# What if classical music started over?



## Gordontrek (Jun 22, 2012)

I'm a little confused on how to set up this question. There's a nice discussion going on about the current state and future of classical music. A few replies have either implied or outright stated that humanity's supply of musical genius, at least where traditional forms are concerned, has been exhausted. All the good melodies have already been written by Mozart, Beethoven, Brahms, Tchaikovsky, and so on. Harmony too reached its zenith with people like Debussy, so there's nothing to innovate in that regard either. Tonal music, then, has all been written; at least anything really worth hearing. Maybe you believe this or maybe you don't; I personally am on the fence about it. But it leads to a more interesting question that came to my mind when I heard it.
Suppose we could wipe out history going back to, say, about 1700, and allow Bach, Mozart, Beethoven, etc. to completely start over (they don't know it, of course). Assume that history still occurs in basically the same form; major political events, wars, etc. will still happen more or less as we know them today. What I'm getting at is, all the great composers will still be born and be inspired to compose, but they have a totally clean slate to work with. 
What do you think we, the all-powerful deities who initiated this experiment, will observe? I'm particularly interested in *how the music that the great composers come up with the second time around will compare to what we know.* Will there now be twice as many memorable and unique tonal pieces, or will we find a lot of overlap? This is one way, I think, to address the original issue of whether tonal music has all been written. Give the heavyweights another lifetime; what will we find? Assume that music theory develops in basically the same way as well. 
I'm a bit concerned that this question amounts to nothing but mindless speculation, but I've been tossing it in my head for a while now and I'm very interested to hear your thoughts. Quick, everyone speculate!


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## Goddess Yuja Wang (Aug 8, 2017)

Fascinating question. I've often wondered the same about music, science, religion, politics...

I had some ideas as I read your post, but they required different random paths taken by some key composers, and then you said to "assume that music theory develops in basically the same way as well", so that doesn't apply anymore.

But if we think of this as Chaos Theory, where small initial changes can have huge effects/consequences later, we would probably have to identify some KEY moments and composers in music history waaaaaay back to identify what the potential changes might be.

I'm inclined to speculate that *if everything* was to be repeated again exactly the same _(composers with the exact same atomic configuration and brain chemistry)_, we would have the same music. But then something about it bothers me... Nature? Nurture? Society? Life experiences?

I suppose this whole exercise depends heavily on how much similarity or change you would allow for the second time around, in history, society, the composer's life experiences, etc.

I'm so looking forward to this discussion!


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## Woodduck (Mar 17, 2014)

If everything else in history is exactly the same, why wouldn't musical history be exactly the same? This is really a philosophical question, not a musical one. How deep does causality go? Is anything accidental? Is human behavior initiated by a self in some sense free from external causation, so that a person (the composer) might take different actions (compose different music) when all contributing factors are identical? 

Is this a question of whether all tonal music has been written? Of course it hasn't. Is it a question of whether the composers of the past could have written more masterworks in their accustomed tonal styles? There's no reason to doubt it - and don't we all wish they had lived longer and done that? But given that there was always more music that might have been written by Josquin, Purcell, Schubert or Prokofiev, it doesn't follow that they could have written it instead of the music they actually did write, or would write it if they "started over from scratch." 

Having said that, I'm not at all sure I understood the question.


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## Gordontrek (Jun 22, 2012)

Woodduck said:


> If everything else in history is exactly the same, why wouldn't musical history be exactly the same? This is really a philosophical question, not a musical one.


I should make clear that I'm not assuming _everything_ in history is exactly the same. Suffice it to say, history repeats itself just enough so that all the great composers are still born. That's why I said "more or less" and "basically" the same. The point is, the great composers have a second chance to compose. Maybe in this timeline Napoleon doesn't invade Russia. It would change history, but not necessarily prevent Tchaikovsky from being born.
But even if history were exactly the same the second time around, would that necessarily preclude the possibility of the great composers producing a completely different oeuvre than what they did the first time? I think not, maybe except for musical works which have direct influence on history itself.
Does this help or just muddy the water more??


