# Youth Culture and Historic Classical Music



## regenmusic (Oct 23, 2014)

I am wondering what young people thought of classical music in times past, like say for instance the 1400's to 1800's. Did young people know something like Purcell: Odes for Saint Cecilia's Day, with all it's interesting vocal work? It's true that Europe was on a more liturgical calendar, and events were probably arranged around such feast days.


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## Pugg (Aug 8, 2014)

regenmusic said:


> I am wondering what young people thought of classical music in times past, like say for instance the 1400's to 1800's. Did young people know something like Purcell: Odes for Saint Cecilia's Day, with all it's interesting vocal work? It's true that Europe was on a more liturgical calendar, and events were probably arranged around such feast days.


AS far as I understand from reading about this point, music was entertainment, hardly performed more then twice on the same courts, so I don't think we had fanatic admires like nowadays .


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## Woodduck (Mar 17, 2014)

Before the 20th century there were no such things as "young people" or "youth culture." You were a child until you were old enough to work, marry, and start making more children, which, unless you were rich, needed to happen early since you needed to do it before you died, which could happen at any time. Not even student life at university (for those who could afford it) constituted a youth culture; you immersed yourself in the cultural tradition of your elders and were expected to master it or be expelled. If you loved music it was music written by adults and performed by adults for adults.

Now adults immerse themselves in the culture of young people - or never grow out of it. We're a bunch of Peter and Patty Pans. Pathetic.


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## Hildadam Bingor (May 7, 2016)

Woodduck said:


> Before the 20th century there were no such things as "young people" or "youth culture."


Somebody forgot to tell the Shakespeare who wrote Romeo and Juliet.



Woodduck said:


> Not even student life at university (for those who could afford it) constituted a youth culture; you immersed yourself in the cultural tradition of your elders and were expected to master it or be expelled.


You might as well say the same about student life today.

Actually university students provide an obvious example of "youth music": student songs.

That aside, I know that in 1848 Johann Strauss, Jr., was considered the composer of the young and the revolutionaries, while Johann Strauss, Sr., was considered the composer of the old and the establishment. But, aside from students, maybe there wasn't a musical equivalent to, for example, the Gothic novels consumed by young women in the early 19th century (satirized in Northanger Abbey) until the 20th century, and for an obvious reason: Until records became available, music was mostly WORK (playing it yourself).


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## ArtMusic (Jan 5, 2013)

regenmusic said:


> I am wondering what young people thought of classical music in times past, like say for instance the 1400's to 1800's. Did young people know something like Purcell: Odes for Saint Cecilia's Day, with all it's interesting vocal work? It's true that Europe was on a more liturgical calendar, and events were probably arranged around such feast days.


It was the highest form of art and entertainment, and justification for its use to glorify religion. Historical fact.


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## Woodduck (Mar 17, 2014)

Hildadam Bingor said:


> Somebody forgot to tell the Shakespeare who wrote Romeo and Juliet.
> 
> You might as well say the same about student life today.
> 
> ...


Would you call Romeo and Juliet's tragic romance representative of a "youth culture"? Supervised balls for the children of aristocrats? Arranged marriages? Student songs? Strauss waltzes??? Strauss Sr. and Strauss Jr. wrote the same sort of music, you know. How is any of this comparable to modern times?


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## starthrower (Dec 11, 2010)

It was hard to find a good turntable and speakers back then. And many kids had miserable parents. Maybe a father like wooduck.


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## helenora (Sep 13, 2015)

Woodduck said:


> Now adults immerse themselves in the culture of young people - or never grow out of it. We're a bunch of Peter and Patty Pans. Pathetic.


all above said by Woodduck is true. I share this opinion. If one reads a bit more of history one will come to the same conclusion.

I would call it childish culture, where immaturity is praised and approved and where people are judged by their abilities to get fit into this artificially created "youth culture", or better to say adolescence - immature, underdeveloped adults.....


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## Guest (Jul 16, 2016)

I imagine the average young person in 1400 was too busy foraging for turnips and dodging the Black Death to be concerned with the amusements of the top knobs. The unlucky ones reached their twentieth birthday.


Similar to today in fact.


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## Chronochromie (May 17, 2014)

Woodduck said:


> Before the 20th century there were no such things as "young people" or "youth culture." You were a child until you were old enough to work, marry, and start making more children, which, unless you were rich, needed to happen early since you needed to do it before you died, which could happen at any time. Not even student life at university (for those who could afford it) constituted a youth culture; you immersed yourself in the cultural tradition of your elders and were expected to master it or be expelled. If you loved music it was music written by adults and performed by adults for adults.
> 
> Now adults immerse themselves in the culture of young people - or never grow out of it. We're a bunch of Peter and Patty Pans. Pathetic.


Things were better back then, am I right?


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## regenmusic (Oct 23, 2014)

Well, it does seem like things were gradually improving for most people from around 1200 to 1900's and then one might say that it's questionable if the force of progress is as strong in some ways. i have hope that it will resolve and continue to be good, but some things are sad to think about, such as all the deaths from drug abuse, the homelessness problems, and so on.

It would be wonderful if a youth culture could be built on having more young people to aspire in the classical tradition, including composing church music, opera, and ballet.


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## Woodduck (Mar 17, 2014)

Chronochromie said:


> Things were better back then, am I right?


Depends on what things. Take your pick.


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## ArtMusic (Jan 5, 2013)

Chronochromie said:


> Things were better back then, am I right?


I do think the youth back then would be far, far more sensitive to fine arts than today.


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## GreenMamba (Oct 14, 2012)

ArtMusic said:


> I do think the youth back then would be far, far more sensitive to fine arts than today.


Maybe the youth of the wealthy would, but most of them would have little clue about the fine arts. And they would be illiterate.


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## ArtMusic (Jan 5, 2013)

But given how much of fine arts are available today in galleries - old and new - the vast, vast majroity of youth today don't care about it.


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## Chronochromie (May 17, 2014)

ArtMusic said:


> But given how much of fine arts are available today in galleries - old and new - the vast, vast majroity of youth today don't care about it.


Most _people_ don't care about it.


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## ArtMusic (Jan 5, 2013)

Chronochromie said:


> Most _people_ don't care about it.


I know that. I am referring to youth.


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## regenmusic (Oct 23, 2014)

You guys should watch about 300 hours of silent films, and read a lot of old books, and then make up your mind. I think the average 19th Century person was probably more steeped in the classics than those of today. Poets used to be public heroes back then.


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## GreenMamba (Oct 14, 2012)

regenmusic said:


> You guys should watch about 300 hours of silent films, and read a lot of old books, and then make up your mind. I think the average 19th Century person was probably more steeped in the classics than those of today. Poets used to be public heroes back then.


The 19th century is the very tail end of the OP's timeline (or perhaps beyond it, depending on you you read it). Silent films barely existed until the 20th century.

Go back a lot earlier than that, and literacy was very low. If poets were heroes back then, they were heroes of a small segment of the population. Fact is, we don't care much about the "average" person of the 17th century. We only pay attention to an educated elite.


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## Hildadam Bingor (May 7, 2016)

regenmusic said:


> Poets used to be public heroes back then.


Leaving aside popular music, Alan Ginsberg and Sylvia Plath are a public heroes today. Granted, certified Greatest Contemporary American Poet John Ashbery isn't - but, well, HEROES don't write like THAT.

Brilliant book on that subject:

https://books.google.at/books?id=dQmFDAAAQBAJ&printsec=frontcover

https://www.amazon.com/Poetic-Occasion-Wordsworth-Literature-History/dp/0333733584


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