# Will there ever be any more truly great composers?



## bassClef (Oct 29, 2006)

Stravinsky died in 1971, Shotakovich in 1975, Britten 1976, Khachaturian 1978, Barber 1981, Orff 1982, Bernstein & Copland 1990, Messiaen 1992. There's a rough but noticeable "trailing off" of greatness there - I'd argue they all just about deserve the adjective but even most of those names struggle to measure up to the big names from centuries past.

Some might argue that there have been greater than those names since then, or may be some (at least potentially) great composers still living. But do you think the world will ever see talent on the scale of a Wagner, Mozart, Beethoven or Tchaikovsky again? If not, why not? Is it just because times have changed and that people with such natural abilities will find an outlet for their talents in other genres or other arts?

_I'm sure the regulars will happily tell me if this has been discussed before - if so, profuse apologies - but I just started wondering and found it easier to formulate as a question than to search thousands of threads._


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## Aramis (Mar 1, 2009)

Rest assured, I'm here.


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## kv466 (May 18, 2011)

Doubtful. Oh, that's not ten characters? Then: no.


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## regressivetransphobe (May 16, 2011)

"Great" is a pretty loaded term. I'm sure there are and will be lots of talented composers in various fields who won't be recognized as great because they don't sound like something or another.


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## violadude (May 2, 2011)

Most of the music being written today is pretty far off from the music composed in the 17th-19th century that you can't really compare them...I mean, listen to a symphony by Mozart and then an electro-acoustic piece written in the 21st century, what exactly are you going to compare? Sure, you might like the music of Mozart and past composers a whole lot better, and thats fine, but it says nothing about the talent of composers today.


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## Guest (Nov 3, 2011)

Not only is "great" a loaded term, but putting "truly" in front of it just ups the ante.

I think that what you're seeing is not a diminuition of talent or skill but simply the operation of time passing. A hundred years from now, people will be asking if there's anyone today who can contend with the giants of the twentieth century.

Bach is almost universally considered to be "great," even by people who never listen to him. Same with Mozart and Beethoven. All dead. All comfortably in the past. All with idioms that are very familiar to us (and so easy to identify as "great"), even though some people still report as struggling with late Beethoven.

Now, why Mozart and Beethoven but not Haydn or even Haydn, Mozart, and Beethoven but not Gluck, that's an interesting pancake.


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## Tapkaara (Apr 18, 2006)

Anything is possible.


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## Aramis (Mar 1, 2009)

> but it says nothing about the talent of composers today.


Actually it says a lot. If composer fails to appeal to people* who are able to appreciate other classical music, if his music doesn't move/provide pleasure to them or if it does it to minimal extent then it says quite a something about it.

* his collegues from music school/academy are not people


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## Tapkaara (Apr 18, 2006)

If the "Do You Pee in the Shower" thread on Talk Classical can be so popular, than yes, I think another "truly great" composer is out there. Again, ANYTHING is possible.


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## clavichorder (May 2, 2011)

Tapkaara said:


> If the "Do You Pee in the Shower" thread on Talk Classical can be so popular, than yes, I think another "truly great" composer is out there. Again, ANYTHING is possible.


Props to kv466 for anticipating this.


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## superhorn (Mar 23, 2010)

Elliott Carter . Pierre Boulez . Hans Werner Henze . John Adams. Krzystof Penderecki .
Peter Maxwell Davies . Gyorgy Kurtag . Einojuhani Rautavaara . Sofia Gubaidullina.
Kaaia Saariaho . Henri Dutilleaux. Christopher Rouse . Poul Ruders . 
Osvaldo Golijov . Tan Dun . John Harbison . Wolfgang Rihm . Harrison Birtwistle .
Arvo Part . Philip Glass . Rodion Shchedrin . Ned Rorem . William Bolcom .


All widely performed and respected composers . 
Recently Deceased : Milton Babbitt . Ralph Shapey. Gian Carlo Menotti .
Nicholas Maw. Henryk Gorecki . Leon Kirchner . George Rochberg. 
Karlheinz Stockhausen . Gyorgy Ligeti . Luciano Berio . Lou Harrison .

Up and coming younger composers : Thomas Ades . Nico Muhly .

I don't think we're doing too badly !


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## schigolch (Jun 26, 2011)

Yes

..............


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## Aramis (Mar 1, 2009)

superhorn said:


> Elliott Carter . Pierre Boulez . Hans Werner Henze . John Adams. Krzystof Penderecki .
> Peter Maxwell Davies . Gyorgy Kurtag . Einojuhani Rautavaara . Sofia Gubaidullina.
> Kaaia Saariaho . Henri Dutilleaux. Christopher Rouse . Poul Ruders .
> Osvaldo Golijov . Tan Dun . John Harbison . Wolfgang Rihm . Harrison Birtwistle .
> ...


It provides examples which prove that today we still have SOME composers that reach some fame. But I think they are hardly great. Can't compare, huh? Well, I think that when Penderecki started to write in more traditional ways he opened way for comparisons. His piano concerto is such a uninspired drivel that it clearly exposes the truth: when he is not hiding behind mysterious cloak of avant-garde it turns out, and anybody can hear it, that he is not composer of the same weight as Chopin, rather as Noskowski. Have you heard of the latter? I guess so. Now, if Penderecki will be more famous than Noskowski is today hundred years from now, it will be because our era is really miserable time for art.


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## violadude (May 2, 2011)

Aramis said:


> Actually it says a lot. If composer fails to appeal to people* who are able to appreciate other classical music, if his music doesn't move/provide pleasure to them or if it does it to minimal extent then it says quite a something about it.
> 
> * his collegues from music school/academy are not people


So what of the numerous classical music lovers that fail to make a connection with the music of Mozart? Is he less talented for that? People liking something as absolutely nothing to do with talent.


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## violadude (May 2, 2011)

superhorn said:


> Elliott Carter . Pierre Boulez . Hans Werner Henze . John Adams. Krzystof Penderecki .
> Peter Maxwell Davies . Gyorgy Kurtag . Einojuhani Rautavaara . Sofia Gubaidullina.
> Kaaia Saariaho . Henri Dutilleaux. Christopher Rouse . Poul Ruders .
> Osvaldo Golijov . Tan Dun . John Harbison . Wolfgang Rihm . Harrison Birtwistle .
> ...


Thanks for this list, awesome!

I really like what I have heard of Nico Muhly's music. It'll be interesting to see where he goes in his composition career.


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## DavidMahler (Dec 28, 2009)

No. The artistic era is over. The digital era has arrived. The brilliance which once flourished and prospered in the arts is now to be found in technology.


