# Modernity Test: Living to Dead Composer Ratio



## Argus (Oct 16, 2009)

What is the ratio of living to dead composers in your collection (in terms of number of albums). Strictly classical to keep things simple.

I'm exactly 50:50. I have 10 CD's of living and 10 of dead.

If you're one of those people with thousands of classical albums in your collection, just give a rough estimate.

People with an overwhelming bias towards the dead will be told to 'get with the times, man'.


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## Aramis (Mar 1, 2009)

CDs? That saves me from big trouble since I have only few real, original classical CDs. Let me see...

Sorry, not even one living composer's CD among them. Most "recent" is Apolinary Szeluto who died in 1966. Eventually John Coltrane, if we would count jazz.


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## notesetter (Mar 31, 2011)

No living composers. The most recent, Dimitri Shostakovich (d. 1975)


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## Argus (Oct 16, 2009)

Aramis said:


> Eventually John Coltrane, if we would count jazz.


Strictly classical, otherwise I'd have to do a lot more math.

I'm surprised you haven't got any Penderecki or Gorecki, the most famous living Polish composers.



> CDs?


As well as vinyl for the old codgers, cassette for the middle-aged codgers and minidisc for the young codgers. 4-track and wax cylinders for Robinson Crusoe types too.



notesetter said:


> No living composers. The most recent, Dimitri Shostakovich (d. 1975)


Tell me, why do _you_ hate the modern composer?


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## Aramis (Mar 1, 2009)

Argus said:


> I'm surprised you haven't got any Penderecki or Gorecki, the most famous living Polish composers.


I have them in less moral part of my collection.


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## Huilunsoittaja (Apr 6, 2010)

I love dead people.

But if you're talking about artists, definitely more than half are still alive, I don't buy many old recordings of music.


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## Manxfeeder (Oct 19, 2010)

Oh, shucks, I'm in for a "get with the times." My collection goes all the way back to music from the year 300, so naturally there are more composers under the ground than above. Although I wish they would have stayed around longer.

So I'd have to say 95:5. Of the 5, the number gets smaller if you factor in how many_ look_ like they're dead.


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## regressivetransphobe (May 16, 2011)

The dead people outweigh the living ones to an embarrassing degree because there are just so many of them. What's up with composers, always dying?


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## Huilunsoittaja (Apr 6, 2010)

regressivetransphobe said:


> What's up with composers, always dying?


This life is a mortal one. We all vanish like smoke...

And yet, they still live on in their music. It's a fascinating idea. The music is always bigger than the composer.


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## Timotheus (Jun 30, 2011)

Argus said:


> What is the ratio of living to dead composers in your collection (in terms of number of albums). Strictly classical to keep things simple.
> 
> I'm exactly 50:50. I have 10 CD's of living and 10 of dead.
> 
> ...


What do you think "classical" means?


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## emiellucifuge (May 26, 2009)

Argus said:


> I'm surprised you haven't got any Penderecki or Gorecki, the most famous living Polish composers.


*Gorecki is dead.* A similar fate is suffered by most in my collection - the majority composers I listen to that I would consider 'modern' died recently.
I have maybe 30 CDs of living composers: Penderecki, Zwilich, Boulez, Adés, Glass. This is a negligible proportion of the total.


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## Argus (Oct 16, 2009)

Huilunsoittaja said:


> I love dead people.


You love dead Russians, to be precise.



regressivetransphobe said:


> The dead people outweigh the living ones to an embarrassing degree because there are just so many of them. What's up with composers, always dying?


Are you sure about that? Due to increase in population, access to musical education amongst all classes, and the relative ease of creating and distributing music nowadays, I reckon there are probably more composers* alive today than in the last 1000 years prior to 1900 combined.

*The only problem with this theory is the decrease in the popularity of 'classical', meaning these musicians may be creating other kinds of music and can't be called composers.



Manxfeeder said:


> So I'd have to say 95:5. Of the 5, the number gets smaller if you factor in how many look like they're dead.


