# A Haunting Question



## tdc (Jan 17, 2011)

Richard Taruskin points out that at the time of Stravinsky's death there were many composers that were admired, even revered in classical music. The thing is Carter, Berio and Boulez were honored in one camp and Copland, Shostakovich and Britten in another. Stravinsky was honored in both, his music is an indispensable part of the academic canon and the performing repertoire alike. 

As Taruskin puts it: 

"People both praised it in the classroom and paid good money to hear it. No textbook or music history course could omit him, and neither could any concert or opera (or ballet!) season. And that was what made him unique among the living while he lived. Stravinsky seemed uniquely to exemplify, among contemporary composers, the appeal that Mozart had exerted in his day. The connoisseurs still delight in mulling over the details of Stravinsky's chords and rhythms, as practically any issue of any academic music theory journal will readily attest, but the same compositions that the professionals have analyzed to death have been recorded dozens of times for the delectation of non-matriculated music lovers. Is there any other modern master of whom that can be said?"

So what do you think? Is Taruskin right? Do you think there are other composers of classical music today that will reach the stature of Stravinsky?


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## Red Terror (Dec 10, 2018)

tdc said:


> Richard Taruskin points out that at the time of Stravinsky's death there were many composers that were admired, even revered in classical music. The thing is Carter, Berio and Boulez were honored in one camp and Copland, Shostakovich and Britten in another. Stravinsky was honored in both, his music is an indispensable part of the academic canon and the performing repertoire alike.
> 
> As Taruskin puts it:
> 
> ...


György Kurtág is perhaps our greatest living composer but no one aside from a few classical music aficionados know who he is. Stravinsky lived at a time when people thought art/music had the capacity to touch and potentially transform the human soul, but no one cares about these things anymore. No contemporary composer will ever approach Stravinsky in terms of stature because it simply isn't possible in today's culture. The world has changed.


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## Prodromides (Mar 18, 2012)

Birtwistle, Corigliano or Murail might have the chances for appreciation in both camps.


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## Red Terror (Dec 10, 2018)

Prodromides said:


> Birtwistle, Corigliano or Murail might have the chances for appreciation in both camps.


So, two people? Sounds about right.


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## Woodduck (Mar 17, 2014)

In Stravinsky's day classical music still had a reputation as something special and important beyond the circles of knowledgeable aficionados and regular concert-goers. People had pianos in their homes and learned to play classical pieces, kids had music appreciation classes in school, classical instrumentalists and opera singers appeared on popular radio and TV programs, and Walt Disney could make a hit movie by adding animation to classical works, including Stravinsky's _Rite of Spring._ Even people who didn't know Stravinsky's music knew his name, as they knew the names of, at least, Rachmaninoff and Schoenberg.

That world, in the latter days of which I grew up, is gone. Present-day classical composers are scarcely familiar even to a majority of classical music lovers, much less to a wider public. Contemporary classical music is now just another niche interest, and no one outside its specialized audience thinks it's very important. Sic transit gloria...


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## Art Rock (Nov 28, 2009)

I think it goes beyond composers as well. When I started exploring classical music around 1985, I knew next to nothing about it (except the most familiar composers names). Still, I knew at the time that Bernstein and von Karajan were conductors, Schwarzkopf a singer and Menuhin a violinist - that was rather general knowledge at the time. Ask people now for the name of a currently active conductor, singer or player of classical music and I doubt you get much more than Andre Rieu and Andrea Bocelli.


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## Neo Romanza (May 7, 2013)

Red Terror said:


> György Kurtág is perhaps our greatest living composer but no one aside from a few classical music aficionados knows who he is. Stravinsky lived at a time when people thought art/music had the capacity to touch and potentially transform the human soul, but no one cares about these things anymore. No contemporary composer will ever approach Stravinsky in terms of stature because that simply isn't possible in today's culture. The world has changed.


What is even more sad in today's culture even Stravinsky is unknown. A cultural-less wasteland we live in nowadays. Truly a shame. And, yeah, no one has heard of Kurtág just like they've never heard of this guy:










Or this guy:


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## JTS (Sep 26, 2021)

Art Rock said:


> I think it goes beyond composers as well. When I started exploring classical music around 1985, I knew next to nothing about it (except the most familiar composers names). Still, I knew at the time that Bernstein and von Karajan were conductors, Schwarzkopf a singer and Menuhin a violinist - that was rather general knowledge at the time. Ask people now for the name of a currently active conductor, singer or player of classical music and I doubt you get much more than Andre Rieu and Andrea Bocelli.