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## Woodduck (Mar 17, 2014)

If we allow for some variables in the course of history, but still have Mrs. Tchaikovsky give birth to musically talented baby Piotr, then I don't doubt that Piotr will go on to write works different from the ones we have, since so many things could influence his musical development and choice of forms and subjects. But then a lot of other things could happen to Piotr, and he might not grow up to be a composer at all. Small, unpredictable events can change greatly the course of things, and the question is how much an individual's nature and actions are shaped by intrinsic (genetic) factors that resist the influence of external events. Great artists often seem to have an indomitable strength of personality and will to create, so I'd expect the hypothetical second Tchaikovsky's music to sound much like the original's, even if the works were new.


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## Taggart (Feb 14, 2013)

Real chicken and egg job.

My own feeling is that the music would be fairly similar but the names attached to them might well be different. I'm thinking of the Mannheim school and its influence on the symphony. We are all aware that the developments that came about were not driven by Mannheim but represented some sort of zeitgeist. The ideas were "in the air" and Mannheim got the credit. 

While we may talk of the genius of Bach and Mozart, rhere may have been some "mute, inglorious Milton" who would have been better if only things had been different. If we turn back the clock, the spirit of the age would still be the same but ... who would get the credit for expressing it?


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## Larkenfield (Jun 5, 2017)

Not to put a damper on such an interesting question, but really, the planets would still line up differently according to today unless one could reverse them in their orbits, and someone like Beethoven would be living in a different energy in which to compose. 

There's still a great deal to discover about 20th- and 21st-century music, IMO, and the more I hear the more I feel it's saying something important about today, and not without power and beauty; so we may not need another Beethoven because he already had his chance. 

What I'd like to see is a 21st-century composer who composed with the same immediacy of jotting down his or her ideas in a notebook and the commitment that Beethoven had, and comes up with equal but different results that would be a reflection of today. I believe that would be even more powerful than imagining a blank slate and another Bach, Beethoven, or Mozart having a second chance. Circumstances never exactly repeat themselves or life would be too predictable... and boring.


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## Totenfeier (Mar 11, 2016)

With apologies to Woodduck, the question marches right past philosophy into theology. If we live in a purely materialistic universe in which all events are produced out of a substrate of random chance, then anything is possible at any time, and if one could even restart such a universe, then it is likelier than not that everything would be completely different from the timeline we now experience.

On the other hand, if this world is the creation of a divine (whatever that may mean to you - Chief Programmer, or what have you) being, then it is either an ongoing, not-yet-fully-realized work being written (or performed) by an omnisciently adaptable artist (open theism), or it is a completed work in which no variation is possible, in much the same way that an entire symphony is encoded on a CD or an entire movie on a Blu-ray DVD (i.e., absolute determinism or predestination).

In the first case, we are lost in an infinite welter of possibilities, depending on the moment-to-moment artistic decisions of the Creator, and your question is not answerable in any meaningful sense, because if the Artist were to start over, he could choose to do everything exactly the same as the first time, or he could, at any point, introduce any one of an infinite number of possibilities, which may - or may not - affect the experience of those within the creation (chaos theory). If, however, the second case be true, then the question is easily answered: yes, everything would, inevitably, proceed exactly as before, as no change would be possible, or desired ("best of all possible worlds" theory).

In short - is creation more like a movie, or more like a painting (the analogy is not perfect, because the end of a movie is still encoded before it begins, but I'm talking about movement as perceived by the characters in the movie vs. reality - Creation - as it is experienced by the figures in a painting).


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## MarkW (Feb 16, 2015)

I was going to construct an answer -- then after reading all of the above realized there's no coherent way to do it.

On a sub-topic however, I will mention that Schoenberg himself said that there was still great music to be written in C major.


