# The day the music died



## KenOC (Mar 7, 2011)

From another poster, another thread: "Dunno what's the solution but the fact is that the best days of classical music are now far behind it." In fact I calculated the average age of our favorite pieces some time ago -- it was 207 years! So I agree with the pretty common view that classical music is largely a "museum."

But why? Is the world no longer hungry for new "serious" music? Or is it, possibly, that by drawing boundaries around "classical music" we have merely defined it into irrelevance -- and, in fact, serious music is doing just fine over in that other mud puddle?

Or is everything just hunky-dory? What do you think?


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## Manxfeeder (Oct 19, 2010)

"Is the world no longer hungry for new 'serious' music?" I don't know; I think composers like Philip Glass, John Adams, Steve Reich, and Arvo Part are doing fine. (I remember Wesley Snipes promoting Arvo Part at one time.)

I think as with all genres, whether it be classical or popular, time sorts out the special pieces, and they become the ones which define an era which we can look back to as the halcyon days. 

I may be an optimist, but I'm of the opinion everyone likes classical music; they just don't know it yet. As an example, when I was a kid, Samuel Barber's Adagio for Strings wasn't too well known, but I wouldn't say that's the case now. Thanks to Platoon, most people realized the piece was worth hearing after all.


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## Sid James (Feb 7, 2009)

I think its a good topic and a topic worthy for discussion. My post from which you took that quote is HERE. But the thread is old and maybe stale. Better to transfer things over here.

I think that this issue applies to classical music as a whole, and the direction it has been going for a long time kind of made this happen. I think its late Beethoven that this first started, the seeds of it (& late Schubert). Their late string quartets and piano sonatas where anything but what the public wanted (they wanted Rossini). So you get this pull between highbrow and lowbrow things.

As time wore on it got worse. I think one of the negatives of Wagner is the extreme highbrow factor in his music. I mean, this is hard to refute when you still have people on this forum today telling us that don't like Wagner to go and read his librettos, or read books on philosophy, get all his recordings and all that. I mean this is a big ask for the average person, even many seasoned listeners of classical music.

In the 20th century, the 'split' was complete. I think it happened before 1945, but after that we definitely see 'serious' or 'highbrow' classical music as becoming increasingly irrelevant. Part of the problem is Modernsit ideology. The more extreme aspects of that see things like a composer writing for a broad audience as a bad thing, as a 'sell out.' Charges like that where even levelled at Stravinsky when he went into neo-classicism. I did a thread on other examples of that here:
http://www.talkclassical.com/20565-selling-out.html

Then you have that hoary old chestnut, the Modernist dictum that old music that is popular now was not popular at or not long after the time it was composed. Fact is that most warhorses in the repertoire from roughly between 1750 and 1950 where popular at the time they where written, or not long after it. I did a thread on that here:
http://www.talkclassical.com/22117-warhorses-their-popularity-past.html

Then you have the suspicion of music being made to order. You got people, I mean conservatives, saying music of the past was for some higher purpose. Truth is, most of it was to put food on the table and pay the bills for the composer. COmposers are human and not gods, you know, they need to eat.

http://www.talkclassical.com/19502-music-made-order.html

Then you have the fact that classical listeners today, most of them like instrumental music, whereas listeners of other genres (eg. pop, rock, etc.) like vocal music. So its not surprising that those other genres since 1945 have retained some sense of singable melody, whereas since that time (or earlier, viz Wagner) many classical composers jettisoned melody in favour of other things, leaving those that want some kind of juicy melody high and dry.

http://www.talkclassical.com/15745-pop-classical-split-between.html

As you see, I am interested and maybe even obsessed with all this. Because these are things that form the basis for much classical music before about 1945. It was not publicly funded, it was not pitched at just the highbrows, it was not always about profundity but also entertainment (and that's okay, I like all these things).

