# What do you think about this?



## PresenTense (May 7, 2016)

I can relate to what she said in a sense. I like listening to classical music but at the end, the present and all the music to come is the one I'm insterested in. Maybe that's why I prefer contemporary music over baroque, classical, etc.


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## Animal the Drummer (Nov 14, 2015)

I can't. The idea that the past is "something that doesn't matter" is the most awful nonsense. "Should listen to 'now' music" my giddy aunt. Listen to what you like, Herr Stockhausen or Ms.Björk or whoever, but don't go dissing others' tastes, which are every bit as valid.


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## Pugg (Aug 8, 2014)

Animal the Drummer said:


> I can't. The idea that the past is "something that doesn't matter" is the most awful nonsense. "Should listen to 'now' music" my giddy aunt. Listen to what you like, Herr Stockhausen or Ms.Björk or whoever, but don't go dissing others' tastes, which are every bit as valid.


Strong and very valuable statement.


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## hpowders (Dec 23, 2013)

I can't relate to anything she says. Just the opposite of any female I would be attracted to and date.

I've never liked the outlaw type.

I'm proud of loving classical music of the past.


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## Clairvoyance Enough (Jul 25, 2014)

The rhetoric is too excessive for me to really agree with it, but I do think anyone who listens to only classical music in 2017 and on is missing out on a lot of great things. Every now and then a thread gets posted here questioning if tonality was exhausted after modern era classical, as if the character of music, yes even pop, hasn't splintered off into dozens of stylistically distinct genres that sound totally unlike anything classical music ever conceived. 

There have been several threads on this site requesting electronic music in the spirit of Stockhausen, Parmegiani, Bayle, and others but with a more traditional theme-development structure, and every time the OP is disappointed to discover that even a step as obvious as that hasn't been taken yet, but I like to hope it eventually will be. I feel like that quote would be more relevant to up and coming composers than listeners (obviously I agree that people should just listen to what they like), because until I ventured into electronic music I wondered myself if there was anything left to be done. There quite obviously is and it's more than just fancy synthesized timbres. 

What I want is for someone to merge the deeper elaboration of CM with newer genres like electronic/hip hop/rock/etc, which would mean giving equal attention to the past and the present. 

On second thought I may resent that quote more than I realize; I can't count how many times I've tried one of these prog metal groups that supposedly contain what I'm asking for only to find, once again, interesting material that develops about half as interestingly as a lesser Haydn symphony.


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## Magnum Miserium (Aug 15, 2016)

hpowders said:


> I can't relate to anything she says. Just the opposite of any female I would be attracted to and date.


I'm sure she'll be devastated.


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## Manxfeeder (Oct 19, 2010)

So which of Bjork's albums do we not listen to because they're too old?


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## Magnum Miserium (Aug 15, 2016)

Obviously she's right. You want the kids to care about classical music (more specifically European classical music, because we ain't talking about Ravi Shankar here), give them the new stuff you hate as well as the old stuff you like. Some will go for one, some for the other, some for both, but essential is the point that classical music isn't something people used to do before the USA invented real music in the 1920s.

Though of course Stockhausen isn't new like he still kind of was in the '70s when Björk was a kid. For the kids today, something comparably new would be, like, '90s Grisey or John Luther Adams or whatev.


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## Magnum Miserium (Aug 15, 2016)

Manxfeeder said:


> So which of Bjork's albums do we not listen to because they're too old?


Vulnicura.

Debut and Post otoh are still minty fresh.


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## Strange Magic (Sep 14, 2015)

We are not told how old Björk was when she wrote this, but it will be interesting to read what she thinks 10, 20, 30, 40 years from whenever. My own view is that, given the New Stasis in music and the arts, when virtually anything and everything is available--you just haven't found it yet, if you don't believe me--there is music in abundance for everybody. So no grounds for complaining that you can't get what you want. Bach, Björk....count me as a fan of both.


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## Razumovskymas (Sep 20, 2016)

I see Björk as the "old" music, music that I listened to when I was 13 years old and that now only can be seen as completely trivial. The new music for me is a Beethoven sonata, a Debussy song, a Mozart opera.... music that will be probably still relevant for me in 20 years and in terms of originality goes far beyond any popsong that is produced between 1950 and now. I wouldn't trade 20 seconds of a Beethoven string quartet for the complete works of Bjork, her work will only be a footnote in 100 years time and I think even nowadays by "pop"-standards her work doesn't have much relevance anymore


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## sloth (Jul 12, 2013)

I don't get this old vs new thing. there's just good music and bad music. If something sounds "old" it's just because its ideas are not so interesting anymore. a lot of XXth century avantgarde hasn't aged well in my opinion. it was interesting in the contest of that musical debate but nowadays maybe it's not worth listening to.


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## Magnum Miserium (Aug 15, 2016)

I


sloth said:


> I don't get this old vs new thing. there's just good music and bad music. If something sounds "old" it's just because its ideas are not so interesting anymore. a lot of XXth century avantgarde hasn't aged well in my opinion. it was interesting in the contest of that musical debate but nowadays maybe it's not worth listening to.


ok so wut's good new music


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## Strange Magic (Sep 14, 2015)

Razumovskymas said:


> I see Björk as the "old" music, music that I listened to when I was 13 years old and that now only can be seen as completely trivial. The new music for me is a Beethoven sonata, a Debussy song, a Mozart opera.... music that will be probably still relevant for me in 20 years and in terms of originality goes far beyond any popsong that is produced between 1950 and now. I wouldn't trade 20 seconds of a Beethoven string quartet for the complete works of Bjork, her work will only be a footnote in 100 years time and I think even nowadays by "pop"-standards her work doesn't have much relevance anymore


Interesting viewpoint here. Perhaps, at age 13, you were unprepared to fully appreciate Björk's music such that it would stick with you. Fortunately I was 53 when Debut was released, and perhaps that 40-year difference has itself made all the difference in our opinions. I also am free of the thought of having to sacrifice Bach to Björk, or the reverse--love 'em both: their music makes me sometimes Violently Happy.


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## GodotsArrived (Jan 12, 2017)

When somebody uses the phrase "all this Beethoven and Bach ********" even if it's only for effect (in which case they're talking down to their audience) any respect I might have had for them is gone. I love "modern" music not least Stockhausen but for reasons that I trust all of us know, Bjork's comments are petulant, immature, ignorant and just plain silly. This is the sort of quote that generally ensures pop musicians will continue not to be taken seriously as musicians, let alone as more general commentators. And to be honest, I'd have hoped for better from Bjork in particular.


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## bz3 (Oct 15, 2015)

What I think: dumb person opens mouth and dumb air comes out.

Not a fan of Bjork so I'll go ahead and call her music ********. But the idea that music older than "now music" should be held only at arm's length takes the cake for stupid statements I've heard this week. Which is saying something because Hollywood had a backpatting ceremony this week, the media awaits a contentious inauguration, and the wars my country are involved in have ramped up which always means the propaganda machines are redlining. Tough to beat all that stupid but leave it to a hasbeen pop star.


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## Strange Magic (Sep 14, 2015)

Wow! So much here to really get worked up about! I am reminded of an interview someone did with William F. Buckley Jr. Buckley, seated at his piano, went on with rising fury to denounce the fact that a 14-year-old boy living in the inner city had called Bach "a punk". It was an amazing display of......something.


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## starthrower (Dec 11, 2010)

I love the past! That is, until I get a sinus infection or an abscessed tooth. I don't listen to classical music because I adore the past. I wasn't there. I just like good music. It could be Stockhausen or Couperin. I don't care.


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## lextune (Nov 25, 2016)

hpowders said:


> I can't relate to anything she says. Just the opposite of any female I would be attracted to and date.
> 
> I've never liked the outlaw type.


Ummm....so?

...this is a little creepy.


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## lextune (Nov 25, 2016)

.....SO!.......back on topic:

Bjork's first solo album, "Debut" is absolutely glorious.

Her opinion on 'classical' music on the other hand, is ill-informed and ridiculous.


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## LesCyclopes (Sep 16, 2016)

Ridiculous. Listening to outstanding compositions that have stood the test of time and deeply moved generations of people everywhere around the world has *nothing* to do with sitting around looking at one's own picture albums.

On a separate note, I feel sorry for anyone who calls Bach's music "********", especially when that person calls herself a musician. (And I say that as someone who has listened to more electronic music than most people).


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## Magnum Miserium (Aug 15, 2016)

LesCyclopes said:


> On a separate note, I feel sorry for anyone who calls Bach's music "********", especially when that person calls herself a musician.


Berlioz & Tchaikovsky are doubtless grateful for your pity


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## pcnog11 (Nov 14, 2016)

Without the past, there is no present. Without the present, there is no future. Classical music allow us to learn from people in the past in the present moment that determine our future.


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## Magnum Miserium (Aug 15, 2016)

Question: what do you call a composer who doesn't learn from present music?

Answer: wait a few years and you don't call them anything, because nobody ever remembers them, because they're never any good


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## Strange Magic (Sep 14, 2015)

I've found over the years that people for whom others claim to be sorry because of their (lack of) taste, never seem to feel the sorrow; never seem to really care. I have execrable taste in most everything, and actually revel in it.. _De gustibus non est disputandum_ is the rule in music and the arts (unless someone has come up finally with a totally compelling argument to the contrary, and hasn't informed me).


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## sloth (Jul 12, 2013)

Magnum Miserium said:


> I
> 
> ok so wut's good new music


there's a lot of experimental electronica which is pretty good. Try Fennesz for example.






As for young contemporary composers I quite like natalia prokopenko

__
https://soundcloud.com/prokopenko_natalia%2Fnatalia-prokopenko-arche-cond


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## Magnum Miserium (Aug 15, 2016)

sloth said:


> there's a lot of experimental electronica which is pretty good. Try Fennesz for example.
> 
> 
> 
> ...


Thank you!
.....


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## pcnog11 (Nov 14, 2016)

Magnum Miserium said:


> Question: what do you call a composer who doesn't learn from present music?
> 
> Answer: wait a few years and you don't call them anything, because nobody ever remembers them, because they're never any good


Classic is something that stands the test of time. Only time will tell the outcome of a piece of music. You can wait or would you fast forward 50 years and see....


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## Magnum Miserium (Aug 15, 2016)

pcnog11 said:


> Classic is something that stands the test of time. Only time will tell the outcome of a piece of music. You can wait or would you fast forward 50 years and see....


I'm not sure if 50 years is always enough any more. Like, is Stockhausen good? Are Steve Reich and Philip Glass? I don't think anybody's really sure in either case.


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## tdc (Jan 17, 2011)

It sounds like an opinion of someone who is passionate about music and trying to get a point across and being exaggerative about it, with the intention of being thought provoking.


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## Daniel Atkinson (Dec 31, 2016)

I completely agree with what she is saying, even if she is exaggerating a bit. We have to take it on a case by case basis but music of the present should take priority over music of the past. Nostalgia is good but in the bigger picture, it only damages future opportunities. Classical music nowadays has a lot to compete with


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## MadMusicist (Jan 14, 2017)

I can't completely agree with her, since the words "new" and "old" can mean a lot of different things. If we are speaking of the chronological passing of time, I think it's important to note that "new" music (as in, music that has been created more recently in time) is not necessarily "newer" than "old" music. For example, if we look at much of the Top 40 music or a large portion (if not majority) of what is considered "pop music", the actual musical materials used in them are not actually "newer" and are, in many ways, more conservative and repetitive of the past than the music of the actual past. Although the example she gave, Stockhausen, was perhaps indeed "new" for his time, I feel that her quote can easily be interpreted and twisted into a kind of automatic assumption that "new" music is always forward-looking, which is of course false. 

Also, the affinity toward music of the past is not due to the higher quality of music of the past, but the simple fact that the passing of time is the harshest filter for music, and the music of the past that we still listen to today are the good works that have survived this filter. Therefore, we listen to Bach and Mozart because they are considered good, not because they are from the past.


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## Magnum Miserium (Aug 15, 2016)

MadMusicist said:


> Also, the affinity toward music of the past is not due to the higher quality of music of the past, but the simple fact that the passing of time is the harshest filter for music, and the music of the past that we still listen to today are the good works that have survived this filter. Therefore, we listen to Bach and Mozart because they are considered good, not because they are from the past.


The presence of Albinoni, Quantz, Pleyel, Fasch, Rosetti on my local public station says otherwise.


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## DeepR (Apr 13, 2012)

When it comes to classical music I already know I will never really catch up with the present, because life's too short and there's way too much good stuff from the past. Good music is timeless and the idea that newer music should get priority from listeners is just silly.


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## Magnum Miserium (Aug 15, 2016)




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## Daniel Atkinson (Dec 31, 2016)

DeepR said:


> Good music is timeless and the idea that newer music should get priority from listeners is just silly.


How? can you elaborate?


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## DeepR (Apr 13, 2012)

Daniel Atkinson said:


> How? can you elaborate?


My problem is with the word "should". That part about what Stockhausen said really annoys me. Why should listeners do anything but follow their own will and make their own choices in listening to music?


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## KenOC (Mar 7, 2011)

Daniel Atkinson said:


> ...but music of the present should take priority over music of the past. Nostalgia is good but in the bigger picture, it only damages future opportunities. Classical music nowadays has a lot to compete with


There's a certain illogic here. "Modernist" music is certainly losing the Darwinian struggle as it "competes" with other kinds of music and even with classical music written a century, or two, or three ago. How does giving it "priority" make any difference at all?


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## Kjetil Heggelund (Jan 4, 2016)

Alright! It's BJØRK  Love her a bunch. I like discovering new music all the time but still also love the old one. There is always new musicians to play the old stuff in a new way, and old musicians to play the new stuff in an old way  It all works for me (most of the time).


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## Marinera (May 13, 2016)

So, and what's next, forget classics, read only new books too.

Faulty analogy with photos. 

I understand that she found her inspiration in new music, but not everyone wants to ride on the wave of zeitgeist.
Actually, the statement fits majority of people, look at the pop world. Music composed even 2-3 decades ago at least in pop/metal/rap/jazz etc world is considered old. All those rebels shoud be joining classical.


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## Janspe (Nov 10, 2012)

I don't agree with the statement that one should listen to older music less - I really think one lifetime is enough for exploring all eras - but I do understand the frustration of excessively lingering in the past. I get the feeling too, sometimes, when my local orchestras play the same standard repertoire over and over. I mean seriously, I've heard Beethoven's fourth piano concerto (a magnificent masterpiece that I _love_) so many times over the past few seasons - I really think a good adventurous spirit would do us all a world of good. But this is only my opinion, and I certainly wouldn't want to tell anybody what to listen to!

PS. I don't always like the way new music is being presented either. I mean the basic routine: commission a piece, get a good hype going, get it premiered (and make sure to follow it with the Tchaikovsky violin concerto or a Brahms symphony so that nobody gets too agitated) and then _completely_ forget about it. I wish more musicians continued to champion the new pieces they commission and premiere! Some artists do it - Gidon Kremer, Anne-Sophie Mutter and Pierre-Laurent Aimard come to mind, off the top of my head. Of course it's sometimes difficult to make orchestras agree to play something new and unknown...


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## Huilunsoittaja (Apr 6, 2010)

The statement this modern artist has made is only valid on a few conditions:

1) She applies herself to her own logic, so that once she is old, we too will forget about her
2) Artists must never compose music for posterity, because posterity will be required not to care too deeply
3) That she too will forget Stockhausen & co. when "x" number of days have passed
4) She too will accept falling into the dust of Time that she imposed on others


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## Marinera (May 13, 2016)

Janspe said:


> I don't agree with the statement that one should listen to older music less - I really think one lifetime is enough for exploring all eras - but I do understand the frustration of excessively lingering in the past. I get the feeling too, sometimes, when my local orchestras play the same standard repertoire over and over. I mean seriously, I've heard Beethoven's fourth piano concerto (a magnificent masterpiece that I _love_) so many times over the past few seasons - I really think a good adventurous spirit would do us all a world of good. But this is only my opinion, and I certainly wouldn't want to tell anybody what to listen to!
> 
> PS. I don't always like the way new music is being presented either. I mean the basic routine: commission a piece, get a good hype going, get it premiered (and make sure to follow it with the Tchaikovsky violin concerto or a Brahms symphony so that nobody gets too agitated) and then _completely_ forget about it. I wish more musicians continued to champion the new pieces they commission and premiere! Some artists do it - Gidon Kremer, Anne-Sophie Mutter and Pierre-Laurent Aimard come to mind, off the top of my head. Of course it's sometimes difficult to make orchestras agree to play something new and unknown...


Yeah, i think the best is to keep yourself open to all musical periods, old and new. I dislike such needless limitations in general.


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## tdc (Jan 17, 2011)

Classical music is a tradition that builds on the past. If people only listened to 'old' music 1 day a year I think the connection with the past would be weakened. Music would not have the same foundation and there wouldn't be the shared roots (to the same extent), therefore music would begin to lose meaning. 

With a weakened connection to the old music there is not the same frame of reference for the new music so the cultural meanings associated with the music are lessened.


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## Bettina (Sep 29, 2016)

Björk's position makes no sense to me. I just listen to what I enjoy. If a piece of music speaks to me on an emotional/intellectual level, then I want to hear it again and again. 

The date of composition has no bearing on how I feel about a musical work. I don't care if it was written 1,000 years ago or if it was written yesterday (or even earlier today!)


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## Casebearer (Jan 19, 2016)

The way Björk and Stockhausen put is of course over the top and nonsense when you take it literally. Good music is good music whenever it was composed. 

Nevertheless I think I understand what they mean. They object to the culture that is dominant with many classical music lovers, in concert halls and on classical radio: disdain for the present and living in the past with all of their heroes whose works are recycled over and over again. Not too much wrong with that in itself as long as it's really the quality of the music they're basing their preferences on (and not the vested name of the grand composer who has become intouchable for some) but when it gets to the point that you don't open up yourself to what's happening nowadays and don't allow for the possibility that great music could be composed today it becomes something I object to myself as well. 

Often the grand heroes get compared to Top 40 music. That's an unfair comparison because it's another genre and the current Top 40 is just the popular hype of the moment so if you wanted to compare you should compare that with the hype of let's say January 1771 and not with 1650 - 1950). More reasonable of course would be to compare the Top 40 works of modern classical composers with those of another (very short) period in history and listen to all that crap before you give an opinion on the enjoyability of modern music. 

We're automatically and subconsciously getting strongly biased against the present because we (can) hear all of today's music and only hear the best of the best of previous periods as it's filtered through time as someone else already pointed out. We should use as a starting point in my opinion that 90% of anything humans produce is rubbish anyway, today, as we perceive all the time, but in the past as well. Music is no exception.


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## sloth (Jul 12, 2013)

I'd like to add that there's A LOT of forgotten music that is coming to light only today thanks to quite a few great early music ensembles: there are enough reasons to put into question the western music canon.

moreover there are other cultures' music that is getting more and more audibility thanks to internet (I'm currently listening to some hindustani past masters - do we consider it old music? but it sounds fresh to my western kid's ears  )

the bjork perspective doesn't make sense in our post-contemporary age. we are in a way witnessing the end of "history" (i.e. the old view of time as a straight forward line)


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## Varick (Apr 30, 2014)

pcnog11 said:


> Without the past, there is no present. Without the present, there is no future. Classical music allow us to learn from people in the past in the present moment that determine our future.





tdc said:


> Classical music is a tradition that builds on the past. If people only listened to 'old' music 1 day a year I think the connection with the past would be weakened. Music would not have the same foundation and there wouldn't be the shared roots (to the same extent), therefore music would begin to lose meaning.
> 
> With a weakened connection to the old music there is not the same frame of reference for the new music so the cultural meanings associated with the music are lessened.


Yes. One can not have a clear vision forward if they do not know from whence they came. This is part of the arrogance of youth that I see more and more in western culture (and spreading to other cultures as well). It started with one of the most foolish phrases from the '60's (and there were a LOT of foolish phrases from that time): "Don't trust anyone over 30."

This idea that "new" is always great and out with the "old" is pure idiocy and arrogance. Is there nothing to learn from the past? I submit there is EVERYTHING to learn from the past. Only then, can we move forward, not repeating the mistakes our forebears made. It's not "nostalgia," it's not "living-in-the-past," it's learning and taking the excellence from the past and improving upon it.

Greatness in anything is timeless and universal which is why we still listen to Bach, read Shakespeare, are awestruck by the Sistine Chapel, can't turn away from Michelangelo, study the Battle of Thermopylae, or are glued to our TV's watching a Michael Phelps swimming race.

To think, or even consider that there is nothing or little to learn, enjoy, or even appreciate anything from the past lacks all semblance of wisdom. It is a growing problem unfortunately.

V


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## sloth (Jul 12, 2013)

Varick said:


> To think, or even consider that there is nothing or little to learn, enjoy, or even appreciate anything from the past lacks all semblance of wisdom. It is a growing problem unfortunately.
> 
> V


Let's face the truth: the millennials are the new barbarians


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## TwoFlutesOneTrumpet (Aug 31, 2011)

A very ignorant statement by Bjork, no doubt. She's not the only pop artist to have made ignorant remarks about classical music. I remember watching a young McCartney say something similarly ignorant.


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## Magnum Miserium (Aug 15, 2016)

sloth said:


> I'd like to add that there's A LOT of forgotten music that is coming to light only today thanks to quite a few great early music ensembles: there are enough reasons to put into question the western music canon.


Other way around. For pre-18th century music it's not been a matter of revising that canon but of establishing a canon for an era that previously received relatively little attention. For music of the 18th century & subsequently, Alessandro Scarlatti, François Couperin & Rameau were added to the "canon" 100 years ago. Another hundred years of early music appreciation has turned up plenty of minor composers from that period and zero major ones (unless Vivaldi counts as major and he probably doesn't - and even then, that would be a grand total of ONE added FIFTY years ago and still zero since).


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## sloth (Jul 12, 2013)

Baroque music is not just a matter of big names. there are a lot of truly great composers that are unknown to the listeners just because their musical output is unpublished. Many of these are represented just by 2-3 recordings: how can you state they are second rate composer, when they wrote hundreds of pieces? I have been a great fan of the Cappella della Pietà de' Turchini since they started and they discovered first rate composers such as Caresana, Provenzale, Porpora, Fago, Leo, Vinci... These musicians worked and taught in Naples in the 17th /18th century and they were responsible for the birth of opera buffa amongs other merits... Is Alessandro Scarlatti (just to name another "Neapolitan") any better? I wouldn't say so, it's just a coincidence the fact that he's bettern known today... this is just an example.


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## Magnum Miserium (Aug 15, 2016)

sloth said:


> I have been a great fan of the Cappella della Pietà de' Turchini since they started and they discovered first rate composers such as Caresana, Provenzale, Porpora, Fago, Leo, Vinci... These musicians worked and taught in Naples in the 17th /18th century and they were responsible for the birth of opera buffa amongs other merits... Is Alessandro Scarlatti (just to name another "Neapolitan") any better?


I dunno is Johann Sebastian Bach any better than Johann Adolph Hasse? (In other words yes.)


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## 433 (Jan 4, 2017)

I don't like any new music because it's proven to be crap, old music will live forever because it's been around a long time


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## Daniel Atkinson (Dec 31, 2016)

KenOC said:


> There's a certain illogic here. "Modernist" music is certainly losing the Darwinian struggle as it "competes" with other kinds of music and even with classical music written a century, or two, or three ago. How does giving it "priority" make any difference at all?


You just answered your own question


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## Daniel Atkinson (Dec 31, 2016)

Again, it's not about taking any of your precious music away, that's not the point of her statement


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## Magnum Miserium (Aug 15, 2016)

KenOC said:


> "Modernist" music is certainly losing the Darwinian struggle as it "competes" with other kinds of music and even with classical music written a century, or two, or three ago.


your avatar is Bartók


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## EdwardBast (Nov 25, 2013)

People who tell other people what they should be doing and what they should be listening to are overbearing jerks I salute with my middle finger. The first time one hears Dufay or Bach or Bartok or Schnittke it is new to the only person who matters in the equation.


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## Magnum Miserium (Aug 15, 2016)

EdwardBast said:


> People who tell other people what they should be doing and what they should be listening to are overbearing jerks I salute with my middle finger. *The first time one hears *Dufay or Bach or Bartok or *Schnittke it is new to the only person who matters in the equation.*


Is it though?..


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## Daniel Atkinson (Dec 31, 2016)

EdwardBast said:


> People who tell other people what they should be doing and what they should be listening to are overbearing jerks I salute with my middle finger. The first time one hears Dufay or Bach or Bartok or Schnittke it is new to the only person who matters in the equation.


Again, it's not about telling people what they can and can't do


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## Pugg (Aug 8, 2014)

Daniel Atkinson said:


> Again, it's not about telling people what they can and can't do


As long as your mean it.


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## sloth (Jul 12, 2013)

@Magnum Miserium: Bach, yes: right answer to a wrong question, though. Each true composer stands on its own. Who can say what a true composer is? Your taste and your experience, of course


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## JAS (Mar 6, 2013)

I have personally sat through several live performances of premiers of works by Christopher Rouse. And I would gladly pay good money never to have to endure such a dreadful assault again.


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## Schumanniac (Dec 11, 2016)

Music is a timeless experience. Mahler and Bruckner is 'new' in my perception as i only begun gaining appreciation for them a years time ago. And in their world im not drawn into a time in the late 1800s, the world may have changed, but we humans have not. Their emotions, struggles and joys are experienced no different than we do now, and they convey it far better than 99% of musicians today. In their world, vividly painted in sound, the date is irrelevant, only your inner experience matters. 

If i prefer the musical expression from Beethoven/Schubert to Rachmaninov, why the hell would i endure the later dissonant and atonal styles, or god forbid, actual popular mainstream music when gaining nothing from it spiritually, just for the sake of variation. Theres no "should" in taste and preferences.


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## Simon Moon (Oct 10, 2013)

433 said:


> I don't like any new music because it's proven to be crap


Talk about ignorant statements.

Thanks for informing me that the music I love is crap. So glad that the arbiter of all things good has spoken.

As far as Bjork's statement, I disagree with most of it, but not all.

The problem I have, is that classical music for a lot of fans, seems to be like a museum piece. Instead of the growing, evolving, living art form it is. And I think this might be what she might have been getting at.


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## Strange Magic (Sep 14, 2015)

Simon Moon said:


> The problem I have, is that classical music for a lot of fans, seems to be like a museum piece. Instead of the growing, evolving, living art form it is.


Another way of looking at this, using the museum analogy, is that while classical music is a growing, evolving, living art form, it also may considered as a series of museum rooms that, one by one, are sealed off by the passage of time. We have The Baroque Room (nobody writing Baroque these days), The Classical Room, The Very Early Music Room, etc., and some people just feel much more at home in some rooms rather than others. This sealing off of genres and epochs in music and the arts holds no downside as far as I am concerned--one can always enter the rooms knowing that nobody has been messing around with the contents. I used to regularly lurk and sometimes post on a few flamenco forums, where the discussions about how flamenco was evolving generated endless discussion and even flame wars. My position was that, once something (flamenco, in this case) had evolved beyond a certain point, it deserved a new name entirely. And, seeing that my interest was encapsulated within a roughly 80-year period that almost everyone understood as "classic" or 'traditional" flamenco, I entered that particular room and have remained there ever since. Similarly, as a Bach-to-Bartok listener, I have confined my active interest to within the several rooms that encompass that span of time and musical art.


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## 433 (Jan 4, 2017)

Simon Moon said:


> Talk about ignorant statements.


It was a contrary exaggeration :lol:


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## EddieRUKiddingVarese (Jan 8, 2013)

hpowders said:


> I can't relate to anything she says. Just the opposite of any female I would be attracted to and date.
> 
> I've never liked the outlaw type.
> 
> I'm proud of loving classical music of the past.


But you would die a happy man hpowders and I'm guessing she would a bit of loot rolling around to buy quiet a few box collections of your favorites..........


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## hpowders (Dec 23, 2013)

EddieRUKiddingVarese said:


> But *you would die a happy man* hpowders and I'm guessing she would a bit of loot rolling around to buy quiet a few box collections of your favorites..........


Reminds me of the penultimate scene of the great movie, Kiss of the Spider Woman where the tortured prisoner, Raúl Juliá is given a mercy dose of morphine, which transports him in an ecstatic dream of Sonia Braga, in which she takes him by the hand out of the prison hospital, promising him that "he will die happy" and the stark black and white hospital scene changes to glorious color as he is rowing her in a boat on a beautiful lake. Simply devastating.


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