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## Woodduck (Mar 17, 2014)

Totenfeier said:


> With apologies to Woodduck, *the question marches right past philosophy into theology.* If we live in a purely materialistic universe in which *all events are produced out of a substrate of random chance, then anything is possible at any time,* and if one could even restart such a universe, then it is likelier than not that everything would be completely different from the timeline we now experience.
> 
> On the other hand, if this world is *the creation of a divine* (whatever that may mean to you - *Chief Programmer,* or what have you) being, then it is either an ongoing, not-yet-fully-realized work being written (or performed) by an omnisciently adaptable artist (open theism), or it is a completed work in which no variation is possible, in much the same way that an entire symphony is encoded on a CD or an entire movie on a Blu-ray DVD (i.e., absolute determinism or predestination).


Theology schmeology. To a choice between randomness ("anything is possible at any time") and supervision by a ghost, I reply that we don't live in either of those universes.


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## Totenfeier (Mar 11, 2016)

"Theology schmeology" - I like.

Where do you stand on various multiverse theories? Suppose that, on one of his country rambles, Beethoven picks up a virus, or breaks his wrist in a fall, or has an allergic reaction, or some such, and because of his temporary incapacity and/or disgust with the whole thing, we get no "Pastorale." Are there now two universes, one in which there is a Pastorale and one in which there is not? For that matter, what about all of the choices and/or happenstances that did or did not occur every day in the lives of all classical composers - how would we know the works we have missed because of them? Or is the universe as we have experienced it, and continue to do so, the only one possible? What's your midpoint between quantum unpredictability and God Almighty?


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## Woodduck (Mar 17, 2014)

Totenfeier said:


> "Theology schmeology" - I like.
> 
> Where do you stand on *various multiverse theories*? Suppose that, on one of his country rambles, Beethoven picks up a virus, or breaks his wrist in a fall, or has an allergic reaction, or some such, and because of his temporary incapacity and/or disgust with the whole thing, we get no "Pastorale." Are there now two universes, one in which there is a Pastorale and one in which there is not? For that matter, what about all of the choices and/or happenstances that did or did not occur every day in the lives of all classical composers - how would we know the works we have missed because of them? Or is the universe as we have experienced it, and continue to do so, the only one possible? *What's your midpoint between quantum unpredictability and God Almighty?*


I'm not in the habit of basing hypotheticals on other hypotheticals. Since I take neither quantum unpredictability nor God Almighty to be a comprehensive explanation of the universe (and for that matter don't assume that the universe as such is explainable), why would I even try to determine a midpoint between them? Multiverses may be a fun idea to play with, but a single universe - one in which I'm bound, by my nature as a rational being, to proceed by assuming the rule of identity, continuation, and causality - is already more than I can cope with.


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## Guest (Sep 27, 2017)

Woodduck said:


> I'm not in the habit of basing hypotheticals on other hypotheticals. Since I take neither quantum unpredictability nor God Almighty to be a comprehensive explanation of the universe (and for that matter don't assume that the universe as such is explainable), why would I even try to determine a midpoint between them? Multiverses may be a fun idea to play with, but a single universe - one in which I'm bound, by my nature as a rational being, to proceed by assuming the rule of identity, continuation, and causality - is already more than I can cope with.


You are trying to say that you are limited?


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## larold (Jul 20, 2017)

You'd have to go a lot further back than 1700 since classical music, as we know it, started with Gregorian chant. That was in the Medieval period, somewhere between 500-1400 A.D. 

Going back to 1700 ... hmm ... the English composer Henry Purcell -- the greatest English composer ever until Elgar and Vaughan Williams in the 20th century -- lived his entire life in the 1600s, composing operas, songs and orchestra music, and lots of other good stuff. 

Even J.S. Bach was born 1685 and lived a part of his early life in the 1600s.

So bottom line is you may have to go back to a know-nothing period of humanity and work 500 to 800 years developing from scratch if you sought to start over again.


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## Guest (Sep 27, 2017)

To start all over again implies total purity and that is a metaphysical premise.


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## Goddess Yuja Wang (Aug 8, 2017)

So, if we approach this as if it were Chaos Theory, which would you say the "key"moments in the history of music are, the ones that, if slightly changed in the past, the outcome in the long run would be completely different?
Would we have to go back all the way to the Greeks? 
What kind of changes during say, the Renaissance, would give us a different outcome in the present?

