# TC's Most Liked Composers - Some closure



## Portamento (Dec 8, 2016)

Below are the results of the first six rounds (I am slowly updating this more polished list):

*Composer	Score* 
1	Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart	79.86
2	Ludwig van Beethoven	78.2
3	Johann Sebastian Bach	74.57
4	Franz Schubert	74.09
5	Gustav Mahler	72.77
6	Richard Strauss	70.66
7	Johannes Brahms	70.45
8	Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky	69.81
9	Joseph Haydn	69.77
10	Antonín Dvořák	69.38
11	Frédéric Chopin	68.97
12	Jean Sibelius	68.96
13	Sergei Prokofiev	68.9
14	Claude Debussy	68.58
15	Dmitri Shostakovich	68.48
16	Robert Schumann	67.35
17	Felix Mendelssohn	67.18
18	Heinrich Ignaz Franz Biber	66.97
19	Edvard Grieg	66.37
20	Johann Jakob Froberger	65.89
21	Richard Wagner	65.85
22	Ernő Dohnányi	65.78
23	Gabriel Fauré	65.73
24	Sofia Gubaidulina	65.59
25	Ernest Bloch	65.54
26	Leoš Janáček	65.52
27	Josef Suk	65.48
28	György Ligeti	65.12
29	Henri Dutilleux	65.08
30	Ernest Chausson	64.99
31	Federico Mompou	64.9
32	Charles Koechlin	64.82
33	Maurice Ravel	64.78
34	Anton Bruckner	64.75
35	Enrique Granados	64.73
36	Carl Nielsen	64.71
37	Reinhold Glière	64.66
38	Nikolai Medtner	64.65
39	Igor Stravinsky	64.64
40	Dmitry Kabalevsky	64.56
41	Kaija Saariaho	64.48
42	Isaac Albéniz	64.48
43	Toru Takemitsu	64.39
44	Alexander Gretchaninov	64.35
45	Reynaldo Hahn	64.28
46	Anton Arensky	64.15
47	Sergei Rachmaninoff	64.13
48	Henri Duparc	64.08
49	Erich Wolfgang Korngold	63.97
50	Zdeněk Fibich	63.93
51	Mieczysław Weinberg	63.87
52	Domenico Scarlatti	63.86
53	Heitor Villa-Lobos	63.83
54	Albert Roussel	63.81
55	Aram Khachaturian	63.79
56	Camille Saint-Saëns	63.77
57	Albéric Magnard	63.72
58	Anatoly Lyadov	63.69
59	Alberto Ginastera	63.6
60	Carl Philipp Emanuel Bach	63.59
61	Zoltán Kodály	63.56
62	Julia Wolfe	63.43
63	Amy Beach 63.39
64	Jacques Ibert	63.37
65	Florent Schmitt	63.35
66	Einojuhani Rautavaara	63.33
67	Georg Friedrich Haas	63.31
68	Josquin des Prez	63.21
69	Tomás Luis de Victoria	63.19
70	Louis Vierne	63.02
71	Francis Poulenc	63.01
72	Arthur Honegger	62.98
73	Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov	62.92
74	Charles-Valentin Alkan	62.89
75	Vagn Holmboe	62.88
76	Max Bruch	62.88
77	John Adams	62.85
78	Lili Boulanger	62.78
79	Georges Bizet	62.75
80	Charles-Marie Widor	62.75
81	Fanny Mendelssohn	62.73
82	Pavel Haas	62.7
83	Ernst Toch	62.7
84	Anton Reicha	62.67
85	Karol Szymanowski	62.66
86	György Kurtág	62.62
87	Mikhail Ippolitov-Ivanov	62.57
88	Johann Joseph Fux	62.53
89	Béla Bartók	62.5
90	Emmanuel Chabrier	62.46
91	Vasily Kalinnikov	62.43
92	Nikolai Kapustin	62.27
93	Leopold Koželuch	62.26
94	Hans Abrahamsen	62.24
95	Robert Fuchs	62.21
96	Édouard Lalo	62.19
97	Marin Marais	62.15
98	Francesco Cavalli	62.14
99	Samuel Barber	62.09
100	Lou Harrison	62.08
101	Joaquín Rodrigo	62.03
102	Bedřich Smetana	62
103	Hugo Alfvén	61.99
104	George Butterworth	61.99
105	Giuseppe Tartini	61.86
106	Niels Gade	61.84
107	Carl Maria von Weber	61.83
108	Hector Berlioz	61.76
109	Carlos Chávez	61.73
110	Pablo de Sarasate	61.72
111	Sergei Taneyev	61.71
112	Josef Mysliveček	61.71
113	Joseph Martin Kraus	61.7
114	Paul Dukas	61.68
115	Joaquín Turina	61.68
116	George Frideric Handel	61.65
117	John Luther Adams	61.62
118	Sergei Lyapunov	61.61
119	Paul Hindemith	61.53
120	Henk Badings	61.5
121	Vítězslav Novák	61.44
122	Geirr Tveitt	61.44
123	Boris Tchaikovsky 61.44
124	Carl Reinecke	61.43
125	Gerald Finzi	61.4
126	Steve Reich	61.39
127	Luciano Berio 61.39
128	Gabriel Pierné	61.32
129	Carl Friedrich Abel	61.31
130	Giya Kancheli	61.25
131	Giuseppe Verdi	61.2
132	Valentyn Sylvestrov	61.17
133	Krzysztof Penderecki	61.17
134	Erwin Schulhoff	61.17
135	Ernst Krenek	61.16
136	Virgil Thomson	61.12
137	Jan Dismas Zelenka	61.06
138	Girolamo Frescobaldi	61.04
139	Silvestre Revueltas	61.01
140	Muzio Clementi	61.01
141	Heinrich Schütz	60.98
142	Helmut Lachenmann	60.973
143	Rued Langgaard	60.972
144	William Byrd	60.94
145	Clara Schumann	60.94
146	Marc-Antoine Charpentier	60.92
147	Joachim Raff	60.9
148	Adolphe Adam	60.89
149	Astor Piazzolla	60.85
150	Edison Denisov	60.84
151	Dietrich Buxtehude	60.78
152	Louis Andriessen	60.76
153	Thomas Tallis	60.75
154	Carl Czerny	60.72
155	Gustav Holst	60.71
156	Per Nørgård	60.7
157	Bernard Herrmann	60.61
158	Johann Christian Bach	60.59
159	Leo Ornstein	60.57
160	Ottorino Respighi 60.52
161	Guillaume de Machaut	60.51
162	François Couperin	60.47
163	Anton Rubinstein	60.45
164	Hans Werner Henze	60.4
165	Alban Berg	60.37
166	César Franck	60.32
167	Jan Ladislav Dussek	60.27
168	Ruth Crawford Seeger	60.17
169	Jan Pieterszoon Sweelinck	59.99
170	Ferdinand Ries	59.99
171	Max Reger	59.93
172	Luigi Nono	59.92
173	Hildegard von Bingen	59.87
174	Fernando Sor	59.87
175	William Walton	59.83
176	Arvo Pärt 59.83
177	Wolfgang Rihm	59.72
178	Edward MacDowell	59.63
179	Arcangelo Corelli	59.61
180	Alan Hovhaness	59.42
181	Gaetano Donizetti	59.38
182	Edward Elgar	59.36
183	Alexander Glazunov	59.34
184	Luigi Boccherini	59.33
185	George Gershwin	59.27
186	Guillaume Dufay	59.15
187	Johann Joachim Quantz	59.12
188	Conlon Nancarrow	59.12
189	Modest Mussorgsky	59.03
190	Henry Cowell	59.03
191	Galina Ustvolskaya	59.03
192	Ralph Vaughan Williams	59
193	Jules Massenet	58.94
194	Edgard Varèse	58.88
195	Léonin	58.85
196	Michael Nyman	58.83
197	Charles Wuorinen	58.82
198	Granville Bantock	58.76
199	Charles Gounod	58.72
200	La Monte Young	58.7
201	Pérotin 58.65
202	Thomas Adès	58.64
203	Jean-Philippe Rameau	58.62
204	Hugo Wolf	58.6
205	Manuel de Falla	58.56
206	Iannis Xenakis	58.45
207	Harrison Birtwistle	58.37
208	Nikolai Myaskovsky	58.3
209	Giovanni Gabrieli	58.3
210	Tomaso Albinoni	58.14
211	Orlande de Lassus	58.13
212	Aaron Copland	58.04
213	Giacomo Puccini	58
214	Henry Purcell	57.95
215	Malcolm Arnold	57.77
216	John Dowland	57.68
217	Vincenzo Bellini	57.66
218	Christoph Willibald Gluck	57.66
219	Nikolai Roslavets	57.62
220	Franz Liszt	57.61
221	Johann Pachelbel	57.6
222	Alexander Borodin	57.36
223	Francesco Geminiani	57.1
224	Claudio Monteverdi	57.03
225	Alfred Schnittke	57.01
226	Charles Ives	56.94
227	Mily Balakirev	56.84
228	Antonio Vivaldi	56.76
229	Benedetto Marcello	56.7
230	John Ireland	56.67
231	Gioachino Rossini	56.66
232	Scott Joplin	56.56
233	Alexander Scriabin	56.54
234	Mikhail Glinka	56.39
235	Morton Feldman	56.25
236	Karlheinz Stockhausen	56.08
237	César Cui 55.98
238	Milton Babbitt	55.9
239	Orlando Gibbons	55.76
240	Darius Milhaud	55.7
241	Michael Haydn	55.64
242	Giuseppe Torelli	55.51
243	Michael Tippett	55.23
244	Jacques Offenbach	54.99
245	John Tavener	54.96
246	Jean-Baptiste Lully	54.89
247	Louis Spohr	54.87
248	Samuel Coleridge-Taylor	54.49
249	Charles Villiers Stanford	54.4
250	Georg Philipp Telemann 54.31
251	Alessandro Scarlatti	54.24
252	Pietro Locatelli	54.22
253	Erik Satie	54.15
254	Arnold Schoenberg	54.13
255	Benjamin Britten	54.03
256	Arthur Sullivan	53.72
257	Leonard Bernstein	53.08
258	Niccolò Paganini	52.71
259	Brian Ferneyhough	52.64
260	Olivier Messiaen	52.38
261	Hubert Parry	52.32
262	Giacomo Meyerbeer	52.14
263	Johann Strauss II	51.5
264	John Corigliano	51.39
265	Philip Glass	50.23
266	Carlo Gesualdo	49.04
267	Johann Strauss I	48.11
268	Giovanni Battista Pergolesi	47.96
269	Anton Webern	47.82
270	John Cage	47.61
271	Pierre Boulez	44.19

I encourage newcomers to participate, as it is both fun and absolutely necessary (especially in later rounds).

_
Rate each composer's music on a scale of 1-100. If you feel that you have not listened to enough of a composer's music to make a clear judgement, leave the form blank._

*Round 1*
*Round 2*
*Round 3*
*Round 4*
*Round 5*
*Round 6*

There will eventually be a Round 7, so suggestions as to whom to include next are welcome.


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## Woodduck (Mar 17, 2014)

Froberger at #20? FROBERGER?


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## Pugg (Aug 8, 2014)

Woodduck said:


> Froberger at #20? FROBERGER?


Above Wagner.....can you believe it....


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## Portamento (Dec 8, 2016)

Woodduck said:


> Froberger at #20? FROBERGER?


The error margin is quite high - more participation should fix that.


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## Sloe (May 9, 2014)

Poor Pierre Boulez to come last after names like John Cage, Philip Glass, Brian Ferneyhugh, Iannis Xenakis and Milton Babbit.


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## Bulldog (Nov 21, 2013)

Liszt is currently #220. I knew that guy's music was no good.


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## malvinrisan (Feb 17, 2017)

i was thinking the same. Poor Boulez.


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## eugeneonagain (May 14, 2017)

If after 6 rounds composers like Schoenberg, Liszt, Scriabin, Satie and Britten are scrabbling around the 200-250 mark and composers like Holst around the 150, I'm having trouble taking it seriously.


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## Art Rock (Nov 28, 2009)

"TC's Most Liked Composers" should be "TC's Most Widely Liked Composers". An important difference.


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## Art Rock (Nov 28, 2009)

And as someone who did exact sciences, I have to point out that the quoting of four figures (like 79,86) for the percentages is absolutely irrelevant. I doubt that the accuracy of this poll would even warrant the two figures in front of the colon.


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## Botschaft (Aug 4, 2017)

Richard Strauss above Brahms? Preposterous!



Art Rock said:


> "TC's Most Liked Composers" should be "TC's Most Widely Liked Composers". An important difference.


Extensive popularity rather than intensive, to elaborate.


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## Dr Johnson (Jun 26, 2015)

I have never even heard of Johann Jakob Froberger.

I feel such a dunce.


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## Zhdanov (Feb 16, 2016)

Portamento said:


> 21	Richard Wagner	65.85


eh? what a waste of time polls are!


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## Resurrexit (Apr 1, 2014)

Portamento said:


> TC's Most Liked Composers - Some closure


Good luck with that.


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## Gaspard de la Nuit (Oct 20, 2014)

Carl Czerny is ahead of Holst, Couperin, Ralph Vaughan Williams, William Walton, Franck, Copland, etc.....along with someone named Boris Tchaikovsky.


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## Bulldog (Nov 21, 2013)

Froberger and Boris Tchaikovsky are excellent composers fully deserving of applause. I'd pick Froberger ahead of Wagner, wouldn't you?


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## jim prideaux (May 30, 2013)

have I gone (completely)daft but I cannot find Martinu !!!!


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## Bulldog (Nov 21, 2013)

jim prideaux said:


> have I gone (completely)daft but I cannot find Martinu !!!!


I couldn't find him either. The man needs a better publicist.


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## TurnaboutVox (Sep 22, 2013)

Er, Bloch at 25, Fibich at 50 and Lou Harrison at 100 but the three luminaries of Satie, Schoenberg and Britten at places 253, 254 and 255? Strange list. I'm as partial to Bloch's music as the next man, I think, but...really?


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## DaveM (Jun 29, 2015)

100% accuracy: John Cage is second last.


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## Johnnie Burgess (Aug 30, 2015)

Dr Johnson said:


> I have never even heard of Johann Jakob Froberger.
> 
> I feel such a dunce.


If you have Spotify you can find his music on there.


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## Dr Johnson (Jun 26, 2015)

Johnnie Burgess said:


> If you have Spotify you can find his music on there.


Thanks. I looked him up on Wikipedia and found him in the 2006 Penguin Guide.

I cannot think how I missed him.


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## Portamento (Dec 8, 2016)

*The more voters, the less of an error margin. The more voters, the less we will be surprised by the final list.*

Please, if you are new to these polls and are complaining about the results, PARTICIPATE!


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## Pat Fairlea (Dec 9, 2015)

I would hate to miss an opportunity for confected outrage:

Glinka down at 234!!! This is a disgrace, a conspiracy etc etc.


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## eugeneonagain (May 14, 2017)

DaveM said:


> 100% accuracy: John Cage is second last.


Only _second_ last! He should have been pitted against Boulez in that previous poll. In that way all those stuck in the groove of one of their trusty RCA Victor 78s of Brahms wouldn't have bothered to vote or comment either way.


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## Portamento (Dec 8, 2016)

*Participation:*
*Round 1* - 68 users
*Round 2* - 43
*Round 3* - 30
*Round 4* - 24
*Round 5* - 22
*Round 6* - 16

If every round can achieve the level of participation as the first, data discrepancies (such as Froberger at #20) will be drastically reduced.


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## ArtMusic (Jan 5, 2013)

Interesting list to read, thank you for doing it, but I think as you past the top 10, it's just a list of names.


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## Portamento (Dec 8, 2016)

ArtMusic said:


> Interesting list to read, thank you for doing it, but I think as you past the top 10, it's just a list of names.


I'm asking for your help to make the data more meaningful - all you have to do is participate.


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## Bulldog (Nov 21, 2013)

One thing I noticed about the list is that each of the top 20 deserved consideration for inclusion. Although composers such as Biber and Froberger don't get much exposure, they were as successful as the big guns in achieving their musical goals.


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## Lisztian (Oct 10, 2011)

Portamento said:


> I'm asking for your help to make the data more meaningful - all you have to do is participate.


The problem for me is that I'm only very familiar with the outputs of a very small percentage of the composers listed. I realise it's 'most liked,' and so I don't have to know all of the music to know that I like the composers that I do...but not knowing also means that I can't properly compare/contextualise and don't have a reliable point of reference. This is why I never participate in things like this.


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## Botschaft (Aug 4, 2017)

Lisztian said:


> The problem for me is that I'm only very familiar with the outputs of a very small percentage of the composers listed. I realise it's 'most liked,' and so I don't have to know all of the music to know that I like the composers that I do...but not knowing also means that I can't properly compare/contextualise and don't have a reliable point of reference. This is why I never participate in things like this.


I feel very much the same way.


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## EddieRUKiddingVarese (Jan 8, 2013)

DaveM said:


> 100% accuracy: John Cage is second last.


Ah but I have not vote yet


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## Portamento (Dec 8, 2016)

Lisztian said:


> The problem for me is that I'm only very familiar with the outputs of a very small percentage of the composers listed. I realise it's 'most liked,' and so I don't have to know all of the music to know that I like the composers that I do...but not knowing also means that I can't properly compare/contextualise and don't have a reliable point of reference. This is why I never participate in things like this.


That's a very good point.


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## Casebearer (Jan 19, 2016)

Bartók at 89. People are deaf, dumb and blind. They have no ears and no heart. They lack all musical intelligence. Their priorities are wrong. What else?


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## Botschaft (Aug 4, 2017)

Casebearer said:


> Bartók at 89. People are deaf, dumb and blind. They have no ears and no heart. They lack all musical intelligence. Their priorities are wrong. What else?


They prefer classical music?


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## Taplow (Aug 13, 2017)

What? No Johann David Heinichen??


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## Dr Johnson (Jun 26, 2015)

Portamento said:


> *The more voters, the less of an error margin. The more voters, the less we will be surprised by the final list.*
> 
> Please, if you are new to these polls and are complaining about the results, PARTICIPATE!


For those of us who missed them, could you kindly post links to the threads wherein we can vote?


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## mmsbls (Mar 6, 2011)

Dr Johnson said:


> For those of us who missed them, could you kindly post links to the threads wherein we can vote?


Look at the first post. All the links are there.


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## Dr Johnson (Jun 26, 2015)

mmsbls said:


> Look at the first post. All the links are there.


Doh! So they are.

Thanks.


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## TurnaboutVox (Sep 22, 2013)

mmsbls said:


> Look at the first post. All the links are there.


Voting seems to require that you have a Google account, which I (deliberately) don't.


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## Nereffid (Feb 6, 2013)

TurnaboutVox said:


> Voting seems to require that you have a Google account, which I (deliberately) don't.


I suppose in theory one could copy the list of composers, give them each a score, and have Portamento manually add these votes...


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## Portamento (Dec 8, 2016)

TurnaboutVox said:


> Voting seems to require that you have a Google account, which I (deliberately) don't.


Sorry about that. You should be good to go now.


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## Casebearer (Jan 19, 2016)

Improbus said:


> They prefer classical music?


Good and very telling rhetorical question. So you mean Bartók's music is outside the realm of classical music and two people agree with that. I'm tempted to ask moderators to reopen the discussion on having a separate 'modern' classical music forum because we'll never have a fruitful exchange. 'Modern' in this case starting with the music of the period when the combustion motor was invented, the first cars appeared and communication by telegraph was the fastest. That's the time of my great grandfather and I'm not that young. How can you people live with yourself confronted with the fact that you are modern persons living in a modern world and using the newest technology (like internet and forums) and at the same time the world culturally ended for you 100 or more years ago and you even seem to be proud of the taste that comes along with that as well. It just doesn't fit.


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## Botschaft (Aug 4, 2017)

Casebearer said:


> Good and very telling rhetorical question. So you mean Bartók's music is outside the realm of classical music and two people agree with that. I'm tempted to ask moderators to reopen the discussion on having a separate 'modern' classical music forum because we'll never have a fruitful exchange. 'Modern' in this case starting with the music of the period when the combustion motor was invented, the first cars appeared and communication by telegraph was the fastest. That's the time of my great grandfather and I'm not that young. How can you people live with yourself confronted with the fact that you are modern persons living in a modern world and using the newest technology (like internet and forums) and at the same time the world culturally ended for you 100 or more years ago and you even seem to be proud of the taste that comes along with that as well. It just doesn't fit.


I cannot see why mere technological progress should have any bearing on what art one ought to value, as if the two were somehow immediately interrelated. Even in ancient Rome the development of art and purely physical welfare respectively seem to have taken quite different paths starting from the beginning of the Imperial Era, and one should bear in mind that the late 19th century was a time of greater scientific and technological advancement than ours.


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## Strange Magic (Sep 14, 2015)

Improbus said:


> I cannot see why mere technological progress should have any bearing on what art one ought to value, as if the two were somehow immediately interrelated. Even in ancient Rome the development of art and purely physical welfare respectively seem to have taken quite different paths starting from the beginning of the Imperial Era, and one should bear in mind that the late 19th century was a time of greater scientific and technological advancement than ours.


Probably the most significant change that modern electronic/computer technology has wrought is the extraordinary shrinking of the attention span among a rapidly growing percentage of the population. When people now tear themselves away from the iPhone and their Twitter accounts and the constant monitoring (what are you doing? What are you thinking?) of the tremors of the social web, they have time enough only for 3-minute snippets of music now. Only film, and video games, are capable of their sustained attention. This accounts for probably an important share of the decline in the audience for classical music--who has the time; who has the interest to sit and listen to an hour-long symphony?

The other aspects of technology are rapidly incorporated into everyday lives and are not examined closely for their overall effects, except by people like Neil Postman (_Amusing Ourselves to Death_), and the Chinese government, who now are investigating what goes on in facilities to detox young men addicted to video games.


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## Casebearer (Jan 19, 2016)

Improbus said:


> I cannot see why mere technological progress should have any bearing on what art one ought to value, as if the two were somehow immediately interrelated. Even in ancient Rome the development of art and purely physical welfare respectively seem to have taken quite different paths starting from the beginning of the Imperial Era, and one should bear in mind that the late 19th century was a time of greater scientific and technological advancement than ours.


Art is always a reflection of its time. It exists in the historical context it was produced in. Of course we can appreciate old art - I like Aristophanes for instance - nothing wrong with that, but when that turns into a denial that worthwhile art music is produced after the classical period and up to this date my opinion is that you don't live today and you are not doing the great living tradition of classical music any favours.


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## Botschaft (Aug 4, 2017)

Casebearer said:


> Art is always a reflection of its time. It exists in the historical context it was produced in. Of course we can appreciate old art - I like Aristophanes for instance - nothing wrong with that, but when that turns into a denial that worthwhile art music is produced after the classical period and up to this date my opinion is that you don't live today and you are not doing the great living tradition of classical music any favours.


There is no living classical tradition, much less a great or even worthwhile one, of music or any other art; WWI marked the end of all that. If acknowledging this is to not live today I would rather be dead, much like the classical tradition.


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## Nereffid (Feb 6, 2013)

Improbus said:


> There is no living classical tradition, much less a great or even worthwhile one, of music or any other art; WWI marked the end of all that. If acknowledging this is to not live today I would rather be dead, much like the classical tradition.


Oh come on, everyone knows classical music died not in 1918 but in 1958.


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## Art Rock (Nov 28, 2009)

Well, World War One ended in 1958, so you're both right.


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## Botschaft (Aug 4, 2017)

Art Rock said:


> Well, World War One ended in 1958, so you're both right.


I guess that settles it.


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## Oldhoosierdude (May 29, 2016)

There's an error in your list. The first two are switched.


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## Oldhoosierdude (May 29, 2016)

Improbus said:


> I guess that settles it.


I thought February 3, 1959 was the day the music died.


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