Yeah, most of my living composers won't be in that category for too much longer sadly. Classical seems to be an old mans game.


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## Argus (Oct 16, 2009)

Timotheus said:


> What do you think "classical" means?


Led Zeppelin and The Beatles. Possibly, Stevie Nicks era Fleetwood Mac. Everything else is jazz and acid house.


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## Couchie (Dec 9, 2010)

100% of my collection is living composers, even though some date back hundreds of years - they live on in my heart.


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## mmsbls (Mar 6, 2011)

My best estimate is 100:1 for dead composers. It may be the case that there are roughly as many living classical composers as dead ones (say from 1500 on), but a large percentage of those living composers do not have CDs or readily available CDs. Probably a much better question is what percentage of classical CDs available are from dead composers. I don't know the answer, but I assume the vast majority are dead composer CDs. My collection is nevertheless heavily weighted toward dead composers. 

Another question one can ask is what percentage of classical music you listen to comes from living composers? That's harder to answer, but I suspect my listening ratio may be close to the ratio of readily available CDs.


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## Huilunsoittaja (Apr 6, 2010)

Argus said:


> You love dead Russians, to be precise.


As well as many French, English, and Americans, and some Italian, German, Eastern Europe.

What about soundtracks? I love those, especially ones from the Lord of the Rings, and Bourne Trilogy. That's the part of my collection that weighs against the innumerable dead people.


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## Sofronitsky (Jun 12, 2011)

9:0

I'm poor.


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## Meaghan (Jul 31, 2010)

Maybe 10:1, in favor of the dead guys (and gals).


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## Sid James (Feb 7, 2009)

About 5 per cent (give or take) living, the rest dead.

The better known ones who are alive & I have on disc (or whose music I have at least experienced live in concert in some depth) that immediately come to mind now - Sculthorpe, Arvo Part, Penderecki, Crumb, Golijov, Dutilleux, Richard Mills, Ross Edwards, Brett Dean, Thomas Ades, Adams, Reich, Glass, Carter, Gubaidulina, Barry Conyngham, Boulez, Graham Hair, Carl Vine.

Recently departed (last decade or so) - Xenakis, Stockhausen, Richard Meale, Ligeti, Gorecki.

@ Huilunsoittaja - film music is also an area I'm getting into lately, & yes, many of them are currently "alive & kicking" & very active. It may well be that the only "living" medium in classical music outside the rarified air of the concert halls is that found on celluloid...


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## Art Rock (Nov 28, 2009)

Argus said:


> If you're one of those people with thousands of classical albums in your collection, just give a rough estimate.


OK. 95% dead as a rough estimate. Nevertheless, dozens of living composers in my collection.


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## Conor71 (Feb 19, 2009)

Hmmm.. not many living Composers in my Classical Collection - I can probably name them all: Arvo Part, Steve Reich, John Adams, Philip Glass... Thats about it so probably about 99:1


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## Guest (Jul 10, 2011)

I feel like finessing this question, too.

I have a lot of music by composers who are dead. A lot a lot.

I have a lot of music by composers who were alive when I was buying their LPs and then their CDs.

I have a lot of music by composers who are alive.

More to the point, I think, are my buying percentages. Around 1972, my buying percentage began to change from probably 97% dead to maybe 70% dead by 1982 and steadily changing until today it is probably 97+% living.

Of course, the label "classical" has meant less and less to me over the years, too, until now it means very little at all. I don't buy anything that could possibly be called pop. Indeed, there's a word for that already, and it is indeed "non pop."


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## jurianbai (Nov 23, 2008)

many of 200 years old dead, some of 50 years old dead and couple of yet to die (Tan Dun for example).


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## Nicola (Nov 25, 2007)

Argus said:


> I'm exactly 50:50. I have 10 CD's of living and 10 of dead.


Is that all you've got?

I lose more than that each week through evaporation.

You seem to have an awful lot to say on the subject of classical music when you've hardly got any.


