# What are we to expect of Classical music in the future?



## Clouds Weep Snowflakes

Let's go forward to, say, the year 2100; how could Classical music look that far into the future? Can we predict how 22nd century composition will sound like? And what new things in Classical music we can expect to gain dominance till the end of the century? None of us are prophets, be as we all know history repeated itself, so we at least make predictions that may be half-right; any opinion(s)?


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## millionrainbows

Increased use of microtonality, alternate tunings & temperaments.


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## mikeh375

I can't immediately think of anything more composition wise apart from MR's suggestions above -maybe even more integration with synths, or even new hybrid acoustic/electronic instruments. But I bet production and recording is going to be incredible compared to today. How about dimensional recording - the listener can position themselves anywhere within the recording spaces, including within the orchestra. Holographic playback, virtual reality, all of these will be available. What about conducting your own performance - even today one can stretch audio and not lose much quality. One could imagine multiple takes at different tempos that could be matched up to create ones own interpretations in real time.....just a few mad musings.


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## Clouds Weep Snowflakes

mikeh375 said:


> I can't immediately think of anything more composition wise apart from MR's suggestions above -maybe even more integration with synths, or even new hybrid acoustic/electronic instruments. But I bet production and recording is going to be incredible compared to today. How about dimensional recording - the listener can position themselves anywhere within the recording spaces, including within the orchestra. Holographic playback, virtual reality, all of these will be available. What about conducting your own performance - even today one can stretch audio and not lose much quality. One could imagine multiple takes at different tempos that could be matched up to create ones own interpretations in real time.....just a few mad musings.


So Classical music will just go in the same futuristic route as anything else? Sounds promising!


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## Kjetil Heggelund

I hope we can agree to call it "art music"! Maybe you can get an app for it...


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## caters

I predict that since the popularity of Modern and Postmodern Classical Music is already going down noticeably while the popularity of Romantic, Classical, and Baroque era music has stayed stable, that we will have a revival era where we go back to one of those 3 popular eras. Most likely era to go back to? I think that would be the Classical era, the times of Mozart and Haydn.


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## mikeh375

I do hope not Caters.... If anything, everyone on the planet will consider themselves a composer if todays trends continue. Of course, there are composers and then there are Composers.


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## caters

I honestly hope we get a revival of a previous era because I think our classical music has gone too far to where you can't even recognize that it is classical music due to increased dissonance, dissonance just for the point of having dissonance and not actually resolving it, going completely atonal, and recently adding quarter tones which makes accidentals way more complicated(like there is an accidental that looks a flat attached to its mirror image, yeah, that is a quarter tone accidental) and adds even more to the dissonance and much less to the consonance in comparison.

All of these just sound awful to my ears(except a few cases of atonality such as Mars by Gustav Holst which is notated as if in C major but doesn't really have a clear tonic and some quarter tones but most quarter tones just sound awful to me). And with the decreasing popularity of classical music as a whole, if this revival era does not come soon, we might be the last generation to listen to orchestral music. That is much more awful than everybody considering themselves a composer. 

And like I said, this decrease in popularity is mainly due to Modern and Postmodern classical music, not Romantic, Classical, Baroque, or even Rennaisance eras. So if we went back to the styles of Mozart and Haydn, we would not be the last generation to listen to orchestral music, nor would classical music die(which is the worst thing that could happen).


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## Blancrocher

I hope and imagine they'll make interesting use of virtual reality technology.