If the relevant people had decided to base what we know today as CP tonality in a different mode, like Dorian, would our system be hierarchized that way and have completely different sounding music? Dorian music with a Lydian relative perhaps?

As far as we know now, this universe seems to be completely deterministic so far. Also, the multiverse hypothesis (not a theory yet) seems plausible, but we need ways to find ways to test for this and, more importantly, to falsify it, and that is still a long way ahead.

Gravitational waves, which would give some credence to the multiverse hypothesis, have been detected not long ago with the LIGO experiment. That also bolsters Guth's Inflation theory as well. What that implies is still unclear. So far, that seems to be one of the directions the evidence is taking us, and things seem to get weirder by the year, as we discover more secrets of how nature works.
https://www.ligo.caltech.edu/news/ligo20160211

Maybe we will one day discover that we're nothing more than the result of some alien kid in a higher universal bubble playing with his Acme universe kit...


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## Gouldanian (Nov 19, 2015)

If you start over with the same people, living during identical times, with the same geo-political and economic circumstances, I don't see why anything would be different a second time around.

The question regarding the lack of musical geniuses in our generation calls for a subjective answer. Some, who most probably aren't into classical music, would possibly qualify many musicians today as geniuses. I personally don't believe we have composers that are on the level of genius as past composers, and the reason for this is the socio-economical context in which we live in. People in general don't value the same things our ancestors used to value centuries ago: Social hierarchy is gone, the supremacy of God and the Church is diminished, manners have changed, etc. Furthermore, the musicians of our generation are managed by recording compagnies, and many other people involved in PR, marketing, etc. Their output is more than ever before oriented on sales. It's now more important to compose music that sells than music that stems from inner feelings and a connection with God, nature, and the nobel social contract that used to exist. Time is money, you want to spend it composing music that will sell and sell the most. That's the unfortunate bottom line.

Would we have had geniuses on the same level as Bach and Mozart had the socio-economical context been the same as that of 200 years ago? Most probably. The world produces a dozen geniuses in half a century, why couldn't we produce more? Our limitation is the reality we live in.


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## mathisdermaler (Mar 29, 2017)

I think a more interesting question is what would the great composers compose if they were all born today, with no knowledge of the musical past but with modern technology?


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## Agamemnon (May 1, 2017)

If I am right the question of OP is the same question as: if Mozart had lived longer would his later music be identical to Beethoven's or would it still be unique music only Mozart could have written? My answer: it would still be original music. So musically it is still possible to create great tonal music in a classical style (like it is possible that we discover a masterpiece of Mozart yet unknown to us). 

But at the same time: nobody can (re)create that great classical masterpiece anymore after the classical era has passed away. Mozart didn't live longer as he did so he didn't write that new great masterpeece and now nobody will. The reason is that music has context and that context in which Mozart or Beethoven composed isn't there anymore.


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## eugeneonagain (May 14, 2017)

A large part of musical development can be attributed to technological developments: in musical instruments and in general, perhaps even recording technology.
The development of the fortepiano/piano, over quite a lengthy period was a huge boost to composers and a new point of interest for listeners. Its shading possibilities generated an impetus for creating new kinds of keyboard works. When was the last time such a keyboard instrument had this kind of impact? Probably the Moog synthesiser (though not specifically a keyboard instrument) and that also opened up new possibilities and ideas.

A lot of the instruments used in orchestras and ensembles underwent development in the period from Bach right up to the mid 19th century, particularly the development of the woodwinds and their key systems, the adoption of the clarinet (all of which generated a quite a large amount of 'new music' in the late 18th century onwards) and then the brass instruments forming a larger section of orchestras, again enabling new sounds. Orchestral instrumentation is not more-or-less fixed so composers writing for an orchestra are writing for an ensemble that has been written for thousands of times with no novel developments.

I don't know about wiping out the history and running it over, it's very speculative. My guess is that it would develop in much the same way, but everything reaches its saturation point sooner or later.