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## jaimsilva (Jun 1, 2011)

Maybe 97% are dead (rough estimate). Anyway I have dozens of living composers in my collection.


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## Aksel (Dec 3, 2010)

I have embarrassingly few living composers in my collection. I think I've only 3 CDs (two with Adés and one with Boulez), which would make for a ratio of about 100:1.


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## elgar's ghost (Aug 8, 2010)

Ades, Adams, Birtwistle, Boulez, Crumb, Ferrero, Glass, Goehr, Gubaidulina.... I thought I'd be stopping before here so obviously more than I thought - still probably accounts for less than 20% of the living/dead ratio but converted into total CD's I bet it's far less than 5%. I'd say the most CDs I have of a living composer is the Reich Works box (10).


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## Argus (Oct 16, 2009)

some guy said:


> Of course, the label "classical" has meant less and less to me over the years, too, until now it means very little at all. I don't buy anything that could possibly be called pop. Indeed, there's a word for that already, and it is indeed "non pop."


I limited the question to classical for two reasons. Obviously, this is a classical forum for one, and because it's hard to judge whether a band is dead or alive. For example, I've got a couple Joy Division albums. Now, Ian Curtis is dead and Joy Division became New Order but 3/4 of the members of JD are alive. I wouldn't know how to classify this. With classical it's all created by a single person who can only be alive or dead. Simples.



Nicola said:


> Is that all you've got?
> 
> I lose more than that each week through evaporation.
> 
> You seem to have an awful lot to say on the subject of classical music when you've hardly got any.


I listen to lots of music but I only spend money on CD's for stuff I really like, or if they are at an absolute steal of a price. The last classical CD I bought was Glass' SQ's by the Carducci Quartet, not because I wanted it (I was after the Kronos Quartet cycle), but because it was on sale for £2.

Owning a CD I see as more a physical reminder/embodiment of artists I really like or as a means to support the artist. The CD in itself is not important, it's the act of listening to the music that holds the pleasure, and I listen to plenty of music without owning the CD's.


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## violadude (May 2, 2011)

My Itunes library is about 15-25% living composers.


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## emiellucifuge (May 26, 2009)

Argus may I ask how you listen?


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## Argus (Oct 16, 2009)

emiellucifuge said:


> Argus may I ask how you listen?


Usually with my ears. Usually.


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## emiellucifuge (May 26, 2009)

...

How do you acquire the data needed by your sound system to produce the music you listen to?


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## Delicious Manager (Jul 16, 2008)

Because I have been listening to and collecting classical music for over 40 years now, I have the slightly odd situation where I started collecting certain composers' music when they were still alive, but they have since died. Among these would be:

William Alwyn
Malcolm Arnold
Barber
Berio
Leonard Bernstein
Bliss
Havergal Brian
Britten
John Cage
Copland
Denisov
David Diamond
Górecki
Holmboe
Lutosławski
Messiaen
Petrassi
Rawsthorne
Rubbra
Schnittke
William Schuman
Shostakovich
Robert Simpson
Stravinsky
Tishchenko
Walton

Luckily, there are still a great many CDs on my shelves by composers who are still very much alive.


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## StlukesguildOhio (Dec 25, 2006)

Considering the fact that only so many composers at any given time might be of real merit or interest, the dead have a major advantage of a far greater time-span in which they have created. Still, from a visual perusal I'd say that the living or only recently deceased account for somewhere around 15% of my collection... this would rise to 30% or even 40% if I also counted jazz and other music forms.


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## jurianbai (Nov 23, 2008)

I just learn that Josef Suk passed away week ago. http://www.guardian.co.uk/music/2011/jul/08/josef-suk-obituary

my best CD with him happen to be :









so yeah... that's how I am on topic, I added the ratio to R.I.P. composer/violinist.


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## Fsharpmajor (Dec 14, 2008)

I have a catalogue of all my CDs, so I can answer the question precisely. Having corrected for the death of Gorecki, which I didn't know about (did nobody post a tribute thread?), I have 76 CDs by living composers out of a total of 869.

