# What will Classical Music be in the Future?



## millionrainbows (Jun 23, 2012)

Like *someguy* said, "...in the twentieth century the recording industry helped turn classical music into just another commodity, like soap or soft drinks or automobiles. In this situation, the consumer does become sovereign or at least feels that way! Music becomes, for consumers, a thing that must serve them and their current needs. It is no longer valued for its ability to take one out of oneself or to provide one something new, to expand one's horizons."

We are all CD consumers here. "Classical music" needs to be defined by its essential goals and criteria, not by its outer forms and traditions only.

To ask what classical music will be in the future, we should define what its specific functions have been up to now.

Here are some criteria:

*1.* "Classical music" should be of high artistic quality, and not tied to any utilitarian purpose or use other than its own self-directed being as art; if it is used for a utilitarian purpose, it must transcend this function.

The term "classical" can no longer mean what it used to mean, since it is no longer "the only game in town," but just one of a multiplicity of forms which exist and compete in the modern world. There is even dispute between traditionalists and modernists as to whether modern "classical" music and composers should be allowed into the Western tradition, John Cage being the easiest case in point.

I see a lot of empty chatter from those who have a narrow definition of "classical" and no real criteria as to what artistic functions this kind of music should provide.

I will assert, however, that in the future, the best music, which represents the highest artistic achievements, and highest musical criteria, will be the music which should rightly be called "classical" because it continues and extends the highest goals of Western musical tradition.

*2.* "Classical music" will place the highest demands on human creators and interpreters, as it always has. It will not be "churned out" automatically, but will represent the highest artistic intent of its creators and performers, even if it is created on computers or is reproduced in some mechanical way.

*3. *"Classical music" will represent and emphasize a high level of purely musical thought, and will be complex in some form, on some level, or will satisfy a high level of artistic criteria. It will, where relevant, in many cases extend the syntax of music, and will be concerned with purely musical elements (pitch, timbre, rhythm); and/or with highly artistic ways of presenting artistic concepts, using musical syntax, or simply sound itself, as its medium.


----------