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## violadude (May 2, 2011)

Aramis said:


> It provides examples which prove that today we still have SOME composers that reach some fame. But I think they are hardly great. Can't compare, huh? Well, I think that when Penderecki started to write in more traditional ways he opened way for comparisons. His piano concerto is such a uninspired drivel that it clearly exposes the truth: when he is not hiding behind mysterious cloak of avant-garde it turns out, and anybody can hear it, that he is not composer of the same weight as Chopin, rather as Noskowski. Have you heard of the latter? I guess so. Now, if Penderecki will be more famous than Noskowski is today hundred years from now, it will be because our era is really miserable time for art.


I agree that Penderecki was more imaginative in his avant-garde compositions than his tonal pieces. But comparing his tonal pieces to Chopin's music is still pretty far-fetched to me. They're totally different styles. I disagree with your sentiment entirely though.There is lots of imagination and talent in composers of today that can be compared to the imagination and talent of composers from the past. If you don't like the style as much as past styles then you aren't going to think they are "greater." But that doesn't take away from the fact that they are truly talented and imaginative.


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## mmsbls (Mar 6, 2011)

I think there are two ways of approaching this fascinating question:
1) Trying to estimate how much musical talent exists now compared to earlier (theoretical).
2) Evaluating the musical output of today's composers (or recent composers) against earlier composers' output (experimental).

The two methods obviously define "great" differently. 

1) There are clearly many more people alive today than at any earlier time. Furthermore, a higher percentage of people today can get good musical educations. People have more access to great music (records, CDs, internet, etc.). The only advantage that earlier composers might have had is that they began earlier in life with apprenticeships and focused musical work (please correct me if you have other thoughts). Overall, I see no reason why we should not expect to see more "great" composer talent today than earlier. I believe there are more people today capable of writing "great" music than at any earlier period. Presumably, this argument would hold for the future as well. We should expect "Mozarts", "Bachs", and "Beethovens" to be living and composing among us now and in the future.

2) So why do we not readily acknowledge these "great" composers of today. Why do the lists of great composers not contain several 20th century people in the top 10? Why is the musical output of modern composers not as "great" as earlier composers? some guy gives one excellent answer above. Part of the determination of greatness comes from withstanding the "test of time". Modern (or most 20th century) composers have not been around long enough to pass this test. I also think the 20th century is unique in that classical music styles have exploded. We do not live in the Classical era or Romantic era or Baroque era. We live in an era with many styles that differ from each other as much as Baroque, Classical, or Romantic do (IMO). I think this variation makes evaluating greatness even harder.

I have one other observation that might be relevant. Suppose we ask when the greatest physicists were born? I found several lists and combined them to select the top 13 physicists. The list is shown below along with their birth dates. 

Einstein 1879
Newton 1642
Maxwell 1831
Bohr 1885
heisenberg 1901
Galileo 1564
Feynman 1918
Dirac 1902
Schrodinger 1887
Rutherford 1871
Faraday 1791
Thomson 1856
Pauli 1900

Of course anyone could argue with the selection, but I think it's quite reasonable. Notice that only one was born in the last 100 years, and he was born almost 100 years ago. With the exception of Feynman, all of them did their great work before roughly 1930. No one would argue that there are no great physicists today or that no great work is being done, but time is required to make that judgment.


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## jalex (Aug 21, 2011)

mmsbls said:


> I have one other observation that might be relevant. Suppose we ask when the greatest physicists were born? I found several lists and combined them to select the top 13 physicists. The list is shown below along with their birth dates.
> 
> Einstein 1879
> Newton 1642
> ...


The thing about physics is that at it's current state it's much more a collaborative field than a one-man hero one. Feynman was a bit of exception doing his great work so late. I don't think we'll see someone who will make as great an individual contribution as Einstein, Newton or Clerk Maxwell did again, or at the very least we will see a marked trailing off in their appearance.

A different thought comes to mind with music (not necessarily one I agree with): has Western art music itself (rather than the composers) reached an impasse? The twentieth century saw composers push the boundaries of music about as far as they could go. What is left to do now? The situation I am reminded of is the sandbox at the end of a video-game after story mode has finished - you have all the tools, weapons, upgrades etc to do what you want, you can go where you like, but quickly you realise there's not much to do. (Edit: I am aware that analogy probably has enough holes to fill several comment boxes of reply).

Of course this will bring up the traditional objections of this having been said before at many points in history. It's fair point, but it is no more than a caution - certainly one should be careful before asserting these things but just because they have been shown false at earlier points in history doesn't mean they always will be. In the same way that just because Beethoven's late string quartets were rejected in their own time but loved later, does not mean the avant-garde compositions of the late C20 will necessarily be (of course, equally they may well be).

At the moment we are still I think watching the dust settle, but I am not certain of a great future for Western art music. However, I very much hope that human artistic ingenuity will continue to surprise me.


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## Guest (Nov 4, 2011)

Aramis said:


> If composer fails to appeal to people* who are able to appreciate other classical music, if his music doesn't move/provide pleasure to them or if it does it to minimal extent then it says quite a something about it.
> 
> * his collegues from music school/academy are not people


No, this won't fly. "Other classical music," for instance, is cheating. Of course people who only like Mozart and Haydn will find very little in Xenakis to please them. Perhaps nothing. That says nothing about Xenakis. Why, the same is true for Mahler. People who only like Mozart and Haydn will find very little in Mahler to please them.

It even works the other direction, though people who like Lachenmann tend to have an easier time liking Gluck than people who like Beethoven have liking Christian Marclay. There's all sorts of music that for one reason or other doesn't move certain people. Look around TC for awhile. People there are who don't like Bach or Mozart or Beethoven or Bruckner or Wagner or Stravinsky or Bartok. These are all people who, in your words, "are able to appreciate other classical music."

Colleagues from the academy are certainly people. You only exclude them because including them weakens your argument. No other reason for excluding them.

I call "foul."

[Just for the record, I do not personally believe in "the test of time," though I have certainly noticed that a lot of people do. I don't, because I have no trouble liking things that were written recently. It only takes some experience with other newer music, that's all.]


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## Sid James (Feb 7, 2009)

It's hard to tell what will happen in the future, all we can do is look at the present, what's going on now as we speak. That's why superhorn's list is a good answer to this, it's along the lines of what I'm thinking. 

Even in terms of judging music of the past, at a comfortable distance, it's not straightforward, as some guy suggests. Eg. what's seen as "old hat" one year or decade or even century may turn out to be valued like gold by future generations. This kind of "retro" aspect of music has been going on since time immemorial. So the "grand narratives" kind of view or theoretical standpoint of the history of music or other creative arts doesn't really wash with me in many ways. It's that kind of ideology that gives us these terms which a few people above agree are wishy-washy at best, eg. "truly great composers." Like many of the terms/phrases bandied about on these forums, they can mean anything or nothing, take your pick.

