy you -contemporary composer who try to create different, and original works, please, don´t compose any more, and enjoy life´s pelasures isntead, as within 100/150 years, if most people think like you, you won´t be appreciated, as you will be an outdated composer.


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## ComposerOfAvantGarde (Dec 2, 2011)

Don't forget that at the premiere of "The Rake's Progress," the audience was shocked that they were hearing something so traditional and "18th century."


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## DeepR (Apr 13, 2012)

I think composers should just compose in whatever style they want.
Music doesn't have to be innovative to be great. If innovation is all that matters, the result can be dreadful music that is only avantgarde for the sake of being avantgarde.
I would love to hear new romantic music in the style of Chopin, Schumann, Rachmaninoff, Scriabin etc... In the end every composer has a unique personal voice. I think it's entirely possible to create something in the romantic style that still sounds fresh enough today. 
Surely innovation isn't the most important aspect of music. People keep listening to the 'old greats' again and again because it is timeless art.


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## ComposerOfAvantGarde (Dec 2, 2011)

DeepR said:


> I think composers should just compose in whatever style they want.
> Music doesn't have to be innovative to be great. If innovation is all that matters, the result can be dreadful music that is only avantgarde for the sake of being avantgarde.
> I would love to hear new romantic music in the style of Chopin, Schumann, Rachmaninoff, Scriabin etc... In the end every composer has a unique personal voice. I think it's entirely possible to create something in the romantic style that still sounds fresh enough today.
> Surely innovation isn't the most important aspect of music. People keep listening to the 'old greats' again and again because it is timeless art.


And not all works by composers such as *Ligeti* are innovative.


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## thecritic (Jun 9, 2012)

Hello, ComposerOfAvantGarde, and DeepR. Your comments are the most wise ones I have read on this forum, regarding this matter. On the one hand, I had forgotten to quote the case of Stravinsky´s The Rake´s Progress, so astoundingly "out of mode", sounding so ancient and traditional, in the 50s!
On the other hand, DeepR has mentioned an important clef: "In the end every composer has a unique personal voice. I think it's entirely possible to create something in the romantic style that still sounds fresh enough today". That is the clef. A composer can create in the style he wants, even mixing styles(Why not?) and his voice, even composing Baroque, won´t sound exactly like Marin Marais´voice, nor Haendel´s etc. So, music in Romantic style can be composed today, sounding totally fresh. In fact, as I said, and as you all know, we, tosay, are writting on forums using ideological and phraseological structures almost simillar to those of a 18th century writer, and reading books showing almost identical phraseological and plot structures than a Greek Theatre work, and we are reading contemporary literature.


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## emiellucifuge (May 26, 2009)

Exactly! Composers should and can write in their own personal way however they like. This is why the works you seem to detest exist, and please stop asking why - as Stockhausen was simply writing how he wanted!


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## violadude (May 2, 2011)

Of course a composer can write in whatever style they want to. If you're a composer and you want to write music in the style of Beethoven and that is what makes you happy than go for it!

But on the other hand, if you are going to write in an older style, you can't expect the larger music community to give you extra recognition. The composers that gain recognition are the ones that either pave new directions in the way of music or build on current trends in a way that progress those trends and that is just how it works.


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## thecritic (Jun 9, 2012)

Emiellucifugue: I don´t want to start again the same discussions. I never said a composer can´t write what he wanted, even when I didn´t like his style. I am, simply, pointing out a reality you can see everywhere: contemporary composers are, more and more, gone away from the general public. Does he want it? All right. Perfect. However, on the other side, I don´t -and many other don´t- admit that a "supposed ellite" could determine what is "orthodox" and what is not. Of course, if they insist, they can opine, but also they have to realize that they are almost alone, if we consider the general panorama of music. Should any famous composer working on traditional styles, and earning millions pay attention to a largely unknown minority?



violadude said:


> Of course a composer can write in whatever style they want to. If you're a composer and you want to write music in the style of Beethoven and that is what makes you happy than go for it!
> 
> But on the other hand, if you are going to write in an older style, you can't expect the larger music community to give you extra recognition. The composers that gain recognition are the ones that either pave new directions in the way of music or build on current trends in a way that progress those trends and that is just how it works.


violadude: Who is "The musical community"? I am afraid it is not a homogeneous group. Do you refer to the "minority elite above mentioned?. Contemporary music, I repeat, is by far, the less heard style today. Do I considere it a reputable and interesting style? Yes, of course. But it not the only style.