That brings me to the crucial point. After 1945 other genres took over from what turf classical music had in terms of wider popularity or acceptance. You had things by classically trained composers (which even some highbrows deny as being as good as classical, even if they are done to a high level). Eg. film music and musicals, and now we've got the growing genre of video game music. Then you got non classical like jazz - which admittedly became museum piece after bebop - and rock, pop, techno, hip hop, and so on, all being more relevant to the masses, esp. younger people.

But to wind up, this problem is not only focussed on classical. Listen to non classical radio stations, and some are playing 'golden oldies' from the 1950's through to the 1980's. Even the ones that play recent rock or pop tend to overplay the popular stuff in those genres from the past year or couple of years. So these genres are not as fossilised as classical music is, but if they go for the opposite extreme (playing stuff that is guaranteed to be popular, that's already popular) they will risk shooting themselves in the foot, similar to classical.

So the point of my argument? Dunno, which is what I started with. Just that the future of classical doesn't look too rosy to me. Even as a big classical fan I have to admit that. Even as a fan of new/newer musics, including highbrow, lowbrow and in between. I am trying to be as objective as I can in assessing the situation, bringing to mind things I've read on music (even things I might not fully agree with, but I acknowledge any well founded point based on soem deal of consensus and common sense).


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## KenOC (Mar 7, 2011)

Manxfeeder said:


> As an example, when I was a kid, Samuel Barber's Adagio for Strings wasn't too well known, but I wouldn't say that's the case now.


Quibble alert. The Adagio was pretty well-known in 1945, when it was broadcast after the announcement of president Franklin D. Roosevelt's death and subsequently played at his funeral. (And later at Kennedy's funeral in 1963.) Of course, maybe you're a lot older that I suspect!


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## HarpsichordConcerto (Jan 1, 2010)

Popular music and the recording industry and avant-garde composers writing weird electronic farts cemeted the tombstone.

But classical music is still well alive, I am happy to say. Look around. We have more performances and recordings than ever before of old pieces say, Barqoue music than ever before! When the Baroque period eclipsed, numerous pieces have since been forgotten and now are rediscovered and premiered to contemporary audiences who find them more relevant than even new music composed today. That's a fact. We have Vivaldi operas and Handel operas, we have JS Bach cantatas and Bach family music in general. We have complete cycles of Romantic symphonies, concertos, quartets and solo music such that we will never digest properly in one lifetime. Really, today is the best time time yet for classical music in terms of variety and choice of old music. Old music is winning!


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## Manxfeeder (Oct 19, 2010)

KenOC said:


> Quibble alert. The Adagio was pretty well-known in 1945, when it was broadcast after the announcement of president Franklin D. Roosevelt's death and subsequently played at his funeral. (And later at Kennedy's funeral in 1963.) Of course, maybe you're a lot older that I suspect!


My feeling is, it was known because of Toscanini, then it became better known when it was played at Roosevelt's death and Kennedy's, but it was still known mostly to classical listeners. Platoon took it out of the classical boundaries and put it into popular culture. In that sense, now it's a piece most everyone, at least in America, will sit through and find meaning in.


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## Vaneyes (May 11, 2010)

No music has died.


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## Sid James (Feb 7, 2009)

HarpsichordConcerto said:


> We have Vivaldi operas and Handel operas, we have JS Bach cantatas and Bach family music in general. We have complete cycles of Romantic symphonies, concertos, quartets and solo music such that we will never digest properly in one lifetime. Really, today is the best time time yet for classical music in terms of variety and choice of old music.


But young or younger (below 40 or 30) are interested in those? Generally not, if they like classical type music, its more likely to be stuff like film music. Either music written for films, or old music used/made more popular by films.



> ...
> Old music is winning!


But the audiences are getting older. For 'serious' music I mean, especially.

20-30 years time, or less, things will be different re old music being popular. It'll be extinct. This is just its last gasp for air before it dies off. A glorious gasp, like some dying plants that give the most wonderful flowers just before they die, but its a prelude to the end, not the beginning.