Having said that, I do value the mainstream composers most highly. But by the same token, there are many other composers I like who had a more limited range comparatively (everything's relative!) but they achieved a huge amount in that range. Eg. I'm listening to a lot of guitar music nowadays, and a lot of those composers kind of specialised in that instrument. But it's the hardest instrument to write for on the planet, apart from the harp, ask any composer, they'll tell you. For all I know, it may well be harder technically speaking to write a piece for solo guitar than for string quartet. & guys like Boccherini & Castelnuovo-Tedesco wrote music for both, in their guitar quintets! So how's that? 

& just by the by, do I like their music more than a gigantic Germanic operas on steroids? Most definitely, without a shadow of a doubt...


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## ascension (Oct 30, 2011)

I think there definitely are. They are just in the wind band world in stead of the orchestral world. i.e. Frank Ticheli, Eric Whitacre, John Mackey, Gordon Jacobs, etc. . .


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## regressivetransphobe (May 16, 2011)

DavidMahler said:


> No. The artistic era is over. The digital era has arrived. The brilliance which once flourished and prospered in the arts is now to be found in technology.


If I believed this I'd slit my own throat.


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## Guest (Nov 4, 2011)

jalex said:


> The thing about physics is that at it's current state it's much more a collaborative field than a one-man hero one.


Interestingly enough, the same is true for music. New music is full of collaborations. (Check out the Erstwhile label for some examples of this.)



jalex said:


> has Western art music itself (rather than the composers) reached an impasse?


Depends on how you want to define "Western art music." I don't know any composers who think of music store categories when they're writing music. They're aware of the categories, but the thing to do when you're writing music is to attend to the sounds.



jalex said:


> The twentieth century saw composers push the boundaries of music about as far as they could go.


This is illusory, I think. The twentieth century saw composers push boundaries, but so did all the centuries before. That's what creative people do, push boundaries. Or, better, ignore boundaries as being artificial constructs made by observers. Observers are almost always more interested in boundaries than artists are. Artists are interested in doing a job of work. If some boundaries get pushed around in the process, fine. It will happen. But it's not the focus of artistic endeavor. More of a side effect, I would say.


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## Ukko (Jun 4, 2010)

bassClef said:


> Stravinsky died in 1971, Shotakovich in 1975, Britten 1976, Khachaturian 1978, Barber 1981, Orff 1982, Bernstein & Copland 1990, Messiaen 1992. There's a rough but noticeable "trailing off" of greatness there - I'd argue they all just about deserve the adjective but even most of those names struggle to measure up to the big names from centuries past.
> 
> Some might argue that there have been greater than those names since then, or may be some (at least potentially) great composers still living. But do you think the world will ever see talent on the scale of a Wagner, Mozart, Beethoven or Tchaikovsky again? If not, why not? Is it just because times have changed and that people with such natural abilities will find an outlet for their talents in other genres or other arts?
> 
> _I'm sure the regulars will happily tell me if this has been discussed before - if so, profuse apologies - but I just started wondering and found it easier to formulate as a question than to search thousands of threads._


Some threads are just so... Hmm. If I could only get 'thing' to fit in here somewhere. All I can manage is: Don't you have studying to do?


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## jalex (Aug 21, 2011)

some guy said:


> Depends on how you want to define "Western art music." I don't know any composers who think of music store categories when they're writing music. They're aware of the categories, but the thing to do when you're writing music is to attend to the sounds.


I used the term in a very loose sense to differentiate it from jazz and pop traditions.



> This is illusory, I think. The twentieth century saw composers push boundaries, but so did all the centuries before. That's what creative people do, push boundaries. Or, better, ignore boundaries as being artificial constructs made by observers. Observers are almost always more interested in boundaries than artists are. Artists are interested in doing a job of work. If some boundaries get pushed around in the process, fine. It will happen. But it's not the focus of artistic endeavor. More of a side effect, I would say.


Lots of truth here, I agree. But don't you think the boundary pushing became much more deliberate post-WWII? I think it was a natural progression for composers to come to the conclusion that the boundaries had to be pushed, but the pushing itself was more deliberate and on a larger scale than ever before. And when I use the term boundaries, I don't mean it in any other sense that you have given: 'artificial constructs made by observers'. Just the standards a non-shocking/revolutionary composition would adhere to at a particular period in history. Is there any possible composition which could shock us now on musical grounds i.e. are there any boundaries left? I strongly doubt it. 'Revolutionary' maybe seems more possible. I don't know.


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## Sid James (Feb 7, 2009)

jalex said:


> ...Is there any possible composition which could shock us now on musical grounds i.e. are there any boundaries left? I strongly doubt it...


I agree, but by the same token, quite a few people at concerts here at the big mainstream venues have the habit of leaving at interval if a work they see as "challenging" to them is coming up in the second half. I've seen it happen quite often, although I generally avoid the large mainstream things nowadays, their programming tends to wanting in imagination and creativity, but that's another issue. If people leave before R. Strauss' _Metamorphosen for 23 solo strings _is played, or if they walk out en masse as they did here whilst Mahler's_ Symphony #9 _is playing, then how can they judge or take in the music of TODAY with any kind of balance or basically commonsense, etc.

Do they fear certain types of music, even if these are like 50-100 years old in some cases? Did music end in 1900 for these people? Are only things like Stravinsky's _Rite of Spring _"acceptable" to these people because everybody knows it, you'd look like an idiot to leave before that is played & it has a couple of good "toons?" What chance does new, I mean really new - not half a century or more old - music have with these kinds of highly inflexible listeners? Buckley's or none, as we say here Down Under.

& I disagree with Aramis that those trained in music are not "real" listeners or somesuch nonsense. I go to recitals at universities here quite often, and at those places, you don't get that **** that happens what I described above in the mainstream venues, avoidance and leaving during interval or even rudely during the piece. If an audience is more educated or aware of the "guts" of classical music, it can be high level or just the basics, then they will have better attitude and not inflexible rubbish attitude that sees Mahler or R. Strauss as something like horrible atonal noise, not to speak of composers who hit their prime after 1945, or heaven forbid, something composed like last week (they'd probably head for the exit signs in case of an "emergency" like that...oh nooo it's a new piece coming up...let's get out of here to save our high level of taste and ability to enjoy music....NOT)...


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## clavichorder (May 2, 2011)

jalex said:


> Just the standards a non-shocking/revolutionary composition would adhere to at a particular period in history. Is there any possible composition which could shock us now on musical grounds i.e. are there any boundaries left?


If most of the known world has been conquered in music, then we still have large sections of urbanization to be undertaken, I think. I'm believer that any of the older traditions, including atonality which is an older tradition by now, can continue to be composed in regardless of whether they are shocking or not. New ideas can be implemented with old material. Things can even be hybridized and mixed up.

I don't profess to have heavy weight opinions on this matter, but I think that this obsessive need to conquer new territory is running out of places to go, but music on the whole isn't even close.