And now, please, I would like you answered me a question I have asked in other messages but nobody as answered to:

Were Renaissance and Classicism born while all artists were trying to IMITATE as exactly as possible the Greek-Roman world, but, as imitating exactly and reconstructing 100% a lost culture is impossible, other styles were born?


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## violadude (May 2, 2011)

thecritic said:


> Emiellucifugue: I don´t want to start again the same discussions. I never said a composer can´t write what he wanted, even when I didn´t like his style. I am, simply, pointing out a reality you can see everywhere: contemporary composers are, more and more, gone away from the general public. Does he want it? All right. Perfect. However, on the other side, I don´t -and many other don´t- admit that a "supposed ellite" could determine what is "orthodox" and what is not. Of course, if they insist, they can opine, but also they have to realize that they are almost alone, if we consider the general panorama of music. Should any famous composer working on traditional styles, and earning millions pay attention to a largely unknown minority?
> 
> violadude: Who is "The musical community"? I am afraid it is not a homogeneous group. Do you refer to the "minority elite above mentioned?. Contemporary music, I repeat, is by far, the less heard style today. Do I considere it a reputable and interesting style? Yes, of course. But it not the only style.
> 
> ...


I am referring to the musical community that decides who deserves recognition as a composer. The great performers, the conductors, music composition competitions, the Pulitzer Prize committee. It's not an easy group to pinpoint. Almost every well known musician that I know has only respect for the great composers of the 20th/21st century that you seem to disdain so much.


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## thecritic (Jun 9, 2012)

violadude said:


> I am referring to the musical community that decides who deserves recognition as a composer. The great performers, the conductors, music composition competitions, the Pulitzer Prize committee. It's not an easy group to pinpoint. Almost every well known musician that I know has only respect for the great composers of the 20th/21st century that you seem to disdain so much.


I am not disdaining at all. I have said contemporary music, when it is seriously done is reputable. However, all these official competitions, prizes, etc. are an official, symbolic stablishment, very far from the vast part of the reality.
Where are heard, recorded, performed, those prized works? Yes, I know, there are some special concerts, sometimes, devoted to contemporary music, and sometimes, a few works are recorded, but, these works, rarely are perfprmed at usual concert halls, and even less, anywhere else. And...I suppose you have noticed and important nuance: Monteverdi, Corelli, Bach, Mozart, Meyerbeer, Verdi...All of them lived of their work. Contemporary authors rarely live of their music. That´s a very interesting point.

By the way: I am still awaiting to the responseon the Renaissance, and Classicism question


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## emiellucifuge (May 26, 2009)

Many contemporary composers live off their work! Nearly all the ones I can think of...

There may be up to 10 recordings of Boulez's piano sonatas, and he's still alive. Monteverdi cant claim that 

I really do feel like im repeating myself, and others, but you continue to make the same claims. Throughout history, nearly all the composers wrote for small, elite audiences.


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## thecritic (Jun 9, 2012)

emiellucifuge said:


> Many contemporary composers live off their work! Nearly all the ones I can think of...
> 
> .


Then, please, tell me the secret, as I don´t know any contemporary composer -except very few, very famous- living of their work. The contemporary composrs I know, would appreciate so much your secret.


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## thecritic (Jun 9, 2012)

Also, please, let me know how to get recordings at least of the 80% contemporary works of the last years. Not for me, of course, but for some friends of me, lovers of contemporary music, willing to access easily to recent contemporary music recordings.
Please, let´s concentrate on reality: Exists public for the contemporary music, but EVEN among professionals of music(and I can be sure of that, as I belong to that world), contemporary music is minority. That doesn´t mean you have not to like it. But you have to recognize than among middle classes loving "classic" music(let´s leave aside people with little culture),Bellini was much more successful that Berio. If you don´t see that, I can´t explain it in any other way, as then we are entering the path of beliefs, and beliefs are unmovable.


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## IBMchicago (May 16, 2012)

While I applaud any composer today who attempts to compose in a strictly earlier style (classical and baroque being my favorites), I think the issue may be that those styles have already been perfected by geniuses of those times. Personally, my favorite art forms are of the High Renaissance, but I honestly doubt that anyone today can really eclipse, or even equal, Michelangelo, Raphael and Bramante. In fact, I don't think later artists like Rembrandt, Delacroix, Cezanne and Picasso seem to equal their predecessors, despite their genius and awe-inspiring innovations. Many composers who write in an earlier form may eventually produce works that can potentially rival, say, Salieri or Czerny. But, Mozart, Bach and Beethoven are composers of staggering and extremely rare genius and, for most artists, the only choice is to do something different.

Or, perhaps there is too great an emphasis on innovation and we are no longer interested in perfecting existing art forms.


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## Guest (Jun 11, 2012)

I don't remember if this has come up before in this thread that will not die, nor if it were me who brought it up, but I can't help thinking that a little, just a little, bit of history would not be amiss in this conversation.

One thing is sure, Mozart, Haydn, Gluck, Beethoven, and a host of others writing in the second half of the 18th century did none of them ever write anything in a "classical era style."

It wasn't the classical era then. At the time, it was referred to as "romantic." So one could equally have asked "Where were the 18th century composers interested in classical era styles?"

Another thing, "style" is a word that usually applies after the fact. That is, when things are being done, currently, in the heat of the moment, there's usually no word for it. Too new. (Or the words are pejorative, like that anonymous journalist's "atonal.") It's not a style; it's just writing music. Of course, there are many constraints in any time that limit what's possible. And looking back at it--that is the key that would have made this thread impossible (at least improbable) to even start--we can recognize certain patterns (caused by the constraints) and call those things a "style." People are doing things; there's a zeitgeist; and looking back we recognize things. 

Once they're recognized, they can be imitated. But it can never be anything more than imitation. The constraints peculiar to an era no longer apply. (Each era has its own constraints and its own rare geniuses that can break those constraints. Hence the concept of an "era." A time of certain things, recognizable when we look back at it.) It's not the 18th century any more. We do not have the same circumstances; we do not share the same assumptions; we don't have the same past. (For us, the 18th century is past; for them, it was present. Looks obvious, put like that. But that obvious thing rarely ever informs this kind of conversation.) Because that is true, the kinds of things characteristic of the era, the things we recognize when we look back at it, are no longer creating the circumstances that created the possibilities of that time.

We're in a different time now, with the 18th century as part of our past. If any of us makes a piece of music in the style of the "classical era," we have made pastiche. But the music written in the 18th century was not pastiche. It was just what was done back then, a result of physical and spiritual and ideological and political and moral and artistic realities that were peculiar to that time. None of the physical, spiritual, ideological, political, moral, or artistic realities peculiar to 2012 would ever produce a piece of music that sounded as if it were from the late 18th century. Some of those realities have produced individuals willing to mimic the sounds and patterns of the era. But what produced the genuine 18th century works of art did not include a willingness to mimic the sounds and patterns of an earlier era. That would have been philosophically alien to a "classical" composer.

So that's at least one major difference between Mozart writing what we have come to call "classical" music and a composer in the 21st century writing in "classical era styles." The Mozarts of today are doing just what's being done today--they are named Steen-Andersen and Karkowski and Neumann and so forth. The people today writing pastiche have no 18th century equivalents. (They apparently have some 19th century equivalents, but those people were uniformly scorned. Today, they win Pulitzer prizes.)


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## IBMchicago (May 16, 2012)

emiellucifuge said:


> Throughout history, nearly all the composers wrote for small, elite audiences.


The audience for The Magic Flute wasn't exactly elite. And the audience for Rigoletto may indeed be more elite and refined today than it was at the time of its premiere in Venice.


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## thecritic (Jun 9, 2012)

There is a crucial and decisive point anyone as discussed yet, and -sincerely- I would read your opiniones on that.

It is been said -almost invariably- that a modern composer creating 18th century-like music has not value as it would be an imitation. Well, explain me(all of you, please)that:

Since the 15th century and onwards on the 16th, artists of all artistic branches insisted on re-construct, again, Classic culture in all its manifestations. So, they IMITATED or try to imitate(understand well this word, please "IMITATED") Greek and Roman literature, sculpture, architecture, painting, etc. what happened with music?...At that time anyone knew how(even today, after many fragments are known, nobody knows 100% exactly the way ancient music sounded) was, so the only thing they could do with music is TRY to construct a music as it could have been made in Greece and Rome. So, they did it in Renaissance, and Classicism. This is the way the Opera was born.

What happened with the other arts?...as you know they imitated, or try to consciously imitate as exactly as possible ancient forms and theories. This way followed in Baroque, although her with by overelaborating and cluttering the materials. And them it happened again in 18th Classicism.

Of course, as the circumstances nor the individuals of an era are not the same that those of other eras, it is near impossible to imitate exactly the arts of an era, while these 15th to 18th century tried to imitate the art of an era, it was not exactly he art of that era what they created, as one VERY SIMILAR but also very different. So, my question is:

If a 16th artist could imitate an artist from 1600 years earlier WHY a 21th century artist can´t to not imitate Vivaldi, but RECREATE 18th century? 

I would you give me a detailed answer to my question. But remember that if you censure or don´t agree a 21th century composer imitate or recreate CPE Bach, then you also have to reason out why a 16th artist was allowed to imitated a ancient greek artist. 

Thank you


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## emiellucifuge (May 26, 2009)

One thing ill point out from your post is that the gap between ancient greece and the classical era is gigantic compared to the few hundred years that have passed since. Also, ancient greek music was not recorded at all, so it is doubtable how succesfull any composer could have been in really imitating it.


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## IBMchicago (May 16, 2012)

There is Avner Dorman - a contemporary composer who likes to incorporate classical styles into his music. I'm not familiar with all his works, but this is a fun piano concerto:


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## Petwhac (Jun 9, 2010)

I wonder how many of today's playwrights are using iambic pentameter and rhyming couplets? 

Actually Steven Berkoff very well might -though I don't know what he's written lately.

Classical composers were influenced by the music they were exposed to in their lives. Since today's composers are exposed to music as diverse as... um....everything ever recorded from everywhere on planet Earth since records were kept. It would be odd for a composer to limit themselves to recreating classical era styles except as some form of exercise. That does not mean to say they might not include certain elements or devises or structures of earlier periods.

If a composer wants to write a mock baroque concerto, no one's stopping him/her! This isn't a police state y'know. Whether anyone else could care less about it is another question. I doubt there would be much call for it.


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## Igneous01 (Jan 27, 2011)

I think, as a composer myself, its important to understand these styles and learn there workings. My recent compositional teacher said it is merely "adding more color to your pallete". Your pastiche nocturne may not have acclaim from the academic as a masterful work, but you understand the inner workings of this style. Its knowing and playing around with the various styles that lets you combine and create entirely new styles. 

you are not forced to write atonal or threnody like texture music, you write what you are influenced and add your own twist to it. even tonal music can come out unique, you can use synthetic scales, cluster chords, quarter tones, phasing, endless numbers of techniques to create something that is your own.

Dont think of composing as conforming to some established style, but as understanding a range of styles and techniques and forms, and synthesizing a new sound that you can call your own.


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## Guest (Jun 13, 2012)

In spite of our best efforts, and there have been many of those, I've come to the conclusion that this is simply not a philosophical discussion.

It started out as and has continued to be a plaintive cry by this or that consumer that composers aren't writing any more like they did in the past. "Why can't people keep writing the kind of thing I already know I like?" And of course, there are answers to that question. Just none of them are philosophical. However you try to wrap it up, it keeps being itself: "I just want what I want."

Well, OK. There's plenty of music written in the past to listen to. I doubt that anyone has listened to all of it. Go ahead. Listen to it. Why whinge about people in 2012 not partying like it's 1779?

Ironically, I might add, people today _are_ writing like people in the past did, building on the work of their predecessors and doing new things. Of course, there are people today mimicking the sounds and patterns of past times, too. Something the people in those past times did little if any of--the renaissance composers thecritic is fond of bringing up _could not_ mimic the past like we do, even if they'd wanted to; nobody really knew what Greek music had sounded like. But soft! I'm starting to get philosophical, again, I fear.

No, what the Luddites of this thread really need to hear is this: listen to the music of the past. There's plenty of it available, and more becoming available daily. Don't expect the genuine composers of today to mimic Mozart just because you happen to adore Mozart and can't get enough of him. Or Tchaikovsky. Or Brahms. You will of course continue to feel entitled to whinge every time something "modern" is played on one of your precious symphony concerts, your subscription to which you will threaten to cancel if the management does not cater to your whims. (The last person I heard threatening this was upset that the symphony played Britten's Sea Interludes from _Peter Grimes._ Yep. There's some abrasive avant garde noise for ya! She was genuinely livid, though, and ready to storm into the next symphony board meeting and give 'em a piece of her mind.) Entitled, but rather selfish, don't you think? What of the people who enjoy new music? What, even more, of the people who enjoy both Mozart and Xenakis, and like to hear both of them in the same concert? Those people are chopped liver, right? Only if they come out in their thousands and tens of thousands are their desires deemed valuable. If there's only dozens of them, screw 'em, right? Majority rules!! The minority doesn't matter, because it's the minority.

If that attitude had prevailed in the past, you probably wouldn't even know about Tchaikovsky's stinky violin concerto, would you?


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## thecritic (Jun 9, 2012)

emiellucifuge said:


> One thing ill point out from your post is that the gap between ancient greece and the classical era is gigantic compared to the few hundred years that have passed since. Also, ancient greek music was not recorded at all, so it is doubtable how succesfull any composer could have been in really imitating it.


The gap between ancient classic era and modern classic era is gigantic SPECIALLY IN MUSIC as Renaissance composers didn´t know how ancient music was but they tried hardly to imitate it
However in all other art fields they really imitated Roman an greek poets, architects, painters etc AS EXACTLY AS THEY COULD.

However, if Renaissance is different to Roman art is due to their "inability" to copy imitate exactly, and the fact that they were not the same individuals that created The Parthenon.

This conversation should be philosophical or simply it couldn´t be carried out. And I see that you all are very close, only to music, but rarely compare it with the history of other arts, which shows very difficult questions to you as this "mimic" aspect of the Renaissance, Baroque, and Classicism. Please: compare any 16th and 17th poet with a Latin poet and you will see what I am saying.

The compulsion for creating new and original art was born in Romanticism. Nor Palestrina, neither Bach were interested in creating more and more original works once they learned the main techniques of a proffesional composer status: their works were becoming more mature, but Bach was not absolutely interested at all in compossing a classic symphony. For you(and for me)Bach a one of the most sublime composers, but for most of his contemporaries --and the elite of the avant garde of his time--he was only an old fashioned composer, until Romanticism turned him into a legend.

It is evident that nor I will convince you neither you will convince me. But nobody can say that what I have said is not historically true.

Now, consider some aspects:

You can compose and listen to whatever style you want. I can compose and listening to whatever style I want, but both, you and me, are speaking of past: Baroque style, Sturm Frand style, Romanticism etc. are past. 
But also whatever contemporary style similar, or based or related in any way to atonality, serialism, Bartok´s and Stravinsky´s heterogeneous languages...is similarly past: many decades have passed since these styles were created(not having been majority styles never).

We are all speaking in one or another way of past, as it is also evident that -although it is not "good music" at least in the way that we, people learned in music consider music- contemporary music, the music which will come to the mind that a future human thinking of our era, is not any "contemporary composer", but(and I hate to say that, as I don´t like them): Madonna, Justin Bieber, Rihanna, Ricky Martin, Bruce Sprinsgteen, U2, etc. etc.

Anyone doubts it?


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## thecritic (Jun 9, 2012)

I meant "Sturm un Drang"


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## thecritic (Jun 9, 2012)

I am ammeding some mistakes I made while writting. I meant: "We are all speaking in one or another way of past, as it is also evident that -although it is not "good music" at least in the way that we, people learned in music consider it- contemporary music, the music which will come to the mind of any future human while thinking of our era, is not any "contemporary composer´s work", but(and I hate to say that, as I don´t like them):Beattles, Rolling Stones, Madonna, Justin Bieber, Rihanna, Ricky Martin, Bruce Sprinsgteen, U2, etc. etc.


Anyone doubts it?


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## Rapide (Oct 11, 2011)

I enjoy the music of Boulez for example but I would not want him to write a Classical symphony in the style of Haydn because Boulez is probably not as talented as Haydn as a composer but that is an irrelevant comparison. I also think Haydn will probably be a "giant" composer for future listeners compared with Boules but so what? Let's just enjoy Boulez's music (as an example). If you love Haydn, then enjoy his.


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## science (Oct 14, 2010)

I want to resurrect this old thread because the issues are still interesting and I sort of want to celebrate the people (both the OP and others) who made it so good!


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## clavichorder (May 2, 2011)

science said:


> I want to resurrect this old thread because the issues are still interesting and I sort of want to celebrate the people (both the OP and others) who made it so good!


I didn't appreciate the EXTENT of what I was getting into when I made this thread! I think this was among the first I made too...if not the first.


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## helenora (Sep 13, 2015)

thecritic said:


> I am ammeding some mistakes I made while writting. I meant: "We are all speaking in one or another way of past, as it is also evident that -although it is not "good music" at least in the way that we, people learned in music consider it- contemporary music, the music which will come to the mind of any future human while thinking of our era, is not any "contemporary composer´s work", but(and I hate to say that, as I don´t like them):Beattles, Rolling Stones, Madonna, Justin Bieber, Rihanna, Ricky Martin, Bruce Sprinsgteen, U2, etc. etc.
> 
> Anyone doubts it?


hm....good thread indeed. and I miss thecritic 

I entirely agree with you thecritic. This time/era we are living in will be remembered - I hate to admit it- as era of those whom you mentioned,pseudo-artists (sorry to say that). ... again majority rules .....and here we should remember that:"Whenever you find yourself on the side of the majority, it is time to pause and reflect."


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## Epilogue (Sep 20, 2015)

Yeah, but you're always going to be in _some_ majority, and usually the smaller the group of which you are the majority, the worse that group is.

As for calling the Beatles and the Rolling Stones "pseudo-artists" - well, see Brahms on Bülow on Verdi.


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## helenora (Sep 13, 2015)

Appendix said:


> Yeah, but you're always going to be in _some_ majority, and usually the smaller the group of which you are the majority, the worse that group is.
> 
> As for calling the Beatles and the Rolling Stones "pseudo-artists" - well, see Brahms on Bülow on Verdi.


I'm just happy enough not to be in a group of beatles, neither stones (or whatever other group of the same kind), neither among their supporters regardless if they are called minorities or majorities :lol:


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