So if it will survive, classical will be most 'alive' in the more popular forms. It has already been vital in those forms for over 50 years now. This will continue in some ways, but not as same as the old ways.


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## bigshot (Nov 22, 2011)

The shift took place in the 20th century. Musicians who might have composed in traditional forms entered the popular music arena instead of the concert hall. Jazz, swing, pop vocal, easy listening, Broadway shows and most importantly movie soundtracks are the classical music of our times. A few artists still cling to the concert hall, but as time passes they become less and less relevant, or are lured away to creating popular music themselves.


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## quack (Oct 13, 2011)

Seems a good thread to post this









When was the last day you had where there was no music, i'm not sure I remember. Do we take music for granted because we have so much of it now, no need to hire musicians or learn the piano as we can all just switch on one of a handful of nearby devices these days.

I'm going to observe the day, see if it drives me mad, don't worry the 22nd is St. Cecilia's day, patron saint of music.


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## Sid James (Feb 7, 2009)

bigshot said:


> The shift took place in the 20th century...


I think the biggest shift away from classical was the 20th century, but the roots of that (as I said in my lengthy post above) was in the 19th century. Late sonatas and quartets of Beethoven & Schubert was one early example of composers writing rather for posterity than the present, and a huge rift or shift towards classical catering more to 'highbrows' was Wagner. What followed may well have been a 'logical' conclusion/extension of what went before.

Kind of ironic how classical reached the growing class of the time, the bourgeoise, in the 19th century, but in the 20th century that reaching out was largely taken over by popular genres. While composers like Elgar and Saint-Saens wrote salon music and also serious music, catering to both high and lowbrows, music for very different purposes, today this type of thing is unlikely to happen. There's been a splitting of audiences, and the turf for 'serious' classical is now very small indeed, like a puddle rather than an ocean I think.


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## neoshredder (Nov 7, 2011)

The music never died actually.


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## HarpsichordConcerto (Jan 1, 2010)

Sid James said:


> But young or younger (below 40 or 30) are interested in those? Generally not, if they like classical type music, its more likely to be stuff like film music. Either music written for films, or old music used/made more popular by films.
> 
> But the audiences are getting older. For 'serious' music I mean, especially.
> 
> ...


The musicians trained today in specialising in early music are actually younger musicians. To suggest that is going to be "extinct" is unrealistic - do you honestly think Bach, Mozart and Beethoven's music will be extinct? I hope that was not what you were suggesting but it appears you did. You should substantial this and you will find most will disagree with you about classical music going "extinct" in two decades.

But as for old music dying, that's what folks said back in the 1980s. Thirty years later, it is thriving still. That is the current fact. As for your projections into the future, you are basing it based on demographics of your immediate perceived audience field, not the world by and large.


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## HarpsichordConcerto (Jan 1, 2010)

Vaneyes said:


> No music has died.


Rediscovered, reinterpreted in contemporary times.


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## KenOC (Mar 7, 2011)

Just to clarify the OP. Paintings of the old masters live still, but in museums. Few are being produced today.

Similar with what we call "classical music." The museum parallel was on purpose. Of course the canon, or most of it, will survive. But will the genre survive as a living art?


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## neoshredder (Nov 7, 2011)

I can't telll you the future. I just know there has been some great music the last 50 years. Schnittke, Ligeti, Messiaen, Lutoslawski, Penderecki, Reich, Adams, and etc.


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## mmsbls (Mar 6, 2011)

I guess the real question is whether classical music is, in fact, declining in popularity. Popularity can be defined as the _percentage_ of total population that listens or as the absolute _number_ of people that listen. I suspect that the number of people who listen to classical may be increasing while the percentage of listeners is decreasing. Does anyone have good data on the percentage or number of listeners of classical music over some relatively long period (say 1900 - today)? One problem is that most data would look at concert attendance which ignores Spotify, youtube, radio, mp3 downloads, etc. We would get a very skewed view of popularity without including how people listen today. I've seen data from concert attendance over the past 30-40 years, but I don't think that's really the right metric.