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## StlukesguildOhio (Dec 25, 2006)

*Will there ever be any more truly great composers?*
Stravinsky died in 1971, Shotakovich in 1975, Britten 1976, Khachaturian 1978, Barber 1981, Orff 1982, Bernstein & Copland 1990, Messiaen 1992. There's a rough but noticeable "trailing off" of greatness there - I'd argue they all just about deserve the adjective but even most of those names struggle to measure up to the big names from centuries past.

I that the obvious answer to this question is: Yes, there most certainly be plenty of truly "great" composers in the future; Yes, there are great composers actively working today, and Yes, there were plenty of great composers active over the last century.

What is not obvious is who these composers are... and this is owed to a couple of reasons. First of all, in dealing with the concept of who qualifies as "truly great" we should recognize that composers such as Bach, Beethoven, and Mozart, who are virtually universally recognized as "great" owe much of their reputation to their influence and their continued relevance within the subsequent narrative of music history. This is wholly separate from our personal preferences. I may personally prefer Prokofiev or Bartok to Mozart (I don't) and yet still recognize that neither composer (at this point in time) really rivals Mozart.

SomeGuy, Andre (Sid), ViolaDude, and any number of others would quite likely all agree upon the notion that the last 100 years+ have produced a wealth of brilliant composers. Where we quite likely would disagree, is in just who these composers are. Whether any of these composers are eventually recognized as equaling Beethoven, Bach, Brahms, Mahler, etc... remains to be seen... as as we likely won't be around to see it, the point is irrelevant. We can only continue to listen to that we enjoy and believe in.

Personally, I take a broader view. I question the very term, "classical music" because I feel it is largely meaningless. Considering the fact that it embraces music as divergent and unrelated as Byzantine chant, Sephardic dance, chanson from Provence, plainchant, Renaissance madrigals, concert grossi, Baroque opera, string quartets, lieder, ballet, symphonic tone poems, oratorios, waltzes, comic operettas, sonatas, atonal chamber works, the jazz-rooted works of Ravel, Gershwin, Bernstein, Nicolai Kasputin, Shostakovitch, etc..., music concrete, Minimalism, electronics, etc... leads me to question the idea of a unified tradition of "classical music" that can be clearly defined as separate from "non-classical" music. When one speaks of "classics" in literature, there is a recognition that the term is purely judgmental... it speaks to writing of great merit and has nothing whatsoever to do with genre or style. There are biographies, histories, works of criticism, essays, journals, works of theater, comedies, short stories, theological treatises, philosophical musings, as well as poems and novels that qualify as "classic literature." Indeed, it is recognized that the theater in the time of Shakespeare and the novel in the time of Cervantes and Swift were dismissed from consideration as serious "classic" literature so it is logically quite possible that some screen plays and comic books may eventually be recognized as "classics". Film may just have been the greatest... certainly the most central art form of the last century... in spite of the fact that for much of the century (and to many who should have known better) it was deemed as little more than entertainment.

How this relates to music is in the sense that I largely reject the term "classical music" or rather recognize that it is in all reality not a description of a given style... but rather a judgment of artistic merit. The simple folk songs that have lasted, be they _Greensleeves_ or _Amazing Grace_ or _Summertime_ are surely no less deserving of being recognized as "classics" (as opposed to "classical") than the operettas of Offenbach or Johann Strauss or the songs of Faure or Ned Rorem. By the same token, it would seem that "classics" by Rogers and Hart, Gershwin, Bernstein, Ellington, Miles Davis, Lennon and McCartney are no less assured of "classic" status than the music of Xenakis, Penderecki, Stockhausen, Glass, Part, or Gorecki.

As such, I am suggesting that what the future eventually deems to have been the "greatest" music of our time... the "classic music" of our time... may quite likely come from a broader array of music than what we might traditionally define as "classical".


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## Nix (Feb 20, 2010)

If Carl Orff makes the cut as a great composer, then we are swimming in genius.


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## samurai (Apr 22, 2011)

@ Bassclef, Not to be a nit-picker or anything, but I believe that Dmitri Shostakovich actually died in 1979 rather than 1975. Again, this does not diminish in any way the overarching point you are trying to address in your post.


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## starthrower (Dec 11, 2010)

Nobody mentioned Lutoslawski or Schnittke, who were alive and active long after Shostakovich left us. To my ears Schnittke's music is more interesting than Shostakovich's. There's Magnus Lindberg from Finland who has written a lot of ambitious music over the past 30 years. William Schuman left us a lot of great music. Takemitsu too!


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## Guest (Nov 4, 2011)

jalex said:


> [D]on't you think the boundary pushing became much more deliberate post-WWII?


No. Post-WWII saw the explosion of recording media, which meant, among other things, that concert-goers had a new arrow to their anti-modernist quiver, namely the very real threat that they'd stay home and listen to their beloved Vivaldi and Tchaikovsky records if programmers didn't give them what they wanted in the concert hall.

Really, I've been hanging around the fringes of classical concert music for several decades, and if there's one thing that's for sure, it's that musicians and programmers are scared sh*tless of "the audience." Nothing must be done to alienate "the audience" or the whole industry will collapse. Nobody has any sense of educating "the audience," and so there are no ideas of how to build an audience for new music.

That there's a strong and vibrant audience outside the traditional venues goes for naught. At least no one acknowledges them or tries to get them back into the symphony or opera halls.*

No, the only real solution that anyone's tried is to seduce generation after generation of "young people" with the same tired old warhorses. Wildly successful that's been!:lol:

*Many years ago, the San Francisco Symphony put on a "new" music festival which included the surviving members of the Grateful Dead--who played with the orchestra in a cautious performance of Cage's _Renga_ with _Apartment 1776._ Other treats were Ives and Lou Harrison and a jam session with Michael Tilson Thomas. For one weekend, Symphony Hall was packed equally with Deadheads and socialites. Seriously packed. SRO. Tremendous excitement, too, even though the music was mostly fairly old. What followed that weekend? Business as usual.


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## Sid James (Feb 7, 2009)

^^Good post. There is some creative programming going on here but it's not in the mainstream "flagship" venues/groups. I used to post my reviews of such concerts on the "latest concerts" thread but I largely don't bother now for various reasons. More people seem to be interested here on steroidal Germanic operas or masses in B minor than chamber music. Anyway, I see the Sydney Symphony Orchestra is moving cautiously to_ some_ newer or less warhorse music next year. On one program, there will be the Berg _Violin Concerto_ paired with Bruckner's_ Symphony #8_. They are maybe realising that endless repetitions of the same old same old is beginning to be somewhat tedious to say the least. However, I doubt that I'll go, they've totally lost me years ago, in any case I'm more into chamber & a lot of groups doing that devise programs that run rings around the SSO and the like in terms of giving a refreshing mix of old and new, satisfying all tastes, not just the hard conservative extremists who think that anything that's after 1900 or with a "funny" name like even Szymanowski is suspect...


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## science (Oct 14, 2010)

"Truly great" as always is not my choice of words. But in terms of music that I really love and think lots of people would, still alive are 

- Tan Dun
- Golijov 
- Boulez
- Aho
- Tower
- Henze
- Kilar
- Daugherty 
- Reich
- Riley 
- Sciarrino 
- Adams 
- Chin 
- Kancheli 
- Dutilleux 
- Carter (who may be immortal) 
- Ge Gan-ru
- Zhou Long 
- Lam Bun-ching
- Webber, Andrew Lloyd <---- this is not a joke, you snobs 

Only very recently dead: 

- Ligeti 
- Piazzolla 
- Messiaen 
- Stockhausen 
- Nono 
- Berio
- Harrison 
- Yun 

I don't list Cage or Schnittke, because so far nothing by them really touched me, but even so that is a pretty diverse group of composers (though not so much from the perspective of gender, unfortunately) - if anyone manages not to like any of that music, I wouldn't look for the problem in the music or the composers.


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## Nix (Feb 20, 2010)

I'll second the immortality of Carter. Boulez and Dutilleux I think have also secured their place in history as being greats from the latter half of the 20th century... as well as a lot of already deceased composers (Britten, Shostakovich, Berio, Messiaen)


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## violadude (May 2, 2011)

science said:


> - Yun


Eep! Do you mean Isang Yun?? I haven't heard anyone else on this forum mention him before. I really love this guys music. I got a recording of his complete symphonies quite a few months ago. Such an incredible blend of modern classical techniques and Korean folksong, at least that's what it sounded like to my ears. I made a post about him a while back in the composer guestbook section, why didn't you comment?


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## science (Oct 14, 2010)

Nix said:


> I'll second the immortality of Carter. Boulez and Dutilleux I think have also secured their place in history as being greats from the latter half of the 20th century... as well as a lot of already deceased composers (Britten, Shostakovich, Berio, Messiaen)


I meant literally immortal, though his music may last forever as well.

If I had to predict immortality of the music, my guesses would go to Tan Dun, Piazzolla, Ligeti, Golijov, Adams, Glass and Reich.

Left Glass off that list too.


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## science (Oct 14, 2010)

violadude said:


> Eep! Do you mean Isang Yun?? I haven't heard anyone else on this forum mention him before. I really love this guys music. I got a recording of his complete symphonies quite a few months ago. Such an incredible blend of modern classical techniques and Korean folksong, at least that's what it sounded like to my ears. I made a post about him a while back in the composer guestbook section, why didn't you comment?


That is indeed who I mean. (I live in Korea, so I find this stuff out.)

Didn't notice your post in the guestbook section... I don't hang out there much. But I'll mosey on over and contribute!


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## violadude (May 2, 2011)

science said:


> That is indeed who I mean. (I live in Korea, so I find this stuff out.)
> 
> Didn't notice your post in the guestbook section... I don't hang out there much. But I'll mosey on over and contribute!


When you get around to doing that, I'll save you some trouble and let you know that that thread is on page 4 now.


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## science (Oct 14, 2010)

violadude said:


> When you get around to doing that, I'll save you some trouble and let you know that that thread is on page 4 now.


lol ... thanks!

I only know the symphonies, and I'd guess we have the same box...

I think mine is CPO.


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## violadude (May 2, 2011)

science said:


> lol ... thanks!
> 
> I only know the symphonies, and I'd guess we have the same box...
> 
> I think mine is CPO.


Yup thats the same one I have.


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## mmsbls (Mar 6, 2011)

jalex said:


> The thing about physics is that at it's current state it's much more a collaborative field than a one-man hero one. Feynman was a bit of exception doing his great work so late. I don't think we'll see someone who will make as great an individual contribution as Einstein, Newton or Clerk Maxwell did again, or at the very least we will see a marked trailing off in their appearance.


It's true that experimental physics has become vastly more collaborative, and theoretical physics is modestly more collaborative although significant individual works continues. I agree that it's less likely to see a physicist of the stature of Newton, Einstein, or Maxwell. I think an important reason may be related to something you mention about music.



jalex said:


> A different thought comes to mind with music (not necessarily one I agree with): has Western art music itself (rather than the composers) reached an impasse? The twentieth century saw composers push the boundaries of music about as far as they could go. What is left to do now?


In physics the lower hanging fruit was picked earlier. Newton and Maxwell could contribute in many important areas, whereas physicists today focus much more narrowly. Someone may have one great breakthrough, but it's less likely that one person will have several major contributions.

Could it be that early composers found the "low hanging fruit" and created music that speaks to a greater number or percentage of people? These composers are considered great in large part because so many critics, composers, and listeners find their work wonderful. In modern music, perhaps, it is less likely to garner that level of support.

The impasse may be that music that speaks to large numbers of people _and is new today_ is much harder to find or create; therefore, modern composers do not _and possibly will not_ attain the stature of earlier composers. This thought has nothing to do with whether modern music is actually of the same or better "quality" as earlier music. Of course, here I have defined musical "greatness" as requiring a large percentage of listeners who appreciate the music.


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## Sid James (Feb 7, 2009)

samurai said:


> @ Bassclef, Not to be a nit-picker or anything, but I believe that Dmitri Shostakovich actually died in 1979 rather than 1975...


No, it was 1975, I just checked. I also am not always clear about remembering when Shostakovich died. At least with Prokofiev, his death is pegged to that of Stalin in 1953, they died within 24 hours of eachother, I always remember the year largely for that reason.

The only thing that happened in 1975 of significance to Australia in history - before I was born - was that the Constitutional crisis happened then, the Whitlam government was sacked by the Queen's representative here, the Governor General, which caused quite a big stink apparently...


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## mmsbls (Mar 6, 2011)

some guy said:


> No. Post-WWII saw the explosion of recording media, which meant, among other things, that concert-goers had a new arrow to their anti-modernist quiver, namely the very real threat that they'd stay home and listen to their beloved Vivaldi and Tchaikovsky records if programmers didn't give them what they wanted in the concert hall.


This is an excellent point. As you have pointed out, live audiences through time have been exposed to fewer and fewer contemporary works. Until relatively recently the only choice a listener had was to listen to what was performed live or to not listen at all. If they wanted music, they had to listen to occasional new works.



some guy said:


> Really, I've been hanging around the fringes of classical concert music for several decades, and if there's one thing that's for sure, it's that musicians and programmers are scared sh*tless of "the audience."
> 
> That there's a strong and vibrant audience outside the traditional venues goes for naught. At least no one acknowledges them or tries to get them back into the symphony or opera halls.
> 
> No, the only real solution that anyone's tried is to seduce generation after generation of "young people" with the same tired old warhorses. Wildly successful that's been!:lol:


We've talked about this problem in many threads. I think most of us believe that more modern and contemporary music in concerts is a very good (necessary?) thing. I think we disagree on whether that would ultimately create fewer or more listeners. We all seem to be at a loss for finding a clear answer to this problem.

Aside from anecdotes, does anyone know of evidence that more contemporary performances will create greater listenership?


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## bassClef (Oct 29, 2006)

Happy I provoked an interesting and relevant discussion on talkclassical anyway. Sorry about the term "truly great" - I'm not happy with that either, but the meaning is fairly clear I think. Personally I would prefer listening to modern composers like Carter, Vine, Ifukube, Kilar and Adams to Mozart or Bach, but that's just my personal taste (or some would say lack-of), though I know they will never be regarded by humanity as a whole, as greater. 

I saw a short programme about Rachmaninov recently. He composed all his music in his head, never at the piano to "try things out". Like some others of that era and past eras, he could play back a piece in its entirety and without error, after just one listen. Do people still possess this kind of talent? Is it no longer in our genetic make-up? Surely it must be, so what are people doing with it?


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## violadude (May 2, 2011)

bassClef said:


> Happy I provoked an interesting and relevant discussion on talkclassical anyway. Sorry about the term "truly great" - I'm not happy with that either, but the meaning is fairly clear I think. Personally I would prefer listening to modern composers like Carter, Vine, Ifukube, Kilar and Adams to Mozart or Bach, but that's just my personal taste (or some would say lack-of), though I know they will never be regarded by humanity as a whole, as greater.
> 
> I saw a short programme about Rachmaninov recently. He composed all his music in his head, never at the piano to "try things out". Like some others of that era and past eras, he could play back a piece in its entirety and without error, after just one listen. Do people still possess this kind of talent? Is it no longer in our genetic make-up? Surely it must be, so what are people doing with it?


The composer Isang Yun that me and Science were just talking about claims that he never made drafts of his scores, just wrote it all out once from his head.


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## Sid James (Feb 7, 2009)

bassClef said:


> Happy I provoked an interesting and relevant discussion on talkclassical anyway. Sorry about the term "truly great" - I'm not happy with that either, but the meaning is fairly clear I think. Personally I would prefer listening to modern composers like Carter, Vine, Ifukube, Kilar and Adams to Mozart or Bach, but that's just my personal taste (or some would say lack-of), though I know they will never be regarded by humanity as a whole, as greater...


I don't know how many people are like a lot of those on internet forums like this. Eg. the need to rank and establish canons, of the forum, personal or otherwise. Most of the people I personally know who are into classical to lesser or greater degree, some former musicians among them, basically don't give a hoot about who is greater, middling or lesser. They're all different, that's it, that's the richness of classical music, it's a whole universe.

The people who tend to worry about greatness end up more often than not trying to impose what they value as "great" upon others. It can end up as being exclusionary and exclusive, almost like an elite club. Then they make value judgements based on their ideology of what's great and what's not so great, what's potentially great, etc. There are ideologies valuing tradition or the old things, of innovation and building "futures" of music/art, so valuing the new things, or of things that amount to the "bigger is better" outcome, the "mainstream" versus the "fringe," of "high" versus "low" art as some have pointed out earlier, and countless other ideologies. These end up as being false dichotomies, & they have a tendency to turn into rigid dogmas, imo.

I'm usually happy to listen to good or very good music, if it ends up being great or a masterpiece then that's an added bonus. In any case, in most cases, the worst critics are the composers and musicians themselves. We don't have to expect everything to be revelatory if they don't always expect that, they just do what they do, they have integrity doing it, or a modicum of it in most cases.



> ...
> I saw a short programme about Rachmaninov recently. He composed all his music in his head, never at the piano to "try things out". Like some others of that era and past eras, he could play back a piece in its entirety and without error, after just one listen. Do people still possess this kind of talent? Is it no longer in our genetic make-up? Surely it must be, so what are people doing with it?


More amazing to me are Rachmaninov's innovations, esp. in terms of keyboard technique. I put him on par with Scriabin & Stravinsky in terms of his impact on music coming later, and other things. Of course, it's fashionable to deride him because yes, his middle two piano concertos do have strong elements of the sentimental, nostalgia, weepyness, etc., but there's a lot of interesting things going on in those underneath the surface, let alone many of his other works.


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## HarpsichordConcerto (Jan 1, 2010)

superhorn said:


> Elliott Carter . Pierre Boulez . Hans Werner Henze . John Adams. Krzystof Penderecki .
> Peter Maxwell Davies . Gyorgy Kurtag . Einojuhani Rautavaara . Sofia Gubaidullina.
> Kaaia Saariaho . Henri Dutilleaux. Christopher Rouse . Poul Ruders .
> Osvaldo Golijov . Tan Dun . John Harbison . Wolfgang Rihm . Harrison Birtwistle .
> ...


Frankly, I think one can confidently state that most of us here at TC would even struggle to recognise the majority of the listed composers and the _majority of their music_. Knowing one or two pieces by these fringe folks does not really justify labelling them as great or otherwise. It needs to take monumental shifts in the listening awareness and aesthetics of the general listening public, who are already not familiar with many old names that many of us here might know, to even have the slightest chance of ensuring posterity of these fringe folks.

"In the long run, we are all dead" said the great American economist John Maynard Keynes. But at least his foresight was recognised by his contemporaries on a broad and deep level. So were many of the old masters. It would take a hell of a struggle to recognise the listed names. As I said, many of us here would even struggle to know (or want to know / care), let alone the public in general.


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## violadude (May 2, 2011)

HarpsichordConcerto said:


> Frankly, I think one can confidently state that most of us here at TC would even struggle to recognise the majority of the listed composers and the _majority of their music_. Knowing one or two pieces by these fringe folks does not really justify labelling them as great or otherwise. It needs to take monumental shifts in the listening awareness and aesthetics of the general listening public, who are already not familiar with many old names that many of us here might know, to even have the slightest chance of ensuring posterity of these fringe folks.
> 
> "In the long run, we are all dead" said the great American economist John Maynard Keynes. But at least his foresight was recognised by his contemporaries on a broad and deep level. So were many of the old masters. It would take a hell of a struggle to recognise the listed names. As I said, many of us here would even struggle to know (or want to know / care), let alone the public in general.


Lots of people wouldn't recognize these names because they haven't spent time researching or even reading a short overview of what has been going on in music for the past 50+ years. If you spent a mere 2-3 hours looking up information about contemporary classical music you would easily be able to recognize these names. By the way, half of these composers I would hardly call "fringe." Many of those listed are by now and for now in the "mainstream" of the contemporary music scene.

Bottom line: Ignorance is not a reason to dismiss something as "not great."


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## Art Rock (Nov 28, 2009)

HarpsichordConcerto said:


> *Originally Posted by superhorn
> Elliott Carter . Pierre Boulez . Hans Werner Henze . John Adams. Krzystof Penderecki .
> Peter Maxwell Davies . Gyorgy Kurtag . Einojuhani Rautavaara . Sofia Gubaidullina.
> Kaaia Saariaho . Henri Dutilleaux. Christopher Rouse . Poul Ruders .
> ...


I have most of these composers on CD, many with 5+ CD's in my collection (Carter, Henze, Adams, Penderecki, Maxwell Davies, Rautavaara, Gubaidullina, Saariaho, Golijov, Part, Glass, Rorem, Gorecki, Ligeti, Berio, Harrison). And I am not a contemporary music specialist by any standard.


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## HarpsichordConcerto (Jan 1, 2010)

Art Rock said:


> I have most of these composers on CD, many with 5+ CD's in my collection (Carter, Henze, Adams, Penderecki, Maxwell Davies, Rautavaara, Gubaidullina, Saariaho, Golijov, Part, Glass, Rorem, Gorecki, Ligeti, Berio, Harrison). And I am not a contemporary music specialist by any standard.


5 CDs each. Would you equate that with a great number of CDs you have of your favourite composers? I would guess not. That's my point. Even I have several CDs/DVDs of active composers / deceased composers of recent decades. Yes, I admit I would like to know more about these folks but it would take monumental shifts, and not just amongst us classical music listeners to multiply our 5CDs of each into 50 or more, but for the larger public in order to have these folks remembered by posterity. I doubt that's going to happen with the likes of Lady Gaga competing against them or even Elvis Presley.


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## regressivetransphobe (May 16, 2011)

> I doubt that's going to happen with the likes of Lady Gaga competing against them or even Elvis Presley.


"I doubt that's going to happen with the likes of bubblegum competing against them or even Coca-Cola."


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## HarpsichordConcerto (Jan 1, 2010)

regressivetransphobe said:


> "I doubt that's going to happen with the likes of bubblegum competing against them or even Coca-Cola."


Agree. I take that as meaning your way of equating Lady Gag with bubblegum and EP with Coca-Cola. Thanks.

How have you been? It's been a while since I last noticed you.


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## Andy Loochazee (Aug 2, 2007)

HarpsichordConcerto said:


> "In the long run, we are all dead" said the great *American economist* John Maynard Keynes.


Interesting to find out after all these years that Lord Keynes was an American economist. What a joke.


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

I'd say that Stravinsky and Shostakovich (and maybe Britten) were probably the last great composers whose names are familiar even among people who wouldn't touch CM with a bargepole - it's unlikely they'll have heard of Part, Adams, Henze etc. Good or ill, there is something to be said for a person's reputation going before one even if another person is unfamiliar with what it is he or she actually did or achieved (by that I mean in a good sense, not because of infamy/evil deeds).

Others from the 18th and 19th centuries were considered great (or re-evaluated as great) only once they were long dead and their music started to be championed by influential figures which helped bring it to a wider audience.


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## starthrower (Dec 11, 2010)

some guy said:


> Really, I've been hanging around the fringes of classical concert music for several decades, and if there's one thing that's for sure, it's that musicians and programmers are scared sh*tless of "the audience." Nothing must be done to alienate "the audience" or the whole industry will collapse. Nobody has any sense of educating "the audience," and so there are no ideas of how to build an audience for new music.
> 
> That there's a strong and vibrant audience outside the traditional venues goes for naught. At least no one acknowledges them or tries to get them back into the symphony or opera halls.*


To hell with the symphony halls. It's the same syndrome in the jazz world. Wynton Marsalis and his buddies dressing up in tuxedos and playing 1930s jazz for boring people at Lincoln Center. That stuff ain't jazz, it's classical music set it stone for conservative types.

New music doesn't need to be "legitimized" through entering the hallowed halls. It's a lost cause anyway. The concert music programmers aren't going to upset the apple cart with people like the Koch brothers making large donations.

Look at what people like John Zorn, and the late Frank Zappa have accomplished. They thumbed their noses at the establishment and did it their own way. Yes, there is a strong, vibrant audience for new music, but it's fairly small. A lot of these folks are listening to chamber/avant rock ensembles, but are also interested in acoustic music.


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## science (Oct 14, 2010)

Sid James said:


> The people who tend to worry about greatness end up more often than not trying to impose what they value as "great" upon others. It can end up as being exclusionary and exclusive, almost like an elite club. Then they make value judgements based on their ideology of what's great and what's not so great, what's potentially great, etc. There are ideologies valuing tradition or the old things, of innovation and building "futures" of music/art, so valuing the new things, or of things that amount to the "bigger is better" outcome, the "mainstream" versus the "fringe," of "high" versus "low" art as some have pointed out earlier, and countless other ideologies. These end up as being false dichotomies, & they have a tendency to turn into rigid dogmas, imo.


This appears to be a good point, and I need to think about it. I may be guilty of it, and I probably seem to be.

But what I am actually most interested in is prioritized recommendations. I think in terms of importance, which to me means roughly the probability that I am going to encounter a reference or allusion to it in conversation, i.e. fame/popularity. My interest in ranking, from my point of view, is really an attempt to establish what I should buy and hear next.

In the future I probably need to be more clear that to me "greatness" and "fame" are not equivalent, and I am interested in the latter as a guide to my exploration, not as an attempt to participate in the creation or enforcing of a canon.


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## science (Oct 14, 2010)

Andy Loochazee said:


> Interesting to find out after all these years that Lord Keynes was an American economist. What a joke.


Posthumous immigration, man. King George III will make the trip soon! Britain will really be screwed then...


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## bassClef (Oct 29, 2006)

Sid James said:


> I don't know how many people are like a lot of those on internet forums like this. Eg. the need to rank and establish canons, of the forum, personal or otherwise. Most of the people I personally know who are into classical to lesser or greater degree, some former musicians among them, basically don't give a hoot about who is greater, middling or lesser. They're all different, that's it, that's the richness of classical music, it's a whole universe.
> 
> The people who tend to worry about greatness end up more often than not trying to impose what they value as "great" upon others. It can end up as being exclusionary and exclusive, almost like an elite club. Then they make value judgements based on their ideology of what's great and what's not so great, what's potentially great, etc. There are ideologies valuing tradition or the old things, of innovation and building "futures" of music/art, so valuing the new things, or of things that amount to the "bigger is better" outcome, the "mainstream" versus the "fringe," of "high" versus "low" art as some have pointed out earlier, and countless other ideologies. These end up as being false dichotomies, & they have a tendency to turn into rigid dogmas, imo.


I wasn't trying to impose my opinions of greatness on anyone, or establish any rankings. I happen to like listening to John Adams more than Mozart, for example, though I listed Mozart in the greats because civilisation has put him there - his greatness is not my opinion, it's accepted fact.


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## Ravellian (Aug 17, 2009)

Nope, all the good ones died out after Wagner.


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## Igneous01 (Jan 27, 2011)

Schnittke is one of the few modern composers that I really really liked, his hybridism of all things past and present is second to none. I'm thinking more people will study and continue where Schnittke left off.


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## Aramis (Mar 1, 2009)

Let's organize TC convention on Bare Mountain, during the night we shall light a great pyre, perform ritual dances and trances we shall drink infusion of badger's moustache and summons ghosts of great composers and they will answer this thread's question.


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## Polednice (Sep 13, 2009)

There will always be a supply of people just as great as Mozart or Messiaen. However, the "scale" of a composer's greatness is not _all_ intrinsic to them; it is about how we receive their work and build them up both in our minds and on a social level. The simple fact is that we are in a very different, increasingly complex cultural world in the 21st century than we were even in the 20th, let alone the 19th and earlier. Musical culture and god-building will no doubt continue to change, but the brains people are born with will remain largely the same.


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## Igneous01 (Jan 27, 2011)

Aramis said:


> Let's organize TC convention on Bare Mountain, during the night we shall light a great pyre, perform ritual dances and trances we shall drink infusion of badger's moustache and summons ghosts of great composers and they will answer this thread's question.


but surely Stravinsky will demand a human sacrifice? Who shall opt to take this roll?


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## Aramis (Mar 1, 2009)

Igneous01 said:


> but surely Stravinsky will demand a human sacrifice? Who shall opt to take this roll?


Melvin1984


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## Polednice (Sep 13, 2009)

bassClef said:


> I saw a short programme about Rachmaninov recently. He composed all his music in his head, never at the piano to "try things out". Like some others of that era and past eras, he could play back a piece in its entirety and without error, after just one listen. Do people still possess this kind of talent? Is it no longer in our genetic make-up? Surely it must be, so what are people doing with it?


There is no real reason to value skills like these. They're fun and inspiring in the same sense as party tricks - _i.e._ cool things that make us go "OMG!" because we can't do them - but what actually matters is the music being written, and, obviously, great music has been written both with and without this talent, so it's irrelevant.


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## violadude (May 2, 2011)

Polednice said:


> There is no real reason to value skills like these. They're fun and inspiring in the same sense as party tricks - _i.e._ cool things that make us go "OMG!" because we can't do them - but what actually matters is the music being written, and, *obviously, great music has been written both with and without this talent, so it's irrelevant.*


Ya, obviously, cause I can't write music without a piano.


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## Aramis (Mar 1, 2009)

What you're talking about is like killing horse by punching it with bare first. Medieval knights could do it because they lived in tough times when it was usual to become stronger that males are these days, when they don't need to punch horses to kill them. Mozarts and Rachmaninoffs lived in times of no recordings, hardly accessible partitures and stuff - it all forced them to develop some skills that musicians and composers don't develop these days because we have so much comfort that we no longer have to be able to do many things without which one couldn't do anything 100 years ago.


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## Guest (Nov 4, 2011)

Aramis said:


> What you're talking about is like killing horse by punching it with bare first. Medieval knights could do it because they lived in tough times when it was usual to became stronger that males are these days, when they don't need to punch horses to kill them. Mozarts and Rachmaninoffs lived in times of no recordings, hardly accessible partitures and stuff - it all forced them to develop some skills that musicians and composers don't develop these days because we have so much comfort that we no longer have to be able to do many things without which one couldn't do anything 100 years ago.


Wait - Mozart killed a horse by punching it? I don't remember that from Amadeus!
:devil:


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## NightHawk (Nov 3, 2011)

Items:
1. Great tonal, atonal and serial works continue to be written, that I highly admire, and collect for serial listening. And, but plus, I am constantly discovering great new dead composers who are just now coming into my consciousness as great and whose music thrills me to my ********. 
2. Stravinsky composed at the piano. 
3. I have respect for Rachmaninoff, but not deep down respect. 
4. Harry Partch.


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## jhar26 (Jul 6, 2008)

DrMike said:


> Wait - Mozart killed a horse by punching it? I don't remember that from Amadeus!
> :devil:


He had a vicious left hook. They didn't call him 'concrete Wolfie' for nothing.


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## jalex (Aug 21, 2011)

NightHawk said:


> ...thrills me to my ********.


Can I borrow this phrase?


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## NightHawk (Nov 3, 2011)

haha. I've toned it down a bit since I wrote that, but knock yourself out 



jalex said:


> Can I borrow this phrase?


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## LordBlackudder (Nov 13, 2010)

it's not possible for there not to be. unless humanity is wiped out.


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## superhorn (Mar 23, 2010)

Actually, Rachmaninov lived from 1873 to 1943, and made many recordings , not only of his own music, but other composers , and these recordings are very much available on the R.C.A. label .
He even made recordings of his 3rd symphony and Isle of the dead conducting the Philadelphia orchestra , and I have this . 
If only we had recordings of Mozart playing !


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## MaestroViolinist (May 22, 2012)

It seems to take turns, the centuries before this one (and 19th century) were all about composers, now it's all about performers it seems. Though there are still some good composers, but maybe soon it will be the age of composers again.

It's a wonder CoAG hasn't said *Ligeti*!  :lol:


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## Andreas (Apr 27, 2012)

The Great Composers of the Past had two things going for them: first, there weren't so many people living on the planet back then. And second, they were often members of a privileged class, especially in terms of education. Around Beethoven's times, most people were practically illiterate.

Today, there are a lot more human beings and practically all of them (in Europe and North America at least) have access to a decent education. A lot more people are exposed to classical music and have access to some sort of musical training.

Therefore, there are many more composers, say, as a percentage of the general population. It's more difficult to stand out for each individual and to overshadow his peers.


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## IBMchicago (May 16, 2012)

I would also add that prior to the Industrial Revolution, the only way for a common-born human to equal (or at least mingle with and befriend) the nobles and aristocrats were through the arts. During the Renaissance it was through painting, sculpture and architecture -- and that led to extraordinary genius in these fields that remains unrivaled. Later on, the aristrocrats, religious institutions and ruling class turned to a very serious patronage of music. And this, too, resulted in unrivaled brilliance. Afterward, a rapidly growing interest in science and technology, along with the expansion of democratic ideals worldwide, eased the path to wealth accumulation for many. The world is larger and better educated, and the arts (while still very popular) may have a harder time winning over brilliant minds due to the numerous other opportunities out there.....sort of like how medical schools are losing out great candidates to hedge funds. Alas, society loses.


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