You did have the mainstream media like the BBC when I was a boy promoting classical music. There was a program called Concert Hall Which features a Concerto. There was also later an Andre Previn music night with the LSO. Of course all that has gone from the BBC in favour of ratings. They did have however some decent programs on during the prom season, I'll give them that, including a stunning Dixit Dominus from Gardiner


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## Forster (Apr 22, 2021)

I'm not so sure about a "culture-less wasteland".

In the UK, the BBC Proms gets more visible coverage every year, and composers like those pictured above (are we supposed to be saying whether we recognise them, and give away the sgame?) have their works performed alongside Stravinsky.

And perhaps culture has become more fragmented, with the most popular global brands seeming to suppress the less widely enjoyed, while the hegemony of Western civilisation rightly challenged.

The fact that some cultural products generates such revulsion among some doesn't mean culture itself is disappearing, but it is evolving.

As it always has done. If every generation produced a Stravinsky, culture would stagnate. We don't need another Igor, but the search for the paradox of the same, but different and just as good goes on.


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## Red Terror (Dec 10, 2018)

Forster said:


> I'm not so sure about a "culture-less wasteland".
> 
> In the UK, the BBC Proms gets more visible coverage every year, and composers like those pictured above (are we supposed to be saying whether we recognise them, and give away the sgame?) have their works performed alongside Stravinsky.
> 
> ...


Culture is evolving? The opposite is more likely. Time adheres to a circular trajectory, our distance increases from the nexus only to return once again, one circle removed. There's nothing new under the sun and we can be certain that our society (as others that came before) will experience the obligatory painful decline.


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## JTS (Sep 26, 2021)

Red Terror said:


> Culture is evolving? The opposite is more likely. Time adheres to a circular trajectory, our distance increases from the nexus only to return once again, one circle removed. There's nothing new under the sun and we can be certain that our society (as others that came before) will experience the obligatory painful decline.


Dunno what sort of box you live in but there are endless ways ways we can get our link to 'culture' today. Never before has it been so accessible to the general public through the Internet, CD, DVD, radio television et cetera. You are propagating a myth which is simply not true. Culture is widely available - more so than it's ever been. I have heard Bach's St Matthew Passion far more times than JSB ever did!


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## Forster (Apr 22, 2021)

Red Terror said:


> Culture is evolving? The opposite is more likely. Time adheres to a circular trajectory,


We're just revisiting the old debate between the two models of history, the cyclical and the linear, though just because we think we can see a pattern in history does not mean it's what will happen in our future.

If there is to be a decline, it will more likely be something physical rather than cultural.


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## Red Terror (Dec 10, 2018)

Forster said:


> We're just revisiting the old debate between the two models of history, the cyclical and the linear, though just because we think we can see a pattern in history does not mean it's what will happen in our future.
> 
> If there is to be a decline, it will more likely be something physical rather than cultural.


Whatever. It'll be an end just the same.


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## Symphonic (Apr 27, 2015)

JTS said:


> I have heard Bach's St Matthew Passion far more times than JSB ever did!


Is this necessarily a good thing? Just wondering.


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## VoiceFromTheEther (Aug 6, 2021)

Stravinsky became famous the way OP describes it when he selected a rather popular form (ballet) to introduce musical novelties. The repetition of this feat hasn't come about not for a want of popular forms, but because of a relative lack of useful novelties that could be applied in them. Various composers continued to introduce novelties in more or less popular forms, but just like in some old subfield of mathematics, a certain potential for groundbreaking discoveries ceased to be possible.

The sole exception might be electronic music, and had Carlheinz Stockhausen and Hans Zimmer been a composite person, there would have possibly been a new Stravinsky. Alas.

The thing with even Shostakovich is that while adored in different camps, he is adored for different pieces. It's a diversified portfolio of presence in disparate fields that earned him his stature - which, nota bene, is also a rare thing nowadays, as composers have to spend increasingly more time mining separate niches to achieve something novel in them.

As for the geography of fame, Stravinsky was recognized from the White House through London, Paris, and Vatican, to Kremlin.

The closest artist to that (who doesn't rely on beat tracks) is... an interesting question.



Prodromides said:


> Birtwistle, Corigliano or Murail


certainly not these gentlemen, though


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## mbhaub (Dec 2, 2016)

tdc said:


> Do you think there are other composers of classical music today that will reach the stature of Stravinsky?


No, I don't. The age of the "great composer" is over. There are a few - very few - leftovers who hang marginally in the repertoire, but they don't come close to Stravinsky in importance or stature. Leonard Slatkin in his new book bemoans the lack of interest in the mid-20c American symphonists - but none of them approach Igor. And not all of Igor's music is held in high esteem: the three early ballets, all over 100 years old, are still his most popular works. Stravinsky's entire output had yet to really be appreciated by most people. It's kind of sad when I think about it - the last three really great composers, whose music will survive for many years were all Russian: Stravinsky, Prokofieff, Shostakovich. My opinion, I know, but there's been nothing since them to be taken into the standard repertoire.


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## 59540 (May 16, 2021)

I think the closest we've come to having such is with the minimalists, but even that's so 1980s really.


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## GraemeG (Jun 30, 2009)

mbhaub said:


> No, I don't. The age of the "great composer" is over. There are a few - very few - leftovers who hang marginally in the repertoire, but they don't come close to Stravinsky in importance or stature... It's kind of sad when I think about it - the last three really great composers, whose music will survive for many years were all Russian: Stravinsky, Prokofieff, Shostakovich. My opinion, I know, but there's been nothing since them to be taken into the standard repertoire.


I'd agree. Of widely recognised names, Stravinsky, Shostakovich and Britten died in the 70s, Walton, Barber, Orff in the 80s, Messiaen, Rodrigo, Copland in the 90s. It does feel like the 20th cent. closed things out, notwithstanding more cultish people like Part. I'm ignoring the proper avant-gard, and the cross-over guys.
What post-1996 works (quarter-century) have hit the mainstream repertoire?


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## Sid James (Feb 7, 2009)

At the end of his life, Stravinsky was a musical celebrity, along the lines of Bernstein and Shostakovich (or in visual arts, Picasso and Dali). I have come across people now in their senior years who still remember Stravinsky from cinema newsreels, particularly his eightieth birthday world tour. Here, he is shown being presented with a gift by a bunch of cowboys in Texas:






Towards the end of his life, Gandhi made the observation that everyone wanted to be photographed with him, whether or not they knew anything about what he stood for. Mandela would be a more recent example, you say his name and he was such an icon that everyone knows it.

Stravinsky was among the last to witness what can be called the heroic age of music, stretching from the 19th century to the mid 20th century. Convenient bookends might be political revolutions, e.g. French in 1789 to Paris and Prague in 1968. Whatever dates you choose, the issue is that at some point modernism became history, and so there is the question as to whether we have - or even need - a new set of icons representing what's happened since.

In light of changes in society and culture, I'd nominate someone like *Michael Nyman.* He started out avant-garde, still addressing the legacy of Schoenberg as Stravinsky had done, but quickly moved into other directions - forming his own band, travelling to record world music, being one of the early minimalists (he originally coined the term), composing classical in traditional genres and also film music (including the scores he wrote for Peter Greenaway and the best selling _The Piano_).

He might be unlikely to win something like a Grawemeyer Award, but I think he still has cred among some experts. I think that there's much less pressure felt by Nyman's generation to conform to or be approved by the academics. Philip Glass said that the advantage of working as a freelance all his life has been independence, an ability to beat his own path. I initially thought of Glass as a candidate, but I chose Nyman instead because I think he's more eclectic. That's another point, whether music being so eclectic, fragmented into small scenes that are constantly changing (especially with the impact of digital technology), could actually sustain a set of icons like we had in the past.


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## Red Terror (Dec 10, 2018)

Sid James said:


> In light of changes in society and its impacts on culture, I'd nominate someone like *Michael Nyman.* He started out avant-garde, still addressing the legacy of Schoenberg as Stravinsky had done, but quickly moved into other directions - forming his own band, travelling to record world music, being one of the early minimalists (it was he who originally coined the term), composing classical in traditional genres and also film music (including the scores he wrote for Peter Greenaway and the best selling _The Piano_).
> 
> He might be unlikely to win something like a Grawemeyer Award, but I think he still has some cred with the experts. I think that there's much less pressure felt by Nyman's generation to conform to or be approved by the academics. Philip Glass said that the advantage of working as a freelance all his life has been independence, an ability to beat his own path. I initially thought of Glass as a candidate, but I chose Nyman instead because I think he's more eclectic. That's another point, whether music being so eclectic, fragmented into small scenes that are constantly changing (especially with the impact of digital technology), could actually sustain a set of icons like we had in the past.


I'd nominate him too ... if his name were Justin or Rihanna. :lol:


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## Sid James (Feb 7, 2009)

I'm too retro to be familiar with musicians as cutting edge as those two. :lol:


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## Forster (Apr 22, 2021)

Sid James said:


> I'm too retro to be familiar with musicians as cutting edge as those two. :lol:


I think you'll find that neither Justin nor Rihanna are cutting edge. Red Terror is giving his age away.


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## Forster (Apr 22, 2021)

GraemeG said:


> What post-1996 works (quarter-century) have hit the mainstream repertoire?


I don't know, but your question prompts me to ask, how often does a current (or recent) work immediately join the mainstream repertoire? And, prior to that, when did a mainstream repertoire appear? That is, when did the practice of presenting a concert with a programme of "old" music begin?


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## Woodduck (Mar 17, 2014)

Forster said:


> ...when did the practice of presenting a concert with a programme of "old" music begin?


That depends on how old "old" is, but I think the practice of playing works by composers no longer contemporary began soon after public concerts became a thing, fairly early in the 19th century. The repertoire of symphony orchestras accumulated gradually, and 19th century orchestras kept certain works of Haydn, Mozart and Beethoven in their repertoire, playing then alongside newer works of Schumann, Brahms, Wagner, etc. Choral societies reached back even farther and presented works of Bach and Handel. Opera houses focused more on contemporary works, but certain popular works, such as Bellini's _Norma, _Mozart's _Don Giovanni,_ and _Beethoven's Fidelio,_ never left the repertoire.


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## Forster (Apr 22, 2021)

Woodduck said:


> That depends on how old "old" is, but I think the practice of playing works by composers no longer contemporary began soon after public concerts became a thing, fairly early in the 19th century. The repertoire of symphony orchestras accumulated gradually, and 19th century orchestras kept certain works of Haydn, Mozart and Beethoven in their repertoire, playing then alongside newer works of Schumann, Brahms, Wagner, etc. Choral societies reached back even farther and presented works of Bach and Handel. Opera houses focused more on contemporary works, but certain popular works, such as Bellini's _Norma, _Mozart's _Don Giovanni,_ and _Beethoven's Fidelio,_ never left the repertoire.


Thanks. So do we know if those concerts reached back over 200 years as we still do now? I guess what I'm trying to get at is that the notion of a repertoire has itself been neither permanent, nor unchanging. If we're looking at the current or recent classical scene, we might be too close to determine what might become a staple of concert programmes 50 or 100 years hence in the way that Beethoven or Stravinsky are now. And not just too close, but faced with fragmented choice, widening tastes and genres, it begs the question, will there be such a thing as a "standard repertoire" for much longer in the way that some traditionalist yearn for?


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## hammeredklavier (Feb 18, 2018)

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Early_music_revival

[Mozartian Undercurrents in Berlioz (by Benjamin Perl)] gives us an idea how the practice started, from Berlioz's perspective, in his time.
"... Berlioz was living in a transitional age as far as concert programming was concerned. Still, as with previous generations, the greater part of the programmes consisted of contemporary music, although the concept of the 'Great Masters' was already emerging, and a few composers of the past were achieving canonic status. For Berlioz, Gluck clearly belonged in this category, while Beethoven (at least in Berlioz's early years) was still considered a contemporary; Beethoven was writing his ninth symphony and the last quartets while Berlioz was a student in Paris. ..."
"... There was, of course, the Requiem, which was performed rather frequently in churches as well as concert halls, and Berlioz was probably acquainted with it before his voyage to Italy at the beginning of 1830s, because in his criticism he refers to an inadequate performance of it in Naples. ..."


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## Forster (Apr 22, 2021)

hammeredklavier said:


> Still, as with previous generations, the greater part of the programmes consisted of contemporary music, although the concept of the 'Great Masters' was already emerging, and a few composers of the past were achieving canonic status.


Who were they? Who was determining who the 'Great Masters' were? It seems clear from reading further in the source you cite that if we were to rely on the 'greats' themselves, there'd be some commonalities, but no complete consensus.


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## vtpoet (Jan 17, 2019)

tdc said:


> So what do you think? Is Taruskin right? Do you think there are other composers of classical music today that will reach the stature of Stravinsky?


No. Classical music pretty much died after the early 20th century. I know those are fighting words around here, but the excitement and innovation that characterized classical music before then moved into other genres. The one place where classical composers might still be said to live on is in movie soundtracks. John Williams for example. Everybody knows the Star Wars theme and Lord Vader's March. It's a small and rarified coterie who continue to listen to modern "classical" composers.


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## MarkW (Feb 16, 2015)

When I as growing up in the '50s and '60s, works by Prokofiev, while recent, were pretty much standard repertoire, new works by Shostakovich were events, as were new operas by Britten. I don't know who incites that kind of following today. The TV networks felt a small obligation to medium-to-high culture. Bernstein's youth concerts; commissioning "Amahl and Night Visitors;" broadcasting "Omnibus," "The Bell Telephone Hour," etc. As late as the late '70s, ABC produced a studio version of the Robards/Dewhurst Broadway production of "A Moon for the Misbegotten." PBS brought over the Royal Shakespeare Company's "Nickolaus Nickleby." Now it's Andre Rieu!


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## 59540 (May 16, 2021)

vtpoet said:


> No. Classical music pretty much died after the early 20th century. I know those are fighting words around here, but the excitement and innovation that characterized classical music before then moved into other genres. The one place where classical composers might still be said to live on is in movie soundtracks. John Williams for example. Everybody knows the Star Wars theme and Lord Vader's March. It's a small and rarified coterie who continue to listen to modern "classical" composers.


Oh boy. Now you've really done it. The "classical music is no more" and "film scores are classical music" double whammy. :lol:


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## vtpoet (Jan 17, 2019)

dissident said:


> Oh boy. Now you've really done it. The "classical music is no more" and "film scores are classical music" double whammy. :lol:


Did you know that Mozart essentially wrote a soundtrack? It was to a play; as close as you could get to a movie soundtrack. He was inordinately excited about it, then never wrote anything like it again. Once in a blue moon one hears it played on the radio. I would provide a link but all my searches turn up Amadeus.

*Edit:* Thamos König in Ägypten


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## Woodduck (Mar 17, 2014)

dissident said:


> Oh boy. Now you've really done it. The "classical music is no more" and "film scores are classical music" double whammy. :lol:


VTpoet speaks truth. It isn't that "film scores are classical music" (a pointless debate, IMO) but that film music is the one area today where composers with classical training and skills have a reasonably broad popular following. Whatever we think of their music, and whether or not we attach the term "classical" to it, John Williams certainly has that following, while fans of Ferneyhough and Lachenmann are indeed a "small and rarefied coterie."


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## tdc (Jan 17, 2011)

On one hand some suggest the reason that classical music isn't as popular anymore is because people don't appreciate that kind of music anymore. However sometimes those that use that argument point to the same people that 'don't appreciate classical music' as evidence that most contemporary classical is bad and soundtracks are better.


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## Woodduck (Mar 17, 2014)

tdc said:


> On one hand some suggest the reason that classical music isn't as popular anymore is because people don't appreciate that kind of music anymore.
> 
> However sometimes those that use that argument point to the same people that 'don't appreciate classical music' as evidence that most contemporary classical is bad and soundtracks are better.


I would think that many people who don't know much about classical music and don't buy recordings or go to concerts enjoy movie soundtracks written by composers trained and skilled in classical traditions of composition. I agree that it would be wrong to point to that as evidence that those soundtracks are better music than what's being written by contemporary composers purely for listening. It might indicate nothing more than people's lack of exposure to the latter. On the other hand, it may (and I think does) say something about both the "kinds" of music we're talking about and the wider cultural context in which music is written and received.

I think it's important to look at both the aesthetics and the sociology of music in attempting to answer the question the OP poses, and I don't see grounds for optimism with regard to either. Modernism, in which Stravinsky was one of the principal actors, was the last great movement to represent serious ideas based on its cultural heritage, even in the act of rejecting elements of it. Postmodernism was the negation of seriousness, and fundamentally ironic; the very idea of a "great composer" is anathema to it. In that sense, it doesn't matter how accomplished a composers of today is. He or she will not represent to the culture what Stravinsky did.


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## 59540 (May 16, 2021)

Woodduck said:


> ...Postmodernism was the negation of seriousness, and fundamentally ironic; the very idea of a "great composer" is anathema to it. In that sense, it doesn't matter how accomplished a composers of today is. He or she will not represent to the culture what Stravinsky did.


Bingo, which is why the enraged, vein-bulging defenses of it on this forum are so odd sometimes. The actual source of the anger I guess is the idea that any composer is "worthier" than any other. But then if you point out that that opinion reflects "postmodernist" dogma, you're told that such a thing doesn't exist. It's a straw man. And admittedly nailing down "postmodern" can be like nailing jello to the wall. Meanwhile you're tasked to prove empirically that Stravinsky is "better" than Brian Ferneyhough, and round and round these threads go before they're locked.


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## Triplets (Sep 4, 2014)

I thought that this thread was going to have something to do with Halloween, as in what music to blare out of my door to scare trick or treaters.


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## hammeredklavier (Feb 18, 2018)

Forster said:


> Who were they? Who was determining who the 'Great Masters' were? It seems clear from reading further in the source you cite that if we were to rely on the 'greats' themselves, there'd be some commonalities, but no complete consensus.





dissident said:


> The actual source of the anger I suspect is the idea that any composer is "worthier" than any other.


I'm suddenly starting to wonder; was people's conception of the 'Great' back in the past, say, the early 1800s, significantly different from that of people of today? Let's say, Berlioz had an acquaintance named "St. Anton".
Berlioz: "The 'Great Masters' are Gluck, Mozart, Beethoven, Weber.."
St. Anton: "O RLY? It's _all subjective_."
Were there actually people like St. Anton in Berlioz's time?


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## hammeredklavier (Feb 18, 2018)

vtpoet said:


> Did you know that Mozart essentially wrote a soundtrack? It was to a play; as close as you could get to a movie soundtrack.


Absolutely. The "greats" of the past wrote the "film music" of their day (I'm not saying opera works in the same way as film). But some people (mainly the Williams-detractors) keep denying this fact.



vtpoet said:


> I would provide a link but all my searches turn up Amadeus. Thamos König in Ägypten


a sturm-und-drang symphony clothed in operatic drama


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## hammeredklavier (Feb 18, 2018)

VoiceFromTheEther said:


> The sole exception might be electronic music, and had Carlheinz Stockhausen and Hans Zimmer been a composite person, there would have possibly been a new Stravinsky. Alas.


On the other hand, there's argument that the Beatles were mostly a popular music version of Stockhausen:


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## Sid James (Feb 7, 2009)

tdc said:


> On one hand some suggest the reason that classical music isn't as popular anymore is because people don't appreciate that kind of music anymore. However sometimes those that use that argument point to the same people that 'don't appreciate classical music' as evidence that most contemporary classical is bad and soundtracks are better.


I think that's more an example of how classical is now part of a wider marketplace of music. I made a few points about that in this discussion:

https://www.talkclassical.com/71725-ted-gioia-stop-trying-3.html#post2118023
https://www.talkclassical.com/71725-ted-gioia-stop-trying-4.html#post2118558

In playing film scores, video game soundtracks and musicals, orchestras and opera companies are looking for opportunities in this marketplace, reaching out to audiences who otherwise wouldn't come through their doors. I simply see it as a sign of change.

I posted this video in the other discussion. These people, mostly under forty, are paying to hear the orchestra play video game music. Their consumption of classical music may or may not go much beyond that. At least some of them would have children who are learning instruments.

This sort of thing just adds to what orchestras have to offer the public. The core performance repertoire has been more or less stagnant for ages, and contemporary classical is catered for by ensembles specialising in the most cutting edge music. They all coexist in the marketplace of music, so to speak. Their listeners can overlap but they can also be separate.


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## hammeredklavier (Feb 18, 2018)

Sid James said:


> This sort of thing just adds to what orchestras have to offer the public.


https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yuhki_Kuramoto
"At school, he studied Rachmaninoff and performed as a part-time soloist in orchestras."
"Kuramoto concentrated on the performance of the piano, the composition and arrangement of classical music and popular music."


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## Luchesi (Mar 15, 2013)

tdc said:


> On one hand some suggest the reason that classical music isn't as popular anymore is* because people don't appreciate that kind of music anymore.* However sometimes those that use that argument point to the same people that 'don't appreciate classical music' as evidence that most contemporary classical is bad and soundtracks are better.


Do you think, could it be that today's pop music doesn't prepare young people to 'hear' music (at the right time in their teens) like the bands of the 60s and 70s did?


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## Forster (Apr 22, 2021)

Luchesi said:


> Do you think, could it be that today's pop music doesn't prepare young people to 'hear' music (at the right time in their teens) like the bands of the 60s and 70s did?


Let's compare like with like.

I suspect "the pop music of today" and the bands I listened to in the 60s and 70s are not the same thing.

Unless you had The Archies in mind to compare with...well, who would you compare them with?