HarpsichordConcerto makes an excellent point. Classical music is _much_ more available today than ever before. I have listened to well over 300 composers in the past year. That would be an absurd number for almost anyone 100 years ago. These are the glory years for listeners. Unfortunately, the technology that makes listening so available does not necessarily translate into supporting (financially or emotionally) new composers.


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## Wandering (Feb 27, 2012)

Anyway, on the subject of defunctness. I read an article way back in the late 90's in the New Yorker magazine. It was on Schoenberg or some of his compositions, maybe an anniversary of some sort? Pretty much all I remember from the article is it saying something like, paraphrasing of course, 'Schoenberg leading art music out into the desert where it roams to this day.' I thought it was catchy.


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## Guest (Nov 21, 2012)

Wow. An entire troll thread (mmsbls's post notwithstanding). What a glorious use of computer technology.

"Classical music" is a term, an expression. Since its first use (in 1810), it has been used to cover a wide range of quite different things. And its contents shifted from time to time, too. Both opera and songs used to be outside. Mendelssohn's symphonies? Classical music. Mendelssohn's songs. No.

The composers of the so-called "classical era" managed to write some pretty interesting music without the term; I know that composers of the present age manage to do so as well. (A composer friend of mine asked me once, "You would call what I do 'classical music'?" At the time I said "Yes." Now? Not any more. Won't make any difference to her. She just writes really cool music.)

Musicians probably don't need the terms as much as the listeners do (think that they do). And since it's the musicians making the stuff, I really think that we're fine. New music, being new, will always be able to **** a lot of people off. Old music, being old, may continue to be preferred by most people. Wasn't always so. Maybe it won't always be. Up until the mid nineteenth century, new music was still widely considered to be superior to old. Not as widely as 1780, of course, but still pretty widely. By 1870, the old had won pretty handily, and the new has had to struggle as it never had to struggle before.

It's popular to think of the twentieth century as where all that started. But it really wasn't. The attitudes about new music were firmly entrenched before anyone had even written a note of non-tonal music, long before anyone had heard any of those notes.

But you tell the young people of today that, and they just don't believe you! But seriously. The historical record does not match the popular narrative. And the popular narrative is inextricably intertwined with a strongly held belief system. Guess which one of those is going to win?


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## Manxfeeder (Oct 19, 2010)

Clovis said:


> Anyway, on the subject of defunctness. I read an article way back in the late 90's in the New Yorker magazine. It was on Schoenberg or some of his compositions, maybe an anniversary of some sort? Pretty much all I remember from the article is it saying something like, paraphrasing of course, 'Schoenberg leading art music out into the desert where it roams to this day.' I thought it was catchy.


It's funny; 15 years after that article, I discovered that I actually liked his music. I have to believe that somewhere every year that still happens to others.


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## BurningDesire (Jul 15, 2012)

KenOC said:


> Just to clarify the OP. Paintings of the old masters live still, but in museums. Few are being produced today.
> 
> Similar with what we call "classical music." The museum parallel was on purpose. Of course the canon, or most of it, will survive. But will the genre survive as a living art?


Well duh  those painters are all dead. There's plenty of awesome modern painters though, they just aren't well known. Considering there's plenty of "classical" composers on this forum alone, and many throughout the world, yeah, that tradition is surviving, and it informs the work of many who work in the realm of "pop" music and other kinds of music.


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## KenOC (Mar 7, 2011)

some guy said:


> Wow. An entire troll thread...


Sorry you see it that way!  And in fact your post seems to support the second possibility mentioned in the OP: "Or is it, possibly, that by drawing boundaries around 'classical music' we have merely defined it into irrelevance -- and, in fact, serious music is doing just fine over in that other mud puddle?"


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## BurningDesire (Jul 15, 2012)

mmsbls said:


> Unfortunately, the technology that makes listening so available does not necessarily translate into supporting (financially or emotionally) new composers.