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## Agamemnon (May 1, 2017)

mathisdermaler said:


> I think a more interesting question is what would the great composers compose if they were all born today, with no knowledge of the musical past but with modern technology?


I often think about what Mozart would think of e.g. The Beatles or death metal. I think he would find it all very interesting and would bridge all genres (classical/art, pop. jazz) and make everybody happy. Above all, he himself would be very happy to be no longer confined to the classical idiom and being able to create freely.


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## ArtMusic (Jan 5, 2013)

If it started all over again but based on what we already know? It's hard to answer this because you can't start all over again based on so much development. It's like asking where humanity would be today based on 2,000 since Roman times if we started again, whatever that means. The chicken cannot re-grow once it is out of its egg.


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## JeffD (May 8, 2017)

Traverso said:


> To start all over again implies total purity and that is a metaphysical premise.


You mean the question would we know now what we didn't know then?


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## JeffD (May 8, 2017)

I think the question itself raises more interesting mythologies about how we understand music and art than does any answer we could come up with.

The two biggest myths, I believe, come from our historical prejudice.

The myth that any previous era had a sense of what was coming, and the prejudice than anything was inevitable. Not true on the face of it but knowing that and its implications would change how we think of musical development. For example

1 - In every era most people thought everything that could be done had been done.

2 - Nobody was predestined to greatness and no type of music was the "natural" development.

3 - There were likely many innovations in many directions that never gained traction and as a result we are unaware of them. It was not inevitable which innovations would gain traction.

4 - the question of "what new developments are in the air" was as hard to answer in every era as it is today.

5 - many now accepted musical tropes were total innovations at one time, and unappreciated until years (some times many years) later. [The (minor) seventh chord was transgressive at one time. Religious movements separated over whether songs should be led, to ensure singers started at the same time, or if singers should be given free reign to start when ever they wanted (as the spirit moved them).

So if music were to start again, there is no guarantees it would start, or that we would recognize it as music.

"I want to live back in ancient times, because there was so much less history to have to learn."


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## Agamemnon (May 1, 2017)

JeffD said:


> I think the question itself raises more interesting mythologies about how we understand music and art than does any answer we could come up with.
> 
> The two biggest myths, I believe, come from our historical prejudice.
> 
> ...


I have to comment on this (as usual dominantly from my philosophical background) and I will confine myself to your claims 1 and 2:

Ad 1) I find this hard to believe. The essence of modernity is what I call the "pathos of originality" coming from christianity: modern people strongly believe that the past is definitely beyond us and that we - like Jesus - wil make everything new. Modernism is the believe that we will make a new world, a new society, a new man, a new philosophy, a new art etc (which is why modernism brought ideologies as nazism and communism which consciously destroyed everything to be able to make everything new and why a lot of people think modern art is just simply about originality - producing something new which mankind has never seen before - instead of quality). Of course, when this belief in progression is so strong and has led to such destruction (world wars) there will be a backlash of cynicism and pessimism (the believe in decline and that our culture has exhausted) but this backlash didn't really arise until the 20th century.

Ad 2) I think e.g. Mozart and Beethoven would have been geniuses in all times as long as they would have the opportunity to involve themselves with music. Yet I agree cultural development isn't 'natural': culture especially evokes opposite reactions so that cultural developments tend to be a pendulum swing (according to Popper the basic mistake of Hegel was that Hegel generalized this cultural thesis-antithesis-principle to all reality). In that sense one could predict future art (e.g. naturalism would evoke manierism etc).


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## mathisdermaler (Mar 29, 2017)

Agamemnon said:


> I often think about what Mozart would think of e.g. The Beatles or death metal. I think he would find it all very interesting and would bridge all genres (classical/art, pop. jazz) and make everybody happy. Above all, he himself would be very happy to be no longer confined to the classical idiom and being able to create freely.


I don't think so. At all.