I also suspect that many posters here are simply unaware of the range of "pop music" available today; who's in, who's out, and what the equivalent of yesteryear's longhairs are listening to.

Last time I tested this, the thread fell silent.


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## Sid James (Feb 7, 2009)

Perhaps popular music hit the same sort of wall as classical did, in terms of how boundaries dissolve and the marketplace has become so huge? There are so many scenes, and like classical the tendency is towards eclecticism rather than complete novelty. You can also apply the term "classic" to virtually anything - jazz, pop, rock, whatever. That has its pros and cons. You can fill a stadium and play your big hits for decades, but as Miles Davis said once that happens you risk becoming embalmed or "dead ****." I guess that partly explains why the likes of him and Stravinsky kept changing.

In the early 20th century, Stravinsky and others where dealing with criticism from conservatives, but as soon as the tide changed in their favour they risked becoming old hat. Let's not forget that until Igor went serial, the generation of Boulez said he was yesterday's man. In the mid 20th century the tables where turned, a new orthodoxy had developed. Composers where now criticised for being too hidebound by tradition and not keeping up with the latest trends. While this happened, the innovations that made wider impact inevitably came out of the popular realm.

At some point, the modernist approach became redundant, and we gradually get to where we are now. We're likely to react in a more jaded way when hearing words like progress, innovation and the future. "Classic" is okay, so is being eclectic. Perhaps it was always like this, its only that ideology always got in the way of seeing things more clearly.


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## SanAntone (May 10, 2020)

To my way of thinking the term "Classical music" is music that has a composer with an intention of writing Classical music as he defines it. John Cage considered himself writing Classical music no less so than Shostakovich or Stravinsky. Pierre Boulez also wrote Classical music. Philip Glass, Arvo Pärt, Morton Feldman. But not Duke Ellington, or Hank Williams.

There is no way to define Classical music purely from style since from the very beginning we had very different music, Medieval, Baroque, and Classical, and Romantic, then Late Romantic, Post Romantic, Modern, etc. But what all these styles share is an orchestral instrument/ensemble component, an audience component, a venue component, and the composer's intention to write a serious kind of music as part of the long Classical music tradition - no matter what style it is.

A composer defines what kind of music he is writing, not the audience.


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## fbjim (Mar 8, 2021)

Sid James said:


> At some point, the modernist approach became redundant, and we gradually get to where we are now. We're likely to react in a more jaded way when hearing words like progress, innovation and the future. "Classic" is okay, so is being eclectic. Perhaps it was always like this, its only that ideology always got in the way of seeing things more clearly.


Yes- I consider post-modern writing on music more skeptical than ironic, or detached. A general rejection of the grand historical narratives that even modernism, in its rejection of them, subscribed to. I wouldn't say postmodernism rejects the idea of "great art", but it's more that it's more interested in examining the concept of "greatness" itself than it is in identifying who the Great Masters are.


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## 59540 (May 16, 2021)

fbjim said:


> ... I wouldn't say postmodernism rejects the idea of "great art", but it's more that it's more interested in examining the concept of "greatness" itself than it is in identifying who the Great Masters are.


That just seems to be a different way of saying the same thing. Or, what once was considered "great" is now not-so-much, and what was once considered relatively crass or sloppy is elevated. That of course isn't all bad; some things that were ignored or overlooked do deserve reconsideration.


Sid James said:


> At some point, the modernist approach became redundant, and we gradually get to where we are now. We're likely to react in a more jaded way when hearing words like progress, innovation and the future. "Classic" is okay, so is being eclectic. Perhaps it was always like this, its only that ideology always got in the way of seeing things more clearly.


That reads as if you think ideology doesn't matter anymore. Au contraire...


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## tdc (Jan 17, 2011)

Luchesi said:


> Do you think, could it be that today's pop music doesn't prepare young people to 'hear' music (at the right time in their teens) like the bands of the 60s and 70s did?


What music young people are exposed to, I suspect is a factor, yes. But it is more than that, I think it is societal.

Too much to go into detail on this site. Although here a couple of quotes to think about:

"Men are born ignorant, not stupid; they are made stupid by education."
-Bertrand Russell

"Science can only flourish in an atmosphere of free speech."
-Albert Einstein


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## Coach G (Apr 22, 2020)

Stravinsky was by far the most involved and innovative musician of the twentieth century. He was also one of the finest craftsmen in all music history. Like his contemporary in painting, Pablo Picasso, Stravinsky changed his style many times, always aware of the times and actively pushing the limits of his art. Even so, I'm sure that Stravinsky's position as a high priest of the New Age in music, was based more on reverence than love. While the academics, intellectuals, and the critics adored him; I suspect that the average fan of classical music were not generally interested in Stravinsky's music once you take the three famous Russian ballet suites out of the picture (_Firebird_, _Petroushka_, and _Rite_).

When I was a teenager in the 1980s, two of my favorite pieces of classical music were Strauss' _Zarathustra_ and Stravinsky's _Rite of Spring_. So after being totally caught up in _Rite_, I went back to the record store and came home with the Stravinsky _Violin Concerto_. I was sorely disappointed. Where were the jagged edges, and where was the savage intensity. But I figured that the problem was with me and not Stravinsky, because how could the really smart people be wrong? It took me many years and a lot of patience to really get to know Stravinsky and realize why he was so great; not just the Russian works; but the Neo-Classical, and even the serial works.

As much as they are different from one another; I see Mozart, Brahms, Stravinsky, and Schoenberg; to be the finest craftsmen in music.


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## Sid James (Feb 7, 2009)

fbjim said:


> Yes- I consider post-modern writing on music more skeptical than ironic, or detached. A general rejection of the grand historical narratives that even modernism, in its rejection of them, subscribed to. I wouldn't say postmodernism rejects the idea of "great art", but it's more that it's more interested in examining the concept of "greatness" itself than it is in identifying who the Great Masters are.


Its definitely about examining ideas. I think its become second nature to question assumptions behind a particular point of view, and to look at things from different points of view. With that comes a focus that has gone beyond formal analysis to take in the context surrounding an artwork, its relationship to other things.

I think that the move away from emphasis on values of modernism like progress has made analysis and criticism more rigorous. There's no longer a core set of values to fall back on when discussing a piece of music. At the same time, I guess things can get confusing, with all the different perspectives that can be applied depending on various factors. It reflects how there's so much variety in music out there now, so many scenes and niches.



dissident said:


> That reads as if you think ideology doesn't matter anymore. Au contraire...


Of course awareness of ideology matters, in terms of our own thinking and that of others. The danger lies in privileging one set of values over others in a way which clouds judgement of reality. Its easier to discuss the pitfalls of this in relation to the past, because we have the benefit of hindsight. Nevertheless, we can still try to learn from the mistakes of the past.


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## Luchesi (Mar 15, 2013)

^^^^^
You're getting close to 10,000 posts. 
I just wanted to say that I admire your posts..


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## Luchesi (Mar 15, 2013)

tdc said:


> What music young people are exposed to, I suspect is a factor, yes. But it is more than that, I think it is societal.
> 
> Too much to go into detail on this site. Although here a couple of quotes to think about:
> 
> ...


referring to my post #42 
Could it be that today's pop music doesn't prepare young people to 'hear' music (at the right time in their teens) like the bands of the 60s and 70s did?

Many kids used to want to learn an instrument so that they could play their favorite songs from their favorite bands. That's not as intriguing as it used to be for a few regrettable reasons, which aren't easy to fix.

Humans like to make pictures and make music and watch other humans in organized situations AND they very much like to chat, like the other primates. Fewer people are doing the former and many more are now enchanted by aimless chatting and following friends online. Creative activities have lost out in terms of the available time. I find myself texting a friend about something important and then continuing to text back-and-forth, just chatting and joking, for longer periods of time. Anything superficial that's stimulating to our social needs and our egos.

If kids don't develop a maturing interest in successive types of music from about 12/14 (maybe to the late teens), there will be too many other distractions later, like family and work and passive entertainment choices, TV, video games, spectator sports and favorite teams trivia. According to the futurists we're going to have a lot more spare time. Personal music-making can be as fulfilling in later life as reading and writing, which are still considered necessary in education. What are the generations going to do in all that increasing spare time? Do the educators think about such a different future?

I think popular music that hits you when you're an adolescent will generally shape you as a future listener to classical music. And by classical music in this case I mean Mozart, Beethoven, Schubert and Chopin, early romantics, for their melodies mainly.


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## fbjim (Mar 8, 2021)

This is probably something a serious pop music historian could answer better, but I do think that in a post-James Brown/hip hop/electronic dance world, the primacy in pop music has been more rhythm (and timbre) than melody. 

I do know a lot of younger people who do creative things- but when they make music, they are generally making electronic- or other forms of non-melodic, atonal music like ambient or noise.


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