Many classical listeners have no interest in that anyway. They like living in their insular little world, and occasionally they may venture out to mock hard-working artists.


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## jani (Jun 15, 2012)

neoshredder said:


> The music never died actually.


True but when modern composers write and they don't write *music for the public* they can't expect to be "liked" very much.
When you do something new you are also taking a risk.
If the composer only writes for him/herself they are taking a knowledgeable risk of not being liked/ their music not being liked.
So if they don't write for the public they can't complain if their music isn't liked very much.
Also the audience does not owe anything for the composer.

Before you start calling me narrow minded i must say that i like some modern works.


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## HarpsichordConcerto (Jan 1, 2010)

some guy said:


> The attitudes about new music were firmly entrenched before anyone had even written a note of non-tonal music, long before anyone had heard any of those notes.


The usual misleading generalisation. There were numerous newly composed music from Monteverdi to Cage that were both extremely successful and total failures at their premieres.


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## Wandering (Feb 27, 2012)

^jani, the last bit of what you said reminds me of the Branagh film 'Dead Again'. This 'drop-dead' chick is deeply digging Branagh's character at some Beverly Hills 'get together', until he tells her he's a composer, she replies, 'Then you're nobody', and moves on, hunting for a better catch.


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## superhorn (Mar 23, 2010)

Let me try to put things in historical perspective . When Haydn,Mozart and Beethoven were alive, the orchestra as we know it was a realtively new thing. It hadn't had the time to accumulate a lasting repertoire .
Concerts were pretty much sporadic, ad hoc affairs . 
There was no such thing as the kind of orchestra we know today , resident in one concert hall all year under a music director with guest conductors , presenting a different program every week . 
There were far fewer orchestras and opera companies than we have today , and far fewer concerts per year .
But as time progressed , certain works by certain composers gained a lasting place in the repertoire , audiences became accustomed to them , and more and more orchestras came into existence .
There were also solo performers, pianists, violinists etc, appearing with orchestras for concertos and playing solo recitals , and chamber ensembles such as streing quartets .
The orchestras of opera companies began to play series of orchestral concerts, the most famous being the Vienna Philharmonic, fomed in 1842, same year as the New York Philharmonic , consisting of the membersw of the court opera in Vienna, llater the Vienna State opera .
Over the years , an enormous number of symphonies, concertos, operas, string quartets, lieder etc were written by so many different composers, most of whom are forgotten except to musicologists and die hard classical music fans . Some of these were quite famous in their day and widely performed , but their music is hardly ever performed live today and can only be heard on recordings today .
Louis Spohr , Muzio Clementi, Anton Rubinstein, Baldassare Galuppi , to name only a few .
All very famous in their day . And this has continued to the present day . Will Adams, Glass, Berio, Ligeti,
Maxwell Davies, Dutilleaux, Henze, Stockhausen, Penderecki, and their ocntemporaries be regularly performed a century from now, assuming the world has remained intact? Only time will tell .


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## Sid James (Feb 7, 2009)

HarpsichordConcerto said:


> The musicians trained today in specialising in early music are actually younger musicians. To suggest that is going to be "extinct" is unrealistic - do you honestly think Bach, Mozart and Beethoven's music will be extinct? I hope that was not what you were suggesting but it appears you did. You should substantial this and you will find most will disagree with you about classical music going "extinct" in two decades.
> 
> But as for old music dying, that's what folks said back in the 1980s. Thirty years later, it is thriving still. That is the current fact. As for your projections into the future, you are basing it based on demographics of your immediate perceived audience field, not the world by and large.


Well, I was conflating this thread with Polednice's old thread on popularity of classical music, and also more recent threads on the sustainability of classical music (orchestras, cd sales, all that). But I think these things are all related. Its a chicken and egg thing. Look around (yes, I am basing this on observations in Australia), if you go to classical concerts, the vast majority of the audience is in their fifties or sixties, in some cases way older than that.

