# Future



## JackRance (Sep 13, 2021)

It's been nearly 20 years now, so many more conclusions can be drawn. What do you think about Ducros' "L'atonalisme et apres"? Today it seems to me that the music is more confused than ever. There are some who continue to take atonalism and serialism to extremes (such as Kurtag, whom I respect fairly, or the spectralists), others nostalgic for the past who write music that is of no interest to me (such as Ducros, Martynov or (if you consider it a composer, I do not consider her) Alma Deutscher), then the minimalists who (in my opinion) can also write interesting music but which certainly will not be the future of music, then there are the new composers on which the deutsche grammophon focuses a lot, which for me they are too similar to Einaudi Allevi and others ... So now I don't know what to hope for in the future and I hope that soon a new composer of reference will come out. I am very young and I would be sorry not to be able to follow interesting musical events during my life.
What do you think that will be the future of music?


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## MarkW (Feb 16, 2015)

No one future, but just keep keep listening and you will be surprised, delighted, and aghast in turns.


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## Manxfeeder (Oct 19, 2010)

It seems that most music of the future was completely missed by the majority of listeners in its time, so don't worry about it; you're probably listening to the wrong things right now anyway, and it's okay.


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## Sid James (Feb 7, 2009)

I think that the increasingly global nature of classical music will continue and be strengthened. This has been a trend since at least as far back as the early 20th century, with influences such as folk, world, jazz, rock and other popular music enriching the classical tradition. The future of classical might not even lie in the West, with other parts of the world - especially Asia and Latin America - developing vibrant scenes and cultivating local talent.


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## Rogerx (Apr 27, 2018)

Just be patient, if your young enough you will find out.


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## Enthusiast (Mar 5, 2016)

When I listened to music from between the wars (Bartok, Stravinsky, Schoenberg, Webern, Berg etc) in the 1960s I heard great variety. I can still hear the variety but I also hear music that is distinctively of that period and therefore apparently not so varied after all.


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## Mandryka (Feb 22, 2013)

JackRance said:


> a new composer of reference will come out.


I think that one force has changed the composer's role. He no longer sees himself as creating a work like traditional a composer is supposed to be and do. Obviously some composers stick to a hypertrophied version of old things, but not all and not necessarily the most rewarding.


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## JackRance (Sep 13, 2021)

I write what larold say about this topic in the page Ligeti, Stockhausen and others...

I have spoken plenty about the state of music and what we used to know as classical music, both in composition and performance. I'll summarize my opinions if it helps.

I know there are plenty of composers writing music but I don't think we are in a period where classical music is thriving. Regardless of style there hasn't been a new or recent composition that has set the world afire in 30 or 40 years. There have been a few operas this century that are starting to catch on; that ended quite a long drought going back to about World War II.

However I don't think there is a composer writing music now that is considered among the greatest ever; if there is one I don't know whom it would be. The collective result of all this is an art form that is likely not producing new fans, especially new young fans which are the ones that grow its future.

Most people that aren't musicians get classical music from places like radio, streams or recordings. I don't fret over the end of physical media as a way to purchase and listen to music but the reality is not many orchestras or performers are going to make much of a living on streams. I have read a performer only gets about one cent for a stream.

Orchestras, which used to have big endowments and get fat recordings contracts, have pretty much lost the former and are moving more and more to their own media to sell their products. August recording companies like DG, a mainstay in classical music going back to the earliest days of recordings, was subject of a chat around here about its seeming loss of identity.

Some people say the Second Viennese School started things downhill with its music 100 years ago. I don't know about that because classical music was still in popular culture and big business when I came to it about 1970. Its decline mirrored what happened to the recording industry, in my opinion. In this century orchestras everywhere lost endowments and funding and we have pretty much lost all the bookstores and record stores, the places people used to gather to sample, buy and learn about new music and recordings.

Now the Internet has replaced everything and you are pretty much on your own there. So even if the industry is not in decline it has turned the masses to individuals who have to find their own way one person at a time. YouTube is a great place to get free music and has many interesting videos but that in my opinion is not a suitable replacement for what The Penguin Guide and High Fidelity magazine offered me in the day.

And if it has done all this to consumers of music imagine the composers and creator


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## JackRance (Sep 13, 2021)

JackRance said:


> I write what larold say about this topic in the page Ligeti, Stockhausen and others...
> 
> I have spoken plenty about the state of music and what we used to know as classical music, both in composition and performance. I'll summarize my opinions if it helps.
> 
> ...


And this is the reply of gregorx:

Up until 100 years ago, classical music had the stage pretty much all to itself. Then came two little things: radio and television. The Harlem Rennaisance coincided with radio and The Jazz Age, and just a few years later television brought on a cultural explosion that gave us, among other things, what we now call Pop music. The Internet Age put the final nail in the coffin as you laid out above.

It's too bad because what we still call Classical Music has never been better. The last 100 years have been the most innovative and creative period in WAM and nobody is listening. They are listening to other types of music; names like Bach, Beethoven, Brahms, and Wagner have been replaced by Sinatra, Miles Davis, The Beatles, Madonna, Beyoncé, and Drake. Classical Music will never be as popular as it was 150 years ago, so we should be thankful for the great composers we have today and give the music a chance.


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## Symphonic (Apr 27, 2015)

Manxfeeder said:


> It seems that most music of the future was completely missed by the majority of listeners in its time, so don't worry about it; you're probably listening to the wrong things right now anyway, and it's okay.


Any examples? (Apart from Mendelssohn's 19th century Bach revival)


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## JackRance (Sep 13, 2021)

JackRance said:


> And this is the reply of gregorx:
> 
> Up until 100 years ago, classical music had the stage pretty much all to itself. Then came two little things: radio and television. The Harlem Rennaisance coincided with radio and The Jazz Age, and just a few years later television brought on a cultural explosion that gave us, among other things, what we now call Pop music. The Internet Age put the final nail in the coffin as you laid out above.
> 
> It's too bad because what we still call Classical Music has never been better. The last 100 years have been the most innovative and creative period in WAM and nobody is listening. They are listening to other types of music; names like Bach, Beethoven, Brahms, and Wagner have been replaced by Sinatra, Miles Davis, The Beatles, Madonna, Beyoncé, and Drake. Classical Music will never be as popular as it was 150 years ago, so we should be thankful for the great composers we have today and give the music a chance.


Maybe they're right, but is so sad for me admit we are at the end of classical music...


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## JackRance (Sep 13, 2021)

But what about Jerome Ducros?


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## Manxfeeder (Oct 19, 2010)

Symphonic said:


> Any examples? (Apart from Mendelssohn's 19th century Bach revival)


One example from my personal life: When I was studying music in California back in the early '70s, serial music was all the rage. It was so cerebral and uninspiring that that's one reason I walked away and went to court reporting school. And music history classes pretty much ended with Webern. I had no idea that Steve Reich and Philip Glass were out there with a new sound based on triads and time processes or even that there were Neo-Romantic composers still composing legitimate music.


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## Durendal (Oct 24, 2018)

Manxfeeder said:


> One example from my personal life: When I was studying music in California back in the early '70s, serial music was all the rage. It was so cerebral and uninspiring that that's one reason I walked away and went to court reporting school. And music history classes pretty much ended with Webern. I had no idea that Steve Reich and Philip Glass were out there with a new sound based on triads and time processes or even that there were Neo-Romantic composers still composing legitimate music.


I think this is a key point - once the inaccessible avant-garde stuff started dominating classical music, people stopped listening. That, combined with access to other, more "fun" types of music, led to where we are today.


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## Nawdry (Dec 27, 2020)

JackRance said:


> ... I don't know what to hope for in the future and I hope that soon a new composer of reference will come out. I am very young and I would be sorry not to be able to follow interesting musical events during my life.
> What do you think that will be the future of music?


I think there is some cause for concern amongst those of us in the classical music community. By this time in the 20th century, an array of great composers were on the scene and establishing worldwide reputations and enduring devotees; for example: Ravel, Schoenberg, Stravinsky, Bartok, Vaughn Williams, Respighi, Casella, Villa-Lobos ...

I see nothing comparable to that so far in this century.


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## VoiceFromTheEther (Aug 6, 2021)

Nawdry said:


> I think there is some cause for concern amongst those of us in the classical music community. By this time in the 20th century, an array of great composers were on the scene and establishing worldwide reputations and enduring devotees; for example: Ravel, Schoenberg, Stravinsky, Bartok, Vaughn Williams, Respighi, Casella, Villa-Lobos ...
> 
> I see nothing comparable to that so far in this century.


*1921:*
Schönberg
Stravinsky
Strauss
Ravel
Holst
Saint-Saens
Puccini
Vaughan Williams
Prokofiev
Glazunov
Bartók
Rachmaninoff
Korngold
Respighi

The state of the matters in 2021 compared to that is a sorry state.


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## HenryPenfold (Apr 29, 2018)

VoiceFromTheEther said:


> *1921:*
> Schönberg
> Stravinsky
> Strauss
> ...


Scary ............


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## SanAntone (May 10, 2020)

Nawdry said:


> I think there is some cause for concern amongst those of us in the classical music community. By this time in the 20th century, an array of great composers were on the scene and establishing worldwide reputations and enduring devotees; for example: Ravel, Schoenberg, Stravinsky, Bartok, Vaughn Williams, Respighi, Casella, Villa-Lobos ...
> 
> I see nothing comparable to that so far in this century.


Kate Soper
Rebecca Saunders
Nico Muhly
G.F. Haas
Kelly Sheehan
Alexandra Du Bois
Katherine Balch

If you wish to hear some music by composers under the age of 40, many under 30, go to these YouTube channels:

*incipitsify*

*Score Follower*


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## Neo Romanza (May 7, 2013)

The future is no concern of mine. What _is_ important to me is the present. The future isn't guaranteed and this goes for anything in life and, yes, this includes music. Perhaps instead of asking about the future of music, you should ask yourself what are you doing in the present that benefits classical music? That's a better question, IMHO.


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