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## Clouds Weep Snowflakes

caters said:


> I honestly hope we get a revival of a previous era because I think our classical music has gone too far to where you can't even recognize that it is classical music due to increased dissonance, dissonance just for the point of having dissonance and not actually resolving it, going completely atonal, and recently adding quarter tones which makes accidentals way more complicated(like there is an accidental that looks a flat attached to its mirror image, yeah, that is a quarter tone accidental) and adds even more to the dissonance and much less to the consonance in comparison.
> 
> All of these just sound awful to my ears(except a few cases of atonality such as Mars by Gustav Holst which is notated as if in C major but doesn't really have a clear tonic and some quarter tones but most quarter tones just sound awful to me). And with the decreasing popularity of classical music as a whole, if this revival era does not come soon, we might be the last generation to listen to orchestral music. That is much more awful than everybody considering themselves a composer.
> 
> And like I said, this decrease in popularity is mainly due to Modern and Postmodern classical music, not Romantic, Classical, Baroque, or even Rennaisance eras. So if we went back to the styles of Mozart and Haydn, we would not be the last generation to listen to orchestral music, nor would classical music die(which is the worst thing that could happen).


I think you got a bit too pessimistic, I mean, Vivaldi was almost completely forgotten after hid death, till the Baroque revival in the 20th century; it should be expected to see a past era seeing a revival as well, which would also raise the question of what unpopular composers will be rediscovered in the future? Besides, your statement that it's the "new" Classical music that is losing audience only proves that Classical music will never die-if it would just because it's "old", then we would expect to see the opposite.


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## millionrainbows

Kjetil Heggelund said:


> I hope we can agree to call it "art music"! Maybe you can get an app for it...


Maybe the consensus here is that Classical music doesn't *need* to progress, it's just fine the way it is, and the OP is just "bait" to draw out modernists and progressives for criticism and sarcastic comments.


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## Dim7

Aroma music


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## mikeh375

millionrainbows said:


> Maybe the consensus here is that Classical music doesn't *need* to progress, it's just fine the way it is...……………..


Sad and probably true MR, but definitely _not_ right. Stagnation in a form of regression would be a killer.


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## Tikoo Tuba

I imagine the orchestras will be very much smaller and more of them . New compositions will strive to conserve the glory and likely exceed it . No need to call it austerity . Art is a good friend to consciousness .


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## mikeh375

Tikoo Tuba said:


> .........Art is a good friend to consciousness .


Unless you try and do it yourself Tikoo (do you?), it drives me mad sometimes...


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## Tikoo Tuba

mikeh375 said:


> Unless you try and do it yourself Tikoo (do you?), it drives me mad sometimes...


Art has entered my dreaming . It can be like walking through a gallery of paintings and this gives me great comfort . Abstract naturalism is often the style . The colors are always interesting , and the dream-time is relaxed enough they can be contemplated . Ah . a lovely green . This happens just before arising and seems to linger for as long as I wish . And then , as I wish , I awaken to the first morning light .

In death , I expect this dreaming would never end .


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## 1996D

The reason composition is so lousy today is because of hedonism and the ease of living. Comfort and high art simply don't go together because the former is extremely hard--nothing a hedonist would attempt. There might still be some excellence emerging though at the present moment.

By 2100 a renewal will have happened and high art will once again flourish.


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## Schoenberg

Hopefully neo-serialism, and past that the continued progression towards the total removal of the tonal system and all other artificial constraints, for example the constraint of being limited to 12-tet instead of being able to use all possible tones, from modern classical music.

This is not to say that I wish that all classical music be rid of these constraints, however it is just natural progression that these things should happen in the "standard tradition". Music with constraints, just like art and literature with constraints has a place, it shouldn't always be the standard mode to write in, especially when it is the same constraint, ex. tonality or the sonnet form, two things which should be largely irrelevant in modern art.


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## millionrainbows

Brian Ferneyhough is using computers to generate hundreds of possibilities which normally would take him weeks or months to work out, and the computer generates a surplus of the possibilities, which he can then go through and choose the most interesting. So the human mind is still the center of things, aided by artificial intelligence to do all the time-consuming pre-compositional "grunt work." So I see new horizons opening up already. It will probably involve computers in some sense.


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## Woodduck

Schoenberg said:


> Hopefully neo-serialism, and past that the continued progression towards the total removal of the tonal system and all other artificial constraints, for example the constraint of being limited to 12-tet instead of being able to use all possible tones, from modern classical music.
> 
> This is not to say that I wish that all classical music be rid of these constraints, however it is just natural progression that these things should happen in the "standard tradition". Music with constraints, just like art and literature with constraints has a place, it shouldn't always be the standard mode to write in, especially when it is the same constraint, ex. tonality or the sonnet form, two things which should be largely irrelevant in modern art.


The idea that a set of aesthetic laws or premises within which an artist works is a "constraint" - with the word having a negative connotation - is one with which I suspect few artists would agree. Without rules of engagement there is no language of music, no "norms," shared by composer and listener, against which musical gestures can be measured and found meaningful. If music is to be anything but experimentation with randomly produced sounds, and therefore if it's to hold the interest of an audience, it has to accept limitations with which listeners can, and will want to, become familiar. The rejection of all "constraints" is a sure and rapid path to ephemerality for music and obscurity for its composers.

If what you're really hoping for is that composers be "allowed" to write without accepting aesthetic premises familiar to audiences, I see nothing standing in the way of that right now. But don't bank on sonnets (do people still write sonnets?) and tonal music vanishing. As long as people find them relevant, poets and composers won't get far contending that they aren't. Why wish them away? Why wish anything away? Isn't that just a new kind of constraint? That sort of Modernist iconoclasm should have died about half a century ago, when it became clear that audiences everywhere were not clamoring for the next great work by Elliott Carter or Milton Babbitt.


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## caters

Woodduck said:


> The idea that a set of aesthetic laws or premises within which an artist works is a "constraint" - with the word having a negative connotation - is one with which I suspect few artists would agree. Without rules of engagement there is no language of music, no "norms," shared by composer and listener, against which musical gestures can be measured and found meaningful. If music is to be anything but experimentation with randomly produced sounds, and therefore if it's to hold the interest of an audience, it has to accept limitations with which listeners can, and will want to, become familiar. The rejection of all "constraints" is a sure and rapid path to ephemerality for music and obscurity for its composers.
> 
> If what you're really hoping for is that composers be "allowed" to write without accepting aesthetic premises familiar to audiences, I see nothing standing in the way of that right now. But don't bank on sonnets (do people still write sonnets?) and tonal music vanishing. As long as people find them relevant, poets and composers won't get far contending that they aren't. Why wish them away? Why wish anything away? Isn't that just a new kind of constraint? That sort of Modernist iconoclasm should have died about half a century ago, when it became clear that audiences everywhere were not clamoring for the next great work by Elliott Carter or Milton Babbitt.


This is a time when I agree with you. If you disallow constraints, chances are that atonality will become the norm. If that happens, unresolved dissonance will also become the norm. If that happens, the audience that is rooting for the Classical, Baroque, and Romantic styles will drown out. If that happens, the orchestra will become very irrelevant. And if that happens, chances are that the Beethoven symphonies will die out and generations will go by with nobody knowing how great Beethoven was or any of the other great composers like Bach, Mozart, Chopin, Tchaikovsky, and countless others. A similar thing happened after Bach died. His music became unknown to the general public until Mendelssohn revived Bach's works. Nobody that I know of would want that to happen to Beethoven and I seriously doubt that a significant number of people would want that to happen to Beethoven.

I would not want the 22nd century to be all about dissonances not resolving. And chances are that millions of others, perhaps even billions would agree with that statement. If that happens, I hope somebody will revive Classical Music as it once was and declare not just a style but an era of Neoclassicism.


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## Larkenfield

Educated guess: Concerts and recitals will continue. The staples of the repertoire (from Hildegard of Bingen to Mahler, etc.) will continue because of their universal appeal, with those composers of contemporary interest coming and going. The music is in no danger of dying with virtually everything online and a tremendous amount of more coming in the next 81 years, though one will probably have to pay more for it and one hopes with more revenue going to the performing musicians. Pop music will continue to go through its periodic upheavals. Jazz and country will continue with some spectacular performances because they can tell a story. It looks like a feast to me in choice and variety.


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## mikeh375

millionrainbows said:


> Brian Ferneyhough is using computers to generate hundreds of possibilities which normally would take him weeks or months to work out, and the computer generates a surplus of the possibilities, which he can then go through and choose the most interesting. So the human mind is still the center of things, aided by artificial intelligence to do all the time-consuming pre-compositional "grunt work." So I see new horizons opening up already. It will probably involve computers in some sense.


One tantalising outcome for the future of music might be whether or not an algorithm will create something of worth from its own volition as opposed to number crunching. Du Sautoy in his latest book explains how coders are now introducing mathematical randomness into the algorithms (algorhythms!!) to create unexpected twists. If you characterise art as a complicated approach to pattern recognition (a survival instinct), then it is highly likely that valuable art from an audience perception, will be created in the near future (it is actually already happening).

I have no reason to worry about tonality co-existing with atonality and see no need to denigrate either practice. However, nothing should and will stop a creative spirit from venturing forth into uncharted sonic fields - it is an imperative for some as is probing our environment and beyond as a species. Our survival depends on it as an essential paradigm and in music and the arts, an artist of worth is not necessarily beholden to popular trends and softened ears and eyes.

Wooduck is right I believe, regarding 'constraints'. Often the 'rub' of musical thought against a composer's self-imposed restraints (or a set up if you will), enlivens work with the unexpected, the inspirational, the serendipitous. Human fecundity is constantly probing barriers, searching for nascent inevitability - that is where music of worth is sometimes found and is not possible unless constraints pre-exist imv.

for those interested, Du Sautoy's book......

https://www.amazon.co.uk/Creativity-Code-Marcus-du-Sautoy/dp/0008288151


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## mikeh375

Tikoo Tuba said:


> Art has entered my dreaming . It can be like walking through a gallery of paintings and this gives me great comfort . Abstract naturalism is often the style . The colors are always interesting , and the dream-time is relaxed enough they can be contemplated . Ah . a lovely green . This happens just before arising and seems to linger for as long as I wish . And then , as I wish , I awaken to the first morning light .
> 
> In death , I expect this dreaming would never end .


Try it for real and you might not be so poetic about it... Someone once said that it's best not to compose, unless the not doing of it becomes bothersome.


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## millionrainbows

mikeh375 said:


> Try it for real and you might not be so poetic about it... Someone once said that it's best not to compose, unless the not doing of it becomes bothersome.


...i.e., unless one feels compelled to play and be poetic. I'm serious, with a squinched-up brow. :lol:


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## millionrainbows

The melting of the polar ice cap will continue, as will global warming, flooding, and hurricanes. Thus, serialism will begin to sound "normal" to fit the extreme angst people will be suffering. Mozart will only be played in air-conditioned underground bunkers for the elite...


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## BabyGiraffe

Larkenfield said:


> and a tremendous amount of more coming in the next 81 years.


Too bad that scientists expect total collapse in the near  future - climate changes, pollution, soil degradation, deforestation, mass extinction of wildlife are facts that cannot be denied and we (our governments mainly, the regular person cannot do much) are basically doing nothing to prevent the end of the world as we know it.
Enjoy music while you still can.
Anyway, let's say we somehow manage to overcome all these problems and the future is like some kind of sci-fi setting- digital (or quantum computer) brain implants and high-tech - it's possible that for super intelligent beings even the most complex compositions from the past to sound like barbaric drumming in terms of sophistication. Imagine having super pattern recognition that allows you to recognize and interpret all kinds of harmonic/inharmonic vibrational series (opening our minds to all kinds of chordal and polytonal structures), super fine pitch differences without any auditory masking (all kinds of xenharmonic micro/macrotonal systems would be more comprehensible), super memory, super complex instruments with morphing timbres/autotuning to different pitch systems etc.


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