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## Woodduck (Mar 17, 2014)

Agamemnon said:


> The essence of modernity is what I call *the "pathos of originality" coming from christianity*: modern people strongly believe that the past is definitely beyond us and that we - like Jesus - wil make everything new. *Modernism is the believe that we will make a new world, a new society, a new man, a new philosophy, a new art etc* (which is why modernism brought ideologies as nazism and communism which consciously destroyed everything to be able to make everything new and why a lot of *people think modern art is just simply about originality - producing something new which mankind has never seen before - instead of quality*). Of course, when this belief in progression is so strong and has led to such destruction (world wars) there will be a backlash of cynicism and pessimism (the believe in decline and that our culture has exhausted) but this backlash didn't really arise until the 20th century.


This is a bit peripheral to the discussion, but, since you bring it up, I can't help remarking how basic this "progressive" - or, taken to its extreme, "revolutionary" - concept of art is in Western culture, and not only in Modernism. You are correct to see underlying it the Judeo-Christian sense of history as linear and teleological, and defined by the messianic hope for salvific transformation. The reason that expressing this sense became an imperative in the Modernist era is that Enlightenment philosophy, scientific advancement, and commerce broke down static social and political arrangements, and weakened religion as a cultural force. Art was then asked to fill the spiritual void, taking over much of religion's mission of bestowing a transcendent meaning on life, which the artist sought to realize by bringing to objective reality his unique subjective vision. Since no two subjective visions are alike, and none can lay claim to having ultimate or universal value, the quest for meaning is perpetual, and the acceleration of social change guarantees that artistic change will accelerate as well.

In cultures governed by a cyclical, rather than linear, sense of time, in which the spiritual quest is not for a transformed future but for an eternal present, there is not the same drive to innovate; art in these cultures seeks to perpetuate and be worthy of its great traditions, artists seek to express timeless values in time-honored forms, the creator's individuality emerges incidentally and subtly and may be valued but is not fetishized, and the pace of artistic evolution is much slower.

Western civilization without the pressure of progressivism is a self-contradictory notion, but if we could imagine it we could certainly have many more works in the general styles of the composers we love, stretched perhaps over a few millennia rather than a few centuries. It's a mouth-watering fantasy.


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## Agamemnon (May 1, 2017)

Woodduck said:


> This is a bit peripheral to the discussion, but, since you bring it up, I can't help remarking how basic this "progressive" - or, taken to its extreme, "revolutionary" - concept of art is in Western culture, and not only in Modernism. You are correct to see underlying it the Judeo-Christian sense of history as linear and teleological, and defined by the messianic hope for salvific transformation. The reason that expressing this sense became an imperative in the Modernist era is that Enlightenment philosophy, scientific advancement, and commerce broke down static social and political arrangements, and weakened religion as a cultural force. Art was then asked to fill the spiritual void, taking over much of religion's mission of bestowing a transcendent meaning on life, which the artist sought to realize by bringing to objective reality his unique subjective vision. Since no two subjective visions are alike, and none can lay claim to having ultimate or universal value, the quest for meaning is perpetual, and the acceleration of social change guarantees that artistic change will accelerate as well.
> 
> In cultures governed by a cyclical, rather than linear, sense of time, in which the spiritual quest is not for a transformed future but for an eternal present, there is not the same drive to innovate; art in these cultures seeks to perpetuate and be worthy of its great traditions, artists seek to express timeless values in time-honored forms, the creator's individuality emerges incidentally and subtly and may be valued but is not fetishized, and the pace of artistic evolution is much slower.
> 
> Western civilization without the pressure of progressivism is a self-contradictory notion, but if we could imagine it we could certainly have many more works in the general styles of the composers we love, stretched perhaps over a few millennia rather than a few centuries. It's a mouth-watering fantasy.


I totally agree. BTW, in my words I would say that after 'the death of God' the artist became the new god, i.e. the genius (which is the subject of my thread "The genius of Mozart") - although the basic idea of originality and genius was already there in the 'Renaissance' when the Platonic ascend to the One became mixed up with christian mystical longing for unity with Jesus/God and which term already refers to make everything new.


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