I think classical music may well survive in some way, but it will not be the same way as until now. Maybe extinct is a too strong word. Maybe dormant is a better word. In any case, the bulk of the current audience will not be around forever. That's my basic point, orchestras need subscribers to survive. They need people to buy their recordings. Not just 'two men and a dog' to use the old Aussie cliche, but many more people, as much as possible.



KenOC said:


> Just to clarify the OP. Paintings of the old masters live still, but in museums. Few are being produced today.
> 
> Similar with what we call "classical music." The museum parallel was on purpose. Of course the canon, or most of it, will survive. But will the genre survive as a living art?


WEll, highbrow classical has been cut off from the mainstream for ages. How far back we go is up to us. Hard to admit a painful thing for us fans of classical music, esp. new/newer music, but today's composer is writing for a shrinking audience. Not those that do film music, or so-called 'lowbrow' things, but those that do things mainly aimed at a more specialised audience.

So yeah it is a museum. Boring as hell for young people, most of them. Compare a classical concert with the mosh pit at a rock concert. It goes way back, to eg. Woodstock, all of them where there, Hendrix, Shankar, Janis Joplin, The Who, Joe Cocker, people like that who meant more to young people back then than any classical musician or composer. Now its even more like that, I'd say. Even my parents generation, who where that generation, they where rare to like classical even as part of that generation who matured after 1945.

But a classical concert is like a ritual. Even the riots at new music performances of the past (eg. Rite of Spring) are gone. What we have now is just a shadow of what was happening then. People where passionate and engaged with the new music of their time. Stravinsky, Bartok, Schoenberg elicited these emotions, positive, negative, in between. Compare that to now, what do we have? Something very different, not necessarily better or worse, just different.


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## Guest (Nov 21, 2012)

Haha, you know, I almost just quoted this part of the OP as my response.



KenOC said:


> Or is it, possibly, that by drawing boundaries around 'classical music' we have merely defined it into irrelevance -- and, in fact, serious music is doing just fine over in that other mud puddle?


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## HarpsichordConcerto (Jan 1, 2010)

superhorn said:


> Let me try to put things in historical perspective . When Haydn,Mozart and Beethoven were alive, the orchestra as we know it was a realtively new thing. It hadn't had the time to accumulate a lasting repertoire .
> Concerts were pretty much sporadic, ad hoc affairs .
> There was no such thing as the kind of orchestra we know today , resident in one concert hall all year under a music director with guest conductors , presenting a different program every week .
> There were far fewer orchestras and opera companies than we have today , and far fewer concerts per year .
> ...


Nice thoughts. Yes, for many composers and their music, recordings are the _only_ source today for most listeners. This year for example, I have bought many recordings featuring music by (dead) composers that I have never heard performed live, and will probably never get to hear these pieces performed live, from Baroque harpsichord sonatas by Christoph Graupner to 20th century symphonies of Egon Wellesz. For sheer variety as we speak right now, this is as good as it gets compared with say as recently as twenty years ago.


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## KenOC (Mar 7, 2011)

HarpsichordConcerto said:


> For sheer variety as we speak right now, this is as good as it gets compared with say as recently as twenty years ago.


For sheer variety *and* for price. As to the first, I remember when Dvorak was known for one symphony (maybe two if you were a sophisticate). Now even I have two or three complete sets! As to the second, in 1963 a top-line stereo LP cost $5.98, which is, in today's dollars -- $48! DG was a buck more, of course. Even that doesn't tell the whole story, because we're generally richer today.


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## Sid James (Feb 7, 2009)

some guy said:


> Wow. An entire troll thread (mmsbls's post notwithstanding). What a glorious use of computer technology...





KenOC said:


> Sorry you see it that way!  And in fact your post seems to support the second possibility mentioned in the OP: "Or is it, possibly, that by drawing boundaries around 'classical music' we have merely defined it into irrelevance -- and, in fact, serious music is doing just fine over in that other mud puddle?"


Just a note I've reported that post by some guy and asked them to strike from the record that comment about this being a troll thread. I think it breaks the rules.

As I said in my first post on this thread, this is a good topic for discussion. I have been aiming to do a thread on an issue similar to this but been muzzled like a dog by the likes of some guy, also the currently absent stlukes and also rapide. These members have often come onto threads I made, questioning my right to do such threads in the first place, and then proceeding to accuse me of various things like bias and telling lies blah blah blah. Well its a case of 'doctor, cure thyself.' But I won't go on.


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## brianwalker (Dec 9, 2011)

There is nothing new under the sun.









*Which year was the last for worthwhile threads to be started on classical music internet forums? 
*

This thread has my nominations.

Or maybe this one. 

or this one.


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## neoshredder (Nov 7, 2011)

I don't see how this is a good thread but different strokes for different folks I guess. I better stay on Sid James' good side now. lol


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## KenOC (Mar 7, 2011)

I'm at a loss why some would consider this thread objectionable. My perception is that what we call "classical music" is more and more a body of works written in the past, and that audiences for the genre are declining. This is regardless of the quality of new music being written or the genius of contemporary composers.

Perhaps that perception is wrong. I hope it is and, if so, people will chime in accordingly. But why object to talking about it?


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## neoshredder (Nov 7, 2011)

Probably because it isn't a pleasant topic to talk about. I'm fine with Classical Music taking the back seat as long as the Composers keep writing good music. Popularity doesn't mean that much to me. The Same Progressive Rock that is obscure. Always good to find hidden gems. But calling the music dead just because it isn't popular isn't cool.


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## Arsakes (Feb 20, 2012)

I think music can die over hundreds of years. It mostly depends on socio-political phenomenas. War, another medieval age etc.
Just how many are familiar with Assyrian (Empire), (Ostro-/Visi-)Gothic or Roman music here?

Other than that if a genre of music loses its popularity or better to say its superiority, it will be forgotten by society and many individuals who may like it can't even become familiar with it. 

Also no governmental support means less classical music .. and fans.


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## neoshredder (Nov 7, 2011)

You don't need government support. The internet (especially youtube) is the greatest source for Contemporary Classical. Yes it won't be the top of the list in popularity but there will always be fans.


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## bigshot (Nov 22, 2011)

BurningDesire said:


> Well duh  those painters are all dead. There's plenty of awesome modern painters though, they just aren't well known.


And there are lots of well known illustrators and conceptual artists painting keys for the movie business.


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## Sid James (Feb 7, 2009)

brianwalker said:


> There is nothing new under the sun....


Well I looked on that thread and the single post I made on it was a joke, a link to the song American Pie. That thread was started by Couchie, a Wagnerite if there ever was one. Funny how he implicitly blames Modern/contemporary composers for not writing 'worthwhile' music, whereas quite a few of those composers he obviously doesn't like (or not as much as his god) - eg. the atonalists and serialists - where influenced big time by you-know-who. Its a common pattern. But Wagner was like the grand-daddy of classical music moving towards being mega highbrow, and Wagnerites damn well know it! (but won't admit it, of course, nooooo way, blame Schoenberg, BLAME HIM ONLY!).



neoshredder said:


> I don't see how this is a good thread but different strokes for different folks I guess. I better stay on Sid James' good side now. lol


Well it takes a lot to make me 'snap' (or snap back?) and the three members I named have done it on many ocassions. I mean heaps. So I gave them a serving in my last post here. So what? Let's get these things out in the open. Lets deal with them as transparently as possible. No protection and favouritism, no unsaid rules that you can't touch certain people here, or not talk about certain things, voice certain opinions, question various dogmas or sacred cows. Its all up for grabs I say, as long as people stick to the rules.



KenOC said:


> I'm at a loss why some would consider this thread objectionable.





neoshredder said:


> Probably because it isn't a pleasant topic to talk about...


It is definitely a discomfiting issue, but I think its better to kind of face facts or some semblance of reality rather than pretend these changes are not happening, and they've been happening for a long time. Its a long term trend, that's what I'm arguing, not just a flash in the pan type thing.



> ...
> My perception is that what we call "classical music" is more and more a body of works written in the past, and that audiences for the genre are declining. This is regardless of the quality of new music being written or the genius of contemporary composers.
> 
> Perhaps that perception is wrong. I hope it is and, if so, people will chime in accordingly. But why object to talking about it?


It shakes the basis of Modernist ideology, or at least some of the more dubious aspects of that ideology. What I was saying before. Distorting the past in order to put a nice gloss on the present. Modernism is just an ideology. Just like any political or religious ideology, or any other ideology related to the creative arts (eg. Romanticism) it has its strong as well as its weak points. To imply or argue that there are no weak points to Modernist ideology is just not realistic imo. Then blaming people of this forum for voicing these concerns, well that's beyond the pale. As long as its not extreme I welcome criticisms of any ideology, otherwise why have a forum?



> ...I'm fine with Classical Music taking the back seat as long as the Composers keep writing good music. Popularity doesn't mean that much to me. The Same Progressive Rock that is obscure. Always good to find hidden gems. But calling the music dead just because it isn't popular isn't cool.


Maybe dead is too strong a word. But its definitely changing and in a state of flux. Has been for a long time, and sweeping these things under the carpet will not make them simply go away. Better to confront them head on. That's especially important for those in the music industry, rather than having these cliques that kind of retain the status quo, but for whose interests? Theirs or a kind of maintenance or preservation of the art? These types of things come to my mind. Do we deny these things or deal with them in some way? Its a complex issue that requires solutions of many kinds, & some changes are happening as we speak, whether we like it or not.

But people are very resistant (most resistant) to change. That's natural. To deny that as well is silly.


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## Genoveva (Nov 9, 2010)

mmsbls said:


> I guess the real question is whether classical music is, in fact, declining in popularity.


This may be true but I'm not clear how you infer this question from the fact that "_the average age of our favorite pieces"_ is 207 years, as suggested in the OP. In fact, I don't see any necessary connection between the average age of our classical music favorites and the popularity of classical music in general. Popularity could change over time without implying any change in the average age of the actual classical music we happen to like, and vice versa.


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## KenOC (Mar 7, 2011)

Genoveva said:


> Popularity could change over time without implying any change in the average age of the actual classical music we happen to like, and vice versa.


Very astute! My feeling is that new works are entering the "standard repertoire" more slowly than ever before. However that's hard to prove. If we look back on the standard repertoire for the 19th centursy, there really weren't/aren't that many works per decade that are still there today. Is the source of the repertoire really being choked off, or is it just my imagination?

Re general popularity of the genre, I think that's of less concern. We probably have too many orchestras anyway, given technology and so forth. But renewal of the pool of music is the big issue.


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## Sid James (Feb 7, 2009)

KenOC said:


> ... If we look back on the standard repertoire for the 19th centursy, there really weren't/aren't that many works per decade that are still there today....


Well the thread I made, which I talked of in my first post on this thread:
http://www.talkclassical.com/22117-warhorses-their-popularity-past.html
In the first paragraph of that, I talked of the ABC Classic 100 symphony in Australia, and the radio presenter said most of the works of the 'warhorse' type on that list have been in the repertoire either since their first performance or not long after.

So can you give us examples of things are in the performance repertoire today (or widely & regularly or abundantly recorded on disc), the warhorses I mean, that have been played constantly since the 19th century. No pressure, I am just trying to deal with this perception, one I think is kind of rooted in ideology rather than being closer to fact (or in line with what we know about the history of these works).

RE the list itself: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Classic_100_Symphony_(ABC) - composers like Tchaikovsky, Dvorak where quite popular (even going as far as New YOrk). Then you had Mendelssohn who was huge in the UK, and a promoter of new music in Liepzig. