# "Standing the test of time" is completely unimportant.



## Guest (Aug 14, 2018)

Lately I have been finding and listening to a huge range of composers I had not listened to all that much in previous years and I feel like I have been developing a new love for music in general. It's really a wonderful feeling! At the end of a busy day I could look through a catalogue of some record label that has released music by composers I already admire and pick something random to listen to, find it on one of those auto-generated YouTube playlists or on Spotify and discover the unique soundworld of someone I had previously never even heard of. There is something quite _magical_ about the experience because many of the composers I listen to are still alive and working and the pieces I listen to were usually only thoughts in the composers' minds just a few years ago. Then I listen to some of their other compositions, I listen over and over; it's like I get to know a part of the personality of the composer, or at least I get to understand the sounds, melodies, harmonies, textures and timbres that _they_ love and have crafted into wonderful music.

Then I repeat the process with another composer I've never heard of before, and another, and another. Often I go back and listen again to things I most love, and also to the pieces of music that I didn't feel like I got to know quite well the first time around. I find that I definitely have preferences for some things over other things, but it's only natural to have favourites.

But what if this music doesn't stand the test of time? What if I am the only person whose favourite composers include names like Joanna Woźny, Adriana Hölszky and Ondrej Adámek? I started thinking about the question of 'standing the test of time' as well as other questions like 'who actually _are_ the best composers currently alive?' and 'if Georg Haas is more well known and respected by a greater number of musicians and music listeners than Roman Haubenstock-Ramati, does that make Haas a more influential and (by extension) better composer?'

Well, I have just decided today that I don't even really care that much about those questions because I think they are unimportant to whether I love their music or not. Same as composers of any other time period. I think Lachenmann, Machaut, Mozart and Olga Neuwirth are all just as good to listen to as one another, for example, and whether they have stood the test of time or will stand the test of time doesn't really matter to me any more.

Does anyone else feel the same way about the music you love most?


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## Art Rock (Nov 28, 2009)

I completely agree with you. If I'm the only one in the world enjoying a certain composer or a certain pop/rock artist, so be it. It would not affect my own listening pleasure. Of course I'd suggest the names to others, but if they don't want to follow up, or can't hear what I hear in them, no problem.


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## Kjetil Heggelund (Jan 4, 2016)

I liked to read your thoughts! Sometimes I like to experiment with my listening and sometimes I like what is familiar. My all-time-hero is Mozart, but I don't listen so much to that actually. I don't always feel like I need to really know the music I'm listening to, it's more exciting to experience something completely new.


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## Guest (Aug 14, 2018)

Kjetil Heggelund said:


> I liked to read your thoughts! Sometimes I like to experiment with my listening and sometimes I like what is familiar. My all-time-hero is Mozart, but I don't listen so much to that actually. I don't always feel like I need to really know the music I'm listening to, it's more exciting to experience something completely new.


Yeah there's certainly a good feeling to _not_ knowing what to expect. Mozart is one of my most favourite composers too, but maybe not my 'all-time-hero' if you understand!


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## Enthusiast (Mar 5, 2016)

It used to matter to me. Who would want to be one of those who rejected Symphonie Fantastique when it was new? I can remember that I would be reluctant to invest time in a composer if they didn't seem likely to last. I can't quite remember how I used to gauge that for contemporary composers and it all seems strange to me now. But I do remember worrying that some modern composers would not last and listening to them less as a result. Tippett was an example. These days I don't care. I like a lot of Tippett's music. It is unique and only it does what it does. And now I think it will last (albeit not as a major force), anyway.

The idea of writing for posterity seems a Romantic one? And I think much contemporary music is written for now. Certainly I am living now and it shouldn't really matter to me if George Benjamin's music is remembered 100 years from now. But I do still feel fairly certain that some contemporary composers who I enjoy now will last. And there are others I am less certain about or feel sure will be forgotten. Who cares if I am wrong?

With older music - for the sometimes called "neglected masterpieces" of the past - I do have a fair amount of trust for the judgment of posterity. I have explored byroads for most periods quite extensively in the past and have found only a few works that seem as worthwhile as their more famous peers. So these days my explorations are into major works in genres that _I _have neglected (there was a time I knew very little chamber music) or new periods (early music at the moment). Contemporary music is difficult to explore because there are no widely agreed maps based on reputation to guide me.


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## Guest (Aug 14, 2018)

Yeah I think it is a pretty Romantic/19th century ideal, writing for posterity rather than the current time. It's a very strange notion, I think, to try to compose in order to be liked by many people in the future. I have no idea what the future holds. I know the Queen's gonna cark it sooner rather than later to make room for King Chuckie number 3, and that alone is a strange thought!

Perhaps it comes down to the fact that for the majority of 'western classical music history' people really did just compose for the present time and for their colleagues and employers. _Everyone_ who played a musical instrument before the 19th century were also composers. Imagine an orchestra of 30 composers who all wrote music for themselves and others to play! Hardly any of it 'stood the test of time' even though the music is all very very enjoyable to listen to, as it would have been back then.


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## Enthusiast (Mar 5, 2016)

^ But I do hope your music is more relevant to us than our royal family ... even if it is not as popular.


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## EdwardBast (Nov 25, 2013)

shirime said:


> *Yeah I think it is a pretty Romantic/19th century ideal, writing for posterity rather than the current time. *It's a very strange notion, I think, to try to compose in order to be liked by many people in the future. I have no idea what the future holds. I know the Queen's gonna cark it sooner rather than later to make room for King Chuckie number 3, and that alone is a strange thought!


Writing for posterity and writing for the current time are not mutually exclusive. This is a false dichotomy. All it meant when a 19thc composer wrote for posterity was that they were composing the best music they could conceive.


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## Enthusiast (Mar 5, 2016)

EdwardBast said:


> Writing for posterity and writing for the current time are not mutually exclusive. This is a false dichotomy. All it meant when a 19thc composer wrote for posterity was that they were composing the best music they could conceive.


Well, they _are _different things. Obviously, composers had to live and presumably preferred to live well. But the development of the idea that art is for posterity did have considerable influence and probably spurred many artists to see their artistic integrity as more important than popularity in their time. Personally, I think it the history of this idea is an interesting and instructive one.


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## Guest (Aug 14, 2018)

EdwardBast said:


> Writing for posterity and writing for the current time are not mutually exclusive. This is a false dichotomy. All it meant when a 19thc composer wrote for posterity was that they were composing the best music they could conceive.


Yeah that is true; they aren't mutually exclusive, but writing for the present time is certainly more normal......that is, it's how people actually compose music.


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## Ariasexta (Jul 3, 2010)

As you have choosed many modern composers to listen to, it has been a matter of choice, choice is all that matters. I also choose never to try modern classical composers, but rock for me. I love straight-forwardness of rock, as I appreciate the purity of early music. You are right for your own right, and they have become your extension, your servants, friends, since you choosed them, I really think this is the best what modern composers can achieve.


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## Guest (Aug 14, 2018)

To declare that a piece of music has "stood the test of time" is to use a platitude that has no well-defined meaning. In this particular case, it tends to be used by those who want to claim the greatness of a piece or, if it fails the test, the poverty of a piece. It's also deployed to dismiss a modern piece - that won't stand the test of time, even though few of us will be here to decide.

Platitudes are not meant to be examined or contradicted; they're supposed to be accepted without question. However, it's worth considering what "the test of time" is. I mean, compositions by Hildegard of Bingen have stood the test of time, I suppose, but not in the same way as those of Mozart. So, is it simply that it's hung around for a long time? That it's been performed continually over a long period? (and how long is the period for the test to be valid?). That it's been granted some honour, or admitted to the pantheon of most popular?

Or nothing more than it's old? Who's to say that it's stood the test? Academia? The public? The cognoscenti?

If a listening list were compiled for us merely on account of pieces having passed the test of time, there might not be any time to listen to anything composed in more recent periods.


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## Kevin Pearson (Aug 14, 2009)

The problem with all of this is of course that it's very subjective when it comes to music. Like the stock market, nobody really knows what the future holds and which stocks will gain in value. We can make reasonable guesses and possibly make some money but I think more often than not people are wrong about what will do well and what won't. 

The main thing for myself has always been whether I like a work or composer. I try my best to turn others onto great works when I find them but individual tastes and experience with listening vary so much that what is gold to my ears may not be to somebody else. It is gratifying when you are able to get another music lover enthused about a piece or composer you love but that's really secondary to my own enjoyment. I have always been a musical explorer by nature and so early in life, I came to realize that my musical taste was never going to be the "norm" by society's standards. I love what I love and if you love it too that's great but it won't be a determination on my part as to whether a piece or composer has longevity. Many pieces and composers that have "stood the test of time" I really don't enjoy all that much. Just because a composer is "popular" or a piece of music is popular does not equate necessarily to greatness. Some pieces have only become great by repeated performances and familiarity and nothing more.

Great subject by the way!


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## Woodduck (Mar 17, 2014)

I can't imagine needing to know whether a piece of music I'm listening to has "stood the test of time," much less speculating on whether it will. It only needs to stand the test of my being able to stand it for the time it takes me to test it.


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## Guest (Aug 14, 2018)

I put something similar in the derision thread:



Baron Scarpia said:


> I also don't take to the implication that if some music of today is not going to be remembered in future epochs then it is somehow illegitimate and not worth listening to. We should enjoy it now that we have it. Perhaps people in the future will not have the context to appreciate it, that doesn't make it any less valuable today. And the independent record labels have found and recorded oceans of music that was forgotten, but which reveals itself to be of great quality nevertheless.


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## Captainnumber36 (Jan 19, 2017)

Yea, nothing matters other than if you enjoy the Art or not and knowing the reasons is also important to me.


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## EdwardBast (Nov 25, 2013)

shirime said:


> Yeah that is true; they aren't mutually exclusive, but writing for the present time is certainly more normal......that is, *it's how people actually compose music.*


Writing for posterity doesn't mean what you think it means. Composers who did it, meaning a large contingent after Beethoven, weren't imagining a future audience and catering to their imaginary tastes. They were simply writing music they believed will have value over the long term, placing their own aesthetic judgment over the tastes of their contemporaries.


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## Larkenfield (Jun 5, 2017)

Every work, no matter how famous now, started out with no history.


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## Bulldog (Nov 21, 2013)

Although I don't think that standing the test of time is a big deal, it does count for something. That Palestrina's music from hundreds of years ago is still played and recorded is not something to disregard.


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## Guest (Aug 14, 2018)

EdwardBast said:


> Writing for posterity doesn't mean what you think it means. Composers who did it, meaning a large contingent after Beethoven, weren't imagining a future audience and catering to their imaginary tastes. They were simply writing music they believed will have value over the long term, placing their own aesthetic judgment over the tastes of their contemporaries.


Yeah I dint think it's necessarily the right approach to take.


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## endelbendel (Jul 7, 2018)

As any music and all listening is in the here and now, historicity including of future should not matter. Love of music is not like collecting baseball cards.


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## Fredx2098 (Jun 24, 2018)

Aiming for posterity seems like a great way to compose derivative garbage, because obviously you'd be thinking about the pieces that supposedly have posterity and believing that composing that way is the only way to achieve posterity. Speaking of that being a romantic concept, according to google, there is a large peak of people using the word "posterity" during, you guessed it, the Romantic era, and a low period during most the Baroque and Classical eras. I like to hear new ideas.


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## MarkW (Feb 16, 2015)

All composers -- at least the good ones -- have an inner voice that helps determine what they find worthwhile in music and what they should compose in answer to it. Some of these voices speak to others; some don't. All of this music is written for today in response to the artist's need to get it out. The works that last have a more than immediate appeal, and that appeal usually has a relationship to quality. WHen Mahler said, "My time will come," he was appealing not to future generations, but reacting to the reception his music was receiving judged against his own estimation of the quality of his music.

There are an awful lot of pieces that were wildly successful at the time that have now fallen into oblivion. The "test of time" works both ways.


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## Guest (Aug 14, 2018)

Skill, technique, self-criticism, a compulsion that a certain kind of music has yet to be written but must be written. There are many ingredients.


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## Eusebius12 (Mar 22, 2010)

Bulldog said:


> Although I don't think that standing the test of time is a big deal, it does count for something. That Palestrina's music from hundreds of years ago is still played and recorded is not something to disregard.


Also that it is still considered great by those with expertise and taste in the field of late Renaissance and early Baroque music. It has texture, thematic beauty, and polyphonic complexity.


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## DaveM (Jun 29, 2015)

The term ‘standing the test of time’ does have a well-defined meaning. If I say ‘Beethoven’s 5th Symphony has stood the test of time’, everyone knows what I mean. It usually means a consistently well-received work. That doesn’t infer a requirement for a great work. There are countless great works from the 19th century that didn’t stand the test of time because there weren’t given the chance to begin with.


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## Guest (Aug 15, 2018)

DaveM said:


> The term 'standing the test of time' does have a well-defined meaning. If I say 'Beethoven's 5th Symphony has stood the test of time', everyone knows what I mean. It usually means a consistently well-received work. That doesn't infer a requirement for a great work. There are countless great works from the 19th century that didn't stand the test of time because there weren't given the chance to begin with.


Yeah but I do want to ask, is it _important_ to you that certain music has stood the test of time and there are pieces being written today that will stand the test of time?


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## Enthusiast (Mar 5, 2016)

Fredx2098 said:


> Aiming for posterity seems like a great way to compose derivative garbage, because obviously you'd be thinking about the pieces that supposedly have posterity and believing that composing that way is the only way to achieve posterity. Speaking of that being a romantic concept, according to google, there is a large peak of people using the word "posterity" during, you guessed it, the Romantic era, and a low period during most the Baroque and Classical eras. I like to hear new ideas.


The other side of believing you write for posterity is that it enables you to ignore the criticisms you receive now. You can just say "they'll understand me in fifty years". Or, these days, it takes even longer.


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## EdwardBast (Nov 25, 2013)

shirime said:


> Yeah I dint think it's necessarily the right approach to take.


Well, it would seem posterity disagrees with you!  Which is why works from Beethoven to Schnittke still put posteriors in seats.


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## Enthusiast (Mar 5, 2016)

EdwardBast said:


> Well, it would seem posterity disagrees with you!  Which is why works from Beethoven to *Schnittke *still put posteriors in seats.


Still? Schnittke is only a very recent addition to the mainstream-audience-acceptable. Even ten years ago few knew him and very few would have claimed to enjoy him. Public tastes are changing all the time.


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## Tallisman (May 7, 2017)

As far as I'm concerned, the only requirement for a piece of music to 'stand the test of time' is for the manuscript paper to literally avoid physical destruction, or for sufficient copies to be made etc. It just needs, in the most simple sense, to exist across time, because even if someone thinks it is culturally 'dated' or doesn't fit the new era, there will be another person wanting to play it again for precisely that reason.


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## DeepR (Apr 13, 2012)

When it comes to my own subjective enjoyment and appreciation of music I'm not in the least bit concerned with extra musical factors such as how the music was perceived in its own time and whether or not it has stood the test of time. Such things are only interesting when evaluating music from a more "objective" point of view. So yes, I agree.


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## DaveM (Jun 29, 2015)

shirime said:


> Yeah but I do want to ask, is it _important_ to you that certain music has stood the test of time and there are pieces being written today that will stand the test of time?


If I'm understanding your question, it's not important to me as a prerequisite.


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## JeffD (May 8, 2017)

I go with the philosophy that "90% of everything is bovine scatology". Sure we can argue the percentage. But certainly we can agree that not everything composed in any given period is good.

Taking that as a given, I think what the "test of time" does, is weed out the 90% and preserve the rest. Not perfectly I will admit, and we can argue what and where and when.

The test of time only means that a piece has been thought by enough people to be valuable enough to preserve and revive.

When it comes to a particular piece of music, its all what you like or not. And I don't care what others think about what I like or don't like. I am sure i really like some music that will be forgotten in a generation. I can only live now.

But i have to admit two things. One is I have really come to trust the "test of time" and I try very hard to understand what is valuable about a piece that has survived this test, even if I at first can't appreciate it. 

And two, I am very glad we are not constantly exposed to the other 90% that got weeded out, because, with some admitted but rare exception, I believe and trust it really wasn't memorable.


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## JAS (Mar 6, 2013)

My only real interest in a piece of music is that it stands the test of listening. (In regard to my own interests, I mean, of course, to my experience of listening to the piece.) I really only need other people to be interested in the same music sufficient for it to be composed and performed (and in most cases, recorded, produced and sold).


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## EdwardBast (Nov 25, 2013)

Enthusiast said:


> Still? Schnittke is only a very recent addition to the mainstream-audience-acceptable. Even ten years ago few knew him and very few would have claimed to enjoy him. Public tastes are changing all the time.


Yeah, maybe I should have ended with Bartok or Prokofiev - but, of course, I was writing for posterity!

By the way, I agree with the OP that one shouldn't worry about whether what one enjoys today will be remembered decades hence. In my book, going with ones own aesthetic judgment is the way to go.


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## fluteman (Dec 7, 2015)

JeffD said:


> Taking that as a given, I think what the "test of time" does, is weed out the 90% and preserve the rest. Not perfectly I will admit, and we can argue what and where and when.
> 
> The test of time only means that a piece has been thought by enough people to be valuable enough to preserve and revive.


Somerset Maugham points out the other side of this coin in Cakes and Ale, which is a rather vicious satire of a fellow writer whom Maugham saw as a self-promoter and poseur. He notes that only works that achieve a certain level of notoriety in their own time, whether or not deserving, will even be available for later generations to judge. Of course, he couldn't predict our modern technology that makes it easier to find obscure music from the past, but his point still holds. So I agree with you here. The "test of time" may not be definitive or mandatory, but it's quite stringent and usually at least worthy of consideration.


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## larold (Jul 20, 2017)

_But what if this music doesn't stand the test of time? What if I am the only person whose favourite composers include names like Joanna Woźny, Adriana Hölszky and Ondrej Adámek?_

That is likely because you are bored with the more familiar names. You will be with these people in time because no music really stands that test of time. The "test of time" argument is generally to describe why music from Beethoven, Mozart and Tchaikovsky, among others, stays popular with broadcasters, listeners, musicians, concertgoers and others who purchase or play classical music


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## fluteman (Dec 7, 2015)

shirime said:


> But what if this music doesn't stand the test of time? What if I am the only person whose favourite composers include names like Joanna Woźny, Adriana Hölszky and Ondrej Adámek?


There is nothing wrong with that as you are always entitled to your personal preferences, even if they are shared with no one else. The trouble arises when you try to demonstrate the inherent validity of your preferences, or the invalidity of preferences of others, something that is all too common here.

Music that has had a significant impact on many people over a long period of time isn't inherently "better" than music that hasn't, whatever criteria one might use to determine what is "better", and won't necessarily be preferable for you or any other single individual. But it is likely more significant or important in a cultural sense. That, at least, can be defined and observed in a more or less objective way.


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## eugeneonagain (May 14, 2017)

Music, like all culture, standing the test of time means, like fluteman wrote, that it meant something to us. That we lived it, absorbed it and made it part of our collective life. Hundreds upon hundreds of pieces of music have probably been written that gave pleasure at the time, to many or few, and then disappeared into obscurity.There are trillions of personal experiences that are enjoyed and then disappear, I don't think I want everything to be like that and neither is it useful for being able to benefit from and understand the culture that precedes us now.

Hoping to create things that might outlive us is not a particularly 19th century thing at all.
.


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## Sid James (Feb 7, 2009)

shirime said:


> ....Well, I have just decided today that I don't even really care that much about those questions because I think they are unimportant to whether I love their music or not. ...


It may be unimportant to you or to us as individual listeners in general, but it is important to what is preserved and what isn't.

This boils down to resources, in other words, money. There are composers whose output is so vast that decisions have to be made as to what music is worth putting on record, which necessarily involves rejecting most of other things they composed. It can and should be done in as thorough and sensitive manner as possible. There are many examples where such curatorial decisions have to be made, eg. Telemann, Hovhaness, Milhaud, Villa-Lobos.

It works for living composers too. If a donor asked them for a few works to fit onto a disc, they would be forced to make this curatorial decision based on their own oeuvre.

Once obscure music becomes recorded and available, this can spur on further work being done. Up until the mid 20th century, Vivaldi's name was just one of many obscure Baroque composers. The manuscript of The Four Seasons was discovered and a mono recording made, and shortly thereafter another in stereo. In the decades since, Vivaldi has been established as one of the most important Baroque composers, in terms of sales, scholarship and study. Commercial success can have this sort of iceberg effect.

In terms of what I l like in music, posterity does count to an extent. I have pared down my record collection to the essence, and a lot of it is warhorses, although not exclusively. I have many gaps which are works that are important to posterity but not important for me. Some of what I retained is rubbish by the standards of the cognoscenti, but its my collection not theirs.

I would guess that a large part of the 200-300 warhorses (most falling between Baroque to mid 20th century) would still be a central part of what most classical listeners favour and frequently listen to.

This process has parallels with film. Celluloid deteriorates over time, so now organisations like The Film Foundation (website: http://www.film-foundation.org/) make decisions and get funding to preserve what is considered the most important of film history.


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## hammeredklavier (Feb 18, 2018)

EdwardBast said:


> Writing for posterity and writing for the current time are not mutually exclusive. This is a false dichotomy. All it meant when a 19thc composer wrote for posterity was that they were composing the best music they could conceive.


Is that how Wagner thought when he was writing the essay _Zukunftsmusik?_


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