# The Times Are A Changing.



## Rico (6 mo ago)

Hello Music Lovers

WOW, I'm so excited and thrilled to find a website that Talks Classical Music. Now, perhaps I can ask and find-out if anyone agrees with me or thinks the same. Normally I'm a man of few words, but on this topic I have a big opinion. My name is Rico, ( Rico is Rich in Spanish ) I love Classical Music especially Gypsy Music then the Classical Guitar. I just asked this same question to my local radio station but I won't get an answer until Friday at 7M. On the air!, Can you believe it? If you would like to make a request. E-mail James Baker at Classics Ala Cart [email protected] tell them Richard from Natalia sent you. That's 88.3 KPAC you can hear it on your computer also.

I've been listening to Classical Music for a very long time. I used to listen to Classic Rock. Before that there was Rock-An-Roll, then there was Heavy Metal, then Hip Hop, now there's Punk Rock. I was listening to my radio station, and the speaker said All Classical Music was somewhat The Same. That got me to thinking, I thought .. No It's Not! I'm sorry to say but Not everyone can be " Mozart or Beethoven " or come close to what they were or even " Vivaldi or Brahms ". Many of the great Composers lived at a time when the only entertainment available was Music, plus they were born with talent.

Back then they had no distractions like Baseball, or Soccer, or Football, Electricity, Light Bulbs, Radio, Television, Telephone, Computers, Video Games. MUSIC was all they had. This is my question. Isn't it Time to categorize Modern Classical Music. To me ( correct me if I'm wrong ) Modern Classical Music has lost it's luster, it's dazzle, it's.. something. It doesn't even come close to sounding the same. Someone sez Movie Music you automatically think " Korngold or Williams " or they say Classical Music you think " Mozart or Beethoven " Musical Movies you think " Gene Kelly or Fred Astaire ". Where do you place composers like " Leonard Bernstein or George Gershwin or Copeland "? I believe it's time they get their own separate category for their contribution to the Classical Music World. Maybe I'm barking up the wrong tree or just totally illogical. Jazz, Choral Music, Opera, Baroque, Classical, Romantic, Contemporary, they all have their time and an era. I know today's music is not the same and never will be. What's your take on this topic?


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## NoCoPilot (Nov 9, 2020)

Rico said:


> Many of the great Composers lived at a time when the only entertainment available was Music, plus they were born with talent. Back then they had no distractions like Baseball, or Soccer, or Football, Electricity, Light Bulbs, Radio, Television, Telephone, Computers, Video Games. MUSIC was all they had.


I think perhaps you overestimate the amount of free time people had before electricity. Clothes had to be washed by hand. The stove had to be loaded up with wood (or coal?) to cook. The horses had to be watered and brushed. Wicks had to be trimmed.

I'm sure they had sports they could watch in person, which necessitated harnessing up the coach to get there. Music was perhaps a bigger part of every student's education, at least it seems like it, with all of the child prodigies we hear about. Although, to be fair, it was probably the Upper Classes who took piano lessons. They had somebody else to trim their wicks.

Modern Classical has lost its luster? Well, it competes with a lot of other music (and entertainments) for the limited consumer dollar. It's been essentially STARVED into irrelevancy.


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## Luchesi (Mar 15, 2013)

Rico said:


> Hello Music Lovers
> 
> WOW, I'm so excited and thrilled to find a website that Talks Classical Music. Now, perhaps I can ask and find-out if anyone agrees with me or thinks the same. Normally I'm a man of few words, but on this topic I have a big opinion. My name is Rico, ( Rico is Rich in Spanish ) I love Classical Music especially Gypsy Music then the Classical Guitar. I just asked this same question to my local radio station but I won't get an answer until Friday at 7M. On the air!, Can you believe it? If you would like to make a request. E-mail James Baker at Classics Ala Cart [email protected] tell them Richard from Natalia sent you. That's 88.3 KPAC you can hear it on your computer also.
> 
> ...


"...the speaker said All Classical Music was somewhat The Same."

I'd say that it's had a long development down through centuries and it's consequently more diverse and interesting to study than other music with less history, less development, less enduring significance. It has high artistic goals and intentions. You know, all the good things a serious subject makes available to the prepared receiver..
But at the same time it's entertaining and mind-expanding and even therapeutic (for some people).


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## Gold Member (Aug 23, 2021)

I like keeping the name Classical music, because Classics never die. The real truth is, it makes me wonder what, if anything in the past 60 years, will be considered Classical in the distant future.


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## Rogerx (Apr 27, 2018)

Gold Member said:


> I like keeping the name Classical music, because Classics never die. The real truth is, it makes me wonder what, if anything in the past 60 years, will be considered Classical in the distant future.


You know, I have the same, but then I realise it's has no sense thinking like that, because we all will never know.


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## neoshredder (Nov 7, 2011)

Stick with Romanticism. It has the most variety while prioritizing tonalism.


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## Georgieva (7 mo ago)

I do not believe this is a topic for classical music discussion at all. Gold is not considered to be flammable, although it melt.


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## larold (Jul 20, 2017)

_I know today's music is not the same and never will be. What's your take on this topic? _

That's the can of worms that's been opened for years, at least going back to the famous book "Who Killed Classical Music?" I've spoken a lot on this topic -- the decline and/or demise of classical music in my lifetime (I am 71 years of age) -- so I'll try not and repeat everything I've said before.

Music changed in the 20th century with the expansion of radio, then television, and the development of other new forms of popular music. None of this particularly killed classical music but it diverted listeners who may have been connected to it at some point. While there were always popular or folk forms there was never a time until the invention of radio that they became so popular and easily followed. That was also true for classical music but it was circulated by the church, among other places.

The Second Viennese School in the 20th century also changed the concept of classical music we had known for 300 years by inventing a new scale and discipline and introducing the concept of sound worlds to classical music. Also the 20th century meant composers, especially in the post World War II era, no longer had to rely only on audiences for approval of their music. They could survive on university or conservatory pay and compose as a sideline. Audiences became less important in determining if music was going to be played and/or have staying power. When Brahms wrote something if it didn't get played it was gone. That concept had changed.

When I listen to contemporary classical music in the 21st century, and even other forms of music, the biggest change I hear today is that melody is dead. This is true for popular music as well. That music is usually more sound world or beat-dominated than tuneful. I don't know the last new piece of classical music I heard that was tuneful or had a memorable tune. My guess is your favorite piece of classical music either has a tune or themes or something you love. It's just about impossible to find those in contemporary music ... of any kind.

It has really just been the past 40-50 years where all these changes have occurred and changed classical music. Shostakovich, who died 1975, was the last composer whose body of work included all the forms that put him in league with the Bachs, Mozarts, Beethovens -- solo instrumental, chamber, symphonies, operas, songs/lieder, film or theater music, etc. -- the quality of which was always comparable to other great composers.

It's been almost a half-century now since he died without another composer coming along as good as him. I once went back through the history of classical music in half-century steps to find the last time a half-century went by without a top 20 or top 25 composer. I had to go back to the early 1600s, maybe even the 1500s ... 500 years in any event.

These aren't the only reasons classical music has changed. But it seems ironic that at a point in human history when leisure time is more abundant than ever before that this ages-old form of music seems to be declining and no one has written a classical music "hit" since at least the 1980s.


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## neoshredder (Nov 7, 2011)

The closest to after Shostakovich would be Schnittke imo. Maybe not as successful. But his music is quite interesting.


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## Fabulin (Jun 10, 2019)

John Williams is a top 20 composer and does the things you mentioned, only he has always been invested in one genre (he wrote ca. 200 hours of music for a large orchestra). I sometimes wished he would do the kinds of voyages / self-challenges that Shostakovich made for himself such as the Preludes and Fugues, but going the Wagner/Verdi/Puccini way on this kind of scale frankly is enough to put him in the most august company. But yeah, the man is 90 and after he is gone, it might well be as you say: a period without a champion.


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## VoiceFromTheEther (Aug 6, 2021)

Classical is the Byzantium of music. Durable, but with each setback declining nonetheless.


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## SanAntone (May 10, 2020)

Is this really a problem? Is the music of Beethoven really endangered because John Cage is also considered a Classical composer? Is it really that hard for intelligent people to sort this out?


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## larold (Jul 20, 2017)

Beethoven not endangered -- just the future of the art form. Art forms that don't create new interest and following tend to deflate. That's what's happened to CM. No new composers or compositions getting worldwide interest generating new fans and interest. In no other era of CM could a film composer like John Williams, a guy that's never written a string quartet, symphony, oratorio or opera, be considered one of the better living composers.


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## Woodduck (Mar 17, 2014)

I'm surprised that you consider Bernstein and Copland "modern," lacking "luster" and "dazzle," and in need of their own category. Or do I misunderstand?


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## allaroundmusicenthusiast (Jun 3, 2020)

Woodduck said:


> I'm surprised that you consider Bernstein and Copland "modern," lacking "luster" and "dazzle," and in need of their own category. Or do I misunderstand?


My first thoughts, if he thinks Copland and Gershwin are modern I wonder how big the rock he's living under is. 

This topic is a bore too.


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## Yabetz (Sep 6, 2021)

larold said:


> Beethoven not endangered -- just the future of the art form. Art forms that don't create new interest and following tend to deflate. That's what's happened to CM. No new composers or compositions getting worldwide interest generating new fans and interest. In no other era of CM could a film composer like John Williams, a guy that's never written a string quartet, symphony, oratorio or opera, be considered one of the better living composers.


Well to be fair those forms aren't really at the forefront as they once were. Also I think the state of affairs you describe also applies to film, literature, pop music and so on.

Another thing is I think the "center of gravity" in the arts is steadily moving away from western Europe and non-Latin North America and more toward eastern Europe, Latin America, Africa and Asia.


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## SanAntone (May 10, 2020)

larold said:


> Beethoven not endangered -- just the future of the art form. Art forms that don't create new interest and following tend to deflate. That's what's happened to CM. No new composers or compositions getting worldwide interest generating new fans and interest. In no other era of CM could a film composer like John Williams, a guy that's never written a string quartet, symphony, oratorio or opera, be considered one of the better living composers.


Apparently you don't follow new music. The only thing that has happened is that CM as is true for all genres, has become decentralized. The old gatekeepers and CM institutions remain the bastions devoted to preservation of symphony orchestras, opera houses, and the standard repertory. New music is being written and supported far from those museums of old music. But it is happening and the scene is really pretty vibrant.

I have no fears about the future and health of serious music whether it is called Classical or something else.


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## VoiceFromTheEther (Aug 6, 2021)

Yabetz said:


> I think the "center of gravity" in the arts is steadily moving away from western Europe and non-Latin North America and more toward eastern Europe, Latin America, Africa and Asia.


If the centre of gravity seems to be moving in every direction at the same time, maybe it isn't moving at all?


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## Philidor (11 mo ago)

Fabulin said:


> John Williams is a top 20 composer


... but only if you consider McDonalds to be among the top 3 restaurants


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## Fabulin (Jun 10, 2019)

Philidor said:


> ... but only if you consider McDonalds to be among the top 3 restaurants


There is more wrong with this than I thought was possible in one sentence. Congrats!


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## Yabetz (Sep 6, 2021)

larold said:


> ...
> These aren't the only reasons classical music has changed. But it seems ironic that at a point in human history when leisure time is more abundant than ever before that this ages-old form of music seems to be declining and no one has written a classical music "hit" since at least the 1980s.


It reminds me of a Michael Crichton quote: "In the information society, nobody thinks. We expected to banish paper, but we actually banished thought."


VoiceFromTheEther said:


> If the centre of gravity seems to be moving in every direction at the same time, maybe it isn't moving at all?


If most of the most interesting work is emanating from elsewhere, I'd say there was movement. But it's just an impression, not a scientific data point.


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## superhorn (Mar 23, 2010)

larold said:


> Beethoven not endangered -- just the future of the art form. Art forms that don't create new interest and following tend to deflate. That's what's happened to CM. No new composers or compositions getting worldwide interest generating new fans and interest. In no other era of CM could a film composer like John Williams, a guy that's never written a string quartet, symphony, oratorio or opera, be considered one of the better living composers.


. John Williams is actually a "serious " composer who has written more than a few works intended for the concert hall, such as violin concertos etc . And these have been performed and recorded by such stellar musicians as Itzhak Perlman, Anne-Sophie Mutter and others . And recently Williams has conducted his music, including film scores with the Vienna Philharmonic and the Berlin Philharmonic and other world class orchestras . A live CD of him conductign the Vienna Philharmonic in his move music has recently been released by DG .


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