That works out to 8.75%. Most of it is contemporary orchestral music, with some minimalism, and some avant-garde by composers who are getting on in years but still alive thanks to good genes, such as Elliott Carter.


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## ArtsongLind (Jul 12, 2011)

regressivetransphobe said:


> What's up with composers, always dying?


not dead...decomposing


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## science (Oct 14, 2010)

If this were the 1500s, I could understand a 50:50 ratio. Or perhaps if this were a hip-hop discussion forum. 

I'll guess mine is 50:1. 

In order to get it close to 1:1, I'd have to buy a thousand CDs of living composers, and as that project went along some guys would die, and I just wouldn't be able to keep up.


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## Llyranor (Dec 20, 2010)

I don't have a single living composer's CD :/


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## Guest (Jul 16, 2011)

If this were the 1700s, the ratio of living to dead (in concerts) would be 89:11. At least that's what it was in Leipzig in 1782.

In 1830, generally, it was 50:50, though in Vienna it was 26:84. In the 1860s and 70s, it varied between 31:69 and 6:94 (in Paris). Some subscribers in Paris complained if they saw any contemporary composer on the program. You know, Brahms, Wagner, Saint-Saens, Dvorak, Grieg, people like that. 

There's some perspective there for the 0:100 and 1:100 folks here. (And a commentary on one of the results of recording technology--recordings make it easier and easier for people to ignore the music making of their contemporaries, to live (as it were) in the perennial past (at least musically).*

*I doubt that anyone would want to wear wigs and stays and ride around in horse-drawn carriages and pee onto hay in the corners of rooms and deal with cholera and the like....


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## mmsbls (Mar 6, 2011)

some guy said:


> There's some perspective there for the 0:100 and 1:100 folks here. (And a commentary on one of the results of recording technology--recordings make it easier and easier for people to ignore the music making of their contemporaries, to live (as it were) in the perennial past (at least musically).*
> 
> *I doubt that anyone would want to wear wigs and stays and ride around in horse-drawn carriages and pee onto hay in the corners of rooms and deal with cholera and the like....


I think you're rather mistaken about some classical music listeners living in the perennial past musically. In fact we're all very much in the present. Newton's Principia (which describes his laws of motion) was written in 1687. These laws are used thousands of times a day by scientists and engineers when they design buildings, bridges, and cars. They're not living in the past scientifically. Newton's laws are just as true today as they were in 1687.

Mozart's 41st symphony is just as beautiful and compelling today as it was in 1788. We're not living in the past when we listen to his symphony. We're experiencing beautiful music in the present.

Incidentally to make the analogy just a bit closer. In 1915 Einstein discovered General Relativity which is a more precise description of the laws of motion. Scientists use General Relativity much less often than Newton's laws. "Contemporary" theoretical physicists work on String Theory which may replace General Relativity as the most precise description of motion. Scientists almost never use String Theory in calculations. There are physical reasons why Newton's Laws are much more "popular" then the other theories. There are also reasons why most of us have much more music of dead composers compared to living ones, but the reasons do not include that we are living in the musical past.


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## kv466 (May 18, 2011)

Dude...you only have twenty cd's???


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## Argus (Oct 16, 2009)

some guy said:


> There's some perspective there for the 0:100 and 1:100 folks here. (And a commentary on one of the results of recording technology--recordings make it easier and easier for people to ignore the music making of their contemporaries, to live (as it were) in the perennial past (at least musically).


I think it's fine for the people who are listeners of classical music to listen to what they want and like, but some of guys here are musicians/composers. How can they hope to create original or fresh sounding music if they don't keep abreast with their contemporaries?



kv466 said:


> Dude...you only have twenty cd's???


Nah, I have about 200 CD's, it's just that only 20 of them are classical. Still nowhere near as many as some people.


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## HarpsichordConcerto (Jan 1, 2010)

mmsbls said:


> ... There are also reasons why most of us have much more music of dead composers compared to living ones, but the reasons do not include that we are living in the musical past.


Indeed. Fact is the vast majority of listeners have chosen to listen to music that _happened to be composed in the past_, but the relevance of the music remains strikingly alive today, so in that sense, the music of the past is obviously very much alive today. If Mozart and Bach were alive today, then I would obviously have a lot of CDs that _happen to be of music composed today_. Therefore, when the piece was composed - modern or ancient - is largely irrelevant. Frankly, it's rather juvenile to presume that there is anything inherently special to say one listens to large amounts of music that happens to be composed today, or from that of the past for that matter. The quality of the music speaks for itself.


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## Guest (Jul 16, 2011)

HarpsichordConcerto said:


> the vast majority of listeners have chosen to listen to music that _happened to be composed in the past_


Hahaha! This gets the Some Guy Award for Most Disingenuous Comment Ever. Congratulations.:tiphat:

Plus, it includes the fallacious number thing we've talked about so much before--the vast majority of people listen to the music of today that has been categorized as "pop."

The vast majority of _classical_ listeners, to anticipate that objection, is such a tiny majority, that there should be another award for using the word "vast" about such a small audience.

No, it's pretty simple. Some people like new (non-pop) music. Some don't. The ones who do like it like to talk about it (in common with all people everywhere liking to talk about what they like). The ones who don't don't even like other people talking about it and try to come up with all sorts of reasons why no one can possibly like it, claiming that the people who report as liking it are deluded or faking it to be cool or some such silliness. The music itself, of course, is also objectively bad, as science(!) has shown.

Well, whatever helps you sleep at night, I guess....


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## Sid James (Feb 7, 2009)

HarpsichordConcerto said:


> Indeed. Fact is the vast majority of listeners have chosen to listen to music that _happened to be composed in the past_, but the relevance of the music remains strikingly alive today, so in that sense, the music of the past is obviously very much alive today...*Therefore, when the piece was composed - modern or ancient - is largely irrelevant*. Frankly, it's rather juvenile to presume that there is anything inherently special to say one listens to large amounts of music that happens to be composed today, or from that of the past for that matter. The quality of the music speaks for itself.


I agree with the gist of your comments, esp. the part I have put in bold. I think that some classical listeners - & probably listeners to other sorts of musics - get a bit too fixated on supposed differences between so-called "styles" "eras" "genres" "techniques" - all these kinds of things. The more I listen to different types of musics, these things (as you suggest) are becoming largely irrelevant. The barriers between these are often just in the minds of fans, they are not issues connected to reality, at least not in a strict "black & white" sense. There are many "grey areas" & ambiguities in music, just as there are in life in general. Eg. Gesualdo was composing using chromatic harmonies/tonalities around 1600, these largely lay dormant for about two centuries, until Beethoven came back to them in his late string quartets, then Liszt also employed them in things like his two symphonies, then Richard Strauss really got this technique going in his tone poems, then Schoenberg in his _Transfigured Night_, which lead to other things in the c20th as we all know. So, does this make Gesualdo a "Romantic" like Liszt, or a "Late Romantic" like R. Strauss or the early Schoenberg? Or, in reverse, does it make these later composers part of the "Renaissance" niche as Gesualdo is labelled as? All of these things are exactly that, they're just labels, boxes, stereotypes into which we pigeon-hole these different composers with all their unique works of art.

I personally avoid these rubbery labels & just concentrate on the actual music, which (as you and others have said above) remains just as relevant in so many ways, at so many levels to us as they did when they were freshly penned. Works like Handel's oratorio _Messiah_ & Lehar's operetta _The Merry Widow_ have in common the fact that both these works over the years have been performed all over the world, by non-professional, semi-professional and professional companies/groups/musicians alike. Both were quite innovative, in terms of Handel establishing (or at least on a large scale) the choral societies that have remained as one of the cornerstones of the UK musical world to this day, & many UK composers like Michael Tippett in the c20th actually modelled their works on the ideas set down by Handel (eg. Tippett's oratorio _A Child of our Time_ could not have been written without Handel's masterpiece in mind). & in terms of guys like Lehar leading to things like operetta being exported to the USA by European emigre composers who basically kicked off musical theatre there, a related "genre." So, there you go. Better to think of the commonalities between these things rather than the differences, no??? (& this is why I - & quite a few music lovers I know - can access & enjoy a very wide variety of music, from early Byzantine chants right through to electro-acoustic music composed now & premiered at concerts I attend from time to time - it's all good)...


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## waldvogel (Jul 10, 2011)

Every time I've bought LP's or CD's of a living composer, wouldn't you know it, the guy goes out and dies! OK, Stravinsky was 88 years old when I bought my first copy of "The Rite of Spring", but that hardly explains the relatively early deaths of Barber, Britten, Bernstein - and that's just among the B's. Joaquin Rodrigo (1999) might be my most recent fatality. 

It's not that I have a case against modern music - but when I began to replace LP's with CD's starting in the late 1980's, I had subtly moved my collection's core from the years 1780-1950 to 1720-1920. I now listen to the music of living composers live, in concert, where I get to hear the piece for exactly one time. Just like people did from 1720 to 1920...


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## Sid James (Feb 7, 2009)

waldvogel said:


> ...I now listen to the music of living composers live, in concert, where I get to hear the piece for exactly one time...


That's what I tend to do as well...


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## Chris (Jun 1, 2010)

I think I have just 4 CDs by living composers; Rautavaara (1), Penderecki (2) and John McCabe (1); this gives me a dead:living ratio of about 60:1


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## Vazgen (May 24, 2011)

mmsbls said:


> Newton's laws are just as true today as they were in 1687.
> 
> Mozart's 41st symphony is just as beautiful and compelling today as it was in 1788...
> 
> There are physical reasons why Newton's Laws are much more "popular" then the other theories. There are also reasons why most of us have much more music of dead composers compared to living ones, but the reasons do not include that we are living in the musical past.


Worst. Analogy. Ever.

Honestly, trying to rationalize one's hatred or mistrust of contemporary music by invoking outmoded scientific thinking is futile and insulting. If that was your intention, I apologize for the misunderstanding.

-Vaz


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## mmsbls (Mar 6, 2011)

Vazgen said:


> Worst. Analogy. Ever.
> 
> Honestly, trying to rationalize one's hatred or mistrust of contemporary music by invoking outmoded scientific thinking is futile and insulting. If that was your intention, I apologize for the misunderstanding.
> 
> -Vaz


I'm not sure I understand your comment, and I think it's possible you did not understand mine. I assume you meant "If that was *not* your intention, I apologize for the misunderstanding."

It's true that I don't enjoy much modern music, but I consider that very unfortunate. I love classical music, but for whatever reason, I do not enjoy a significant amount of music of the past 80 years or so. I would love to change that so I would have so many new and wonderful works to explore. I certainly don't hate modern or contemporary music. Personally I assume that many of the greatest composers have composed in the past 100 years (and will continue to do so), but so far I have not appreciated them. That's a shame for me, and I am currently trying to change that.

I don't know what you might mean by mistrusting music.

I'm also not sure what you meant by "invoking outmoded scientific thinking." if you meant Newton's Laws, they are absolutely not outmoded thinking. My point was that scientists today consider them incredibly valuable, use them quite often, and view them as true. Both Newton's laws and Mozart's music were discovered/created a long time ago but are just as "valuable" today. I actually think it's a good analogy.

I know you get frustrated and annoyed when people here dismiss or demean modern music. I understand that, and you probably feel you should not have to continually defend something that should not need to be defended. I'm sure there are people here who are not open to modern/contemporary music. But there are others who are open but who just don't "get" it yet. I may seem to you as though I'm often arguing against the value or beauty of modern music, but actually I'm trying to understand a way to find that value and beauty.


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## Sid James (Feb 7, 2009)

mmsbls said:


> ...I may seem to you as though I'm often arguing against the value or beauty of modern music, but actually I'm trying to understand a way to find that value and beauty.


I think it's this kind of positive attitude that matters & what you say applies to all musics (& everything of potential "value & beauty" as you say), not just modern/contemporary things. & BTW, I do like the newer musics, but I have been going back to older things in the past year or two, & I think that an understanding/appreciation for one can lead to the same of the other. I don't really distinguish between the different "eras" (that's my "hobby horse!"). New or old, in the end, they're both just two sides of the same coin, imo...


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## Vazgen (May 24, 2011)

mmsbls said:


> I'm also not sure what you meant by "invoking outmoded scientific thinking." if you meant Newton's Laws, they are absolutely not outmoded thinking. My point was that scientists today consider them incredibly valuable, use them quite often, and view them as true. Both Newton's laws and Mozart's music were discovered/created a long time ago but are just as "valuable" today. I actually think it's a good analogy.


Maybe it's a better analogy than I initially gave it credit for.

Newton's mechanics, in case you didn't know, are obsolete because we now realize that objects assert a gravitational pull on other objects. Just because that pull is usually too small to make a difference in a high school lab doesn't mean that Newton's mechanics are still anything more than yesterday's best guess.

And maybe that's a great analogy for two-hundred-year old music that listeners still think is the ultimate in artistic achievement. The less that people keep up with contemporary developments, the easier it is for them to believe they're not missing anything.

-Vaz


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## Sid James (Feb 7, 2009)

Vazgen said:


> ...The less that people keep up with contemporary developments, the easier it is for them to believe they're not missing anything...


I agree with this, but only regarding people who "rubbish" or "put down" the newer things. I don't mind, on the other hand, people who just say the more contemporary music is not for them. If they're not being negative or not making rash judgements of things they don't know, then that's fine by me. It's ok if people's tastes are fixed to the older musics, what they listen to is really their business. But I personally don't believe in setting up "false dichotomies" between the so-called different eras, styles, conservatives/radicals, all this meaningless cr*p cliched stuff. If I can "connect" with music on some level, whatever it is, then these things mean absolutely nothing...


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## mmsbls (Mar 6, 2011)

Vazgen said:


> And maybe that's a great analogy for two-hundred-year old music that listeners still think is the ultimate in artistic achievement. The less that people keep up with contemporary developments, the easier it is for them to believe they're not missing anything.


I agree completely with the last sentence. It's obvious that significant numbers of classical music listeners love some to much modern classical music. That's why I know (and have repeatedly stated) that I _am_ missing something.

Since Shakespeare's plays were written about 400 years ago, would you say that those who feel he is one of the greatest writers of all time are simply living in the past or not keeping up with the times?



Vazgen said:


> Newton's mechanics, in case you didn't know, are obsolete because we now realize that objects assert a gravitational pull on other objects. Just because that pull is usually too small to make a difference in a high school lab doesn't mean that Newton's mechanics are still anything more than yesterday's best guess.


I'm not quite sure how to respond to this section. I would be rather shocked to learn that Newton's mechanics are obsolete since the models I use to evaluate vehicle technology are strongly based on his mechanics (specifically the second law: *F* = m*a*). Engineers around the world would be shocked as well since they routinely incorporate his laws in almost every mechanical analysis they do. University physicists would be stunned since every first year physics class spends significant time on Newton's mechanics. Check out any textbook.

It was actually Newton who discovered that objects exert a gravitational pull on other objects. In the Principia he included both his mechanics (laws) and the Law of Universal Gravitation.

For a physicist, the thought that perhaps the most widely used and tested physics _theory_ ever was simply a "best guess" is, to say the least, difficult to imagine.

Obviously I choose the wrong analogy since it was not clear to you what I meant. I'm sorry that you felt insulted, but perhaps now you may realize that I was simply trying to make my view of older music clear. I think we disagree on the "value" of older music, but I think we both agree on the "value" of modern music.


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## Vazgen (May 24, 2011)

mmsbls said:


> I would be rather shocked to learn that Newton's mechanics are obsolete


Would you? Just ask the people who had to formulate quantum mechanics because classical mechanics doesn't apply at the subatomic level. As I said, Newton's laws are still used because they're useful simplifications of complex physical processes. That doesn't mean they haven't been superseded by more reliable models.



> Since Shakespeare's plays were written about 400 years ago, would you say that those who feel he is one of the greatest writers of all time are simply living in the past or not keeping up with the times?


If they spent an inordinate amount of time lamenting the unwatchable theater of today, or denigrating our unreadable poetry, or never wasted an opportunity to take a cheap shot at Ionesco, Beckett, or Pinter, yes, I would accuse those people of living in the past.

-Vaz


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## mmsbls (Mar 6, 2011)

Vazgen said:


> If they spent an inordinate amount of time lamenting the unwatchable theater of today, or denigrating our unreadable poetry, or never wasted an opportunity to take a cheap shot at Ionesco, Beckett, or Pinter, yes, I would accuse those people of living in the past.


OK, that's reasonable. I would as well.



Vazgen said:


> Would you? Just ask the people who had to formulate quantum mechanics because classical mechanics doesn't apply at the subatomic level. As I said, Newton's laws are still used because they're useful simplifications of complex physical processes. That doesn't mean they haven't been superseded by more reliable models.


Yes, of course I would be shocked, and so would any other physicist. Obsolete means: 1. out of use or practice; not current 2. out of date; unfashionable or outmoded. It's hard enough to calculate energy levels for simple molecules using perturbation theory, but imagine trying to find the time dependent wave function for a complex system like a car. Newton's laws do a much, much better job. Of course no one has replaced the use of Newton's laws with quantum mechanics (or general relativity as I mentioned before) for the overwhelming number of applications. It would be madness. Newton's laws are not obsolete because they are the by far the best way to calculate what we need in most cases. They have not been superseded (replaced) for those applications.

I think you may have deviated a bit from this thread's posts and my analogy. You seem to be arguing that Newton's laws are no longer considered the best description of reality. Absolutely true. I was arguing something completely different. Though Newton's laws are old, they are used quite often. Much more often in fact than the more precise alternatives. Certainly Baroque, Classical, and Romantic music are not obsolete. They are played and listened to quite often. And according to people here, the majority listens more often to older works than to newer works. My analogy has nothing to say about which theories or musical works are better - only which ones are used/listened to more often.

As usual we seem to get nowhere with these discussions. Sorry it's not easier to communicate.


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## Klavierspieler (Jul 16, 2011)

All of mine are dead, _long_ dead in some cases.


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## Chris (Jun 1, 2010)

Chris said:


> I think I have just 4 CDs by living composers; Rautavaara (1), Penderecki (2) and John McCabe (1); this gives me a dead:living ratio of about 60:1


I've just learned that Henri Dutilleux is still alive. This boosts my Living count from 4 to 5.


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## Argus (Oct 16, 2009)

Bump for David Mahler.


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## matsoljare (Jul 28, 2008)

Fun thing is, i can think of more dead composers who are truly "modern", than who are alive today.


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## violadude (May 2, 2011)

matsoljare said:


> Fun thing is, i can think of more dead composers who are truly "modern", than who are alive today.


What exactly does "truly modern" mean?


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## starthrower (Dec 11, 2010)

Most of my favorites died in the past 10 to 20 years, so I suppose I'm not up with the times. I am listening to Sallinen lately and he's still alive. Same with Elliott Carter, but he's a freak of nature.


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## science (Oct 14, 2010)

starthrower said:


> Most of my favorites died in the past 10 to 20 years, so I suppose I'm not up with the times. I am listening to Sallinen lately and he's still alive. Same with Elliott Carter, but he's a freak of nature.


When he dies, you'll have to listen to his work half as often, making up the difference with some living composer, or risk alienation among the musicerati.


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