# Future



## JackRance (Sep 13, 2021)

I posted a thread some days ago, https://www.talkclassical.com/72546-future.html, in which I started this discussion. Now I want to be more specifical and I created a poll.
My personal opinion is that today there's too many different types of music that you can no longer define anything as "new music" because anything is expected by now.


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## chipia (Apr 22, 2021)

Where is the poll?


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## JackRance (Sep 13, 2021)

chipia said:


> Where is the poll?


I was preparing it


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## JackRance (Sep 13, 2021)

I don't think that's a good poll, but I didn't have so much time for think...


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## Bulldog (Nov 21, 2013)

I think there will be a little of everything - so other.


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## JackRance (Sep 13, 2021)

Bulldog said:


> I think there will be a little of everything - so other.


 You can also click everything


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## Simon Moon (Oct 10, 2013)

Contemporary tonal classical music has never stopped existing, so, not sure if there is something to "return to".

And, atonal, serial (is there any contemporary serial music?), spectralism, etc, will also continue.


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## mbhaub (Dec 2, 2016)

Like it or not, the standard European repertoire will be the bread-and-butter of orchestras everywhere for a long, long time. Nothing is going to change that.


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## SanAntone (May 10, 2020)

Bulldog said:


> I think there will be a little of everything - so other.


And something we have never seen before or can imagine.


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## MarkW (Feb 16, 2015)

Since I believe the over/under for the survival of humanity is about 50 years, it's moot point.


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## 59540 (May 16, 2021)

Like the Goldberg Variations, things will come full circle.


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## Symphonic (Apr 27, 2015)

I struggle to agree, although I want to agree. 

Audience numbers are still decreasing - as is the general interest in classical music. Something must change to solve this, and something will change.


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## Enthusiast (Mar 5, 2016)

If the majority are correct that we will only listen to older (more than 120 years old) classical music then I'm afraid classical music will die. But I don't for a minute think that will happen. It seems to me from what gets recorded and is available that the field is vibrant. Live music may decline somewhat but I suspect the more contemporary music will retain a live audience. It is live performances of the slightly less popular classics that will probably suffer most. I also suspect that chamber music will thrive more easily than orchestral.


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## Wilhelm Theophilus (Aug 8, 2020)

The greats were a product of their culture and time. Our Culture and time has produced the X factor. We will never produce greats again, unless our "world" drastically changes. 

But there will always be people listening to old classical music.


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## SixFootScowl (Oct 17, 2011)

It does not matter to me. As far as classical goes, all the great music IMO was written many years ago. There is nothing musically for me to look forward to except certain non-classical artists, and a very select few at that.


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## JTS (Sep 26, 2021)

Most of the so-called ‘classical music’ written today is unlistenable outside of a very few people. They may applaud the premiere but never want to hear it again it is so unmemorable, at least that is my reaction - or memorable for the wrong reasons. One hopes a genius will aris3 and take us back to great music we can actually enjoy,


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## Sid James (Feb 7, 2009)

I voted other, for the reasons I gave in the other thread:



Sid James said:


> I think that the increasingly global nature of classical music will continue and be strengthened. This has been a trend since at least as far back as the early 20th century, with influences such as folk, world, jazz, rock and other popular music enriching the classical tradition. The future of classical might not even lie in the West, with other parts of the world - especially Asia and Latin America - developing vibrant scenes and cultivating local talent.


I think previous isms are history, and apart from its anything goes ethos, postmodernism lacks a solid core. To the younger generation of listeners, lack of a tribal focus is normal. To kids practicing piano, Beethoven might still be a god, but to others classical music is synonymous with what they hear at the movies, on tv shows or when playing video games.

The digital revolution is changing everything. Old certainties aren't entirely gone, but they're increasingly becoming irrelevant to many listeners. In his autobiography Lang Lang said that many who attended his first concerts in China didn't know much about what he was playing, they just came to listen. Whether or not Mozart or Tan Dun where alive or dead didn't matter to them.

There's something special about that sort of openness to new experiences. My impression is that, in terms of music, the weight of history isn't borne so heavily by young people today. They're more concerned with how music connects with their everyday lives, less so about its relevance or overall meaning to society as a whole.


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## Doublestring (Sep 3, 2014)

SixFootScowl said:


> It does not matter to me. As far as classical goes, all the great music IMO was written many years ago. There is nothing musically for me to look forward to except certain non-classical artists, and a very select few at that.


Prejudice, prejudice, prejudice.

This explains why classical music of the past 100 years hardly reaches an audience. People are against without knowing anything about it, without listening to it. Even the classical music stations keep playing the same old composers forever, and ignore the ones who are alive now. I had these same discussions thirty years ago, and people have only gotten more prejudiced and more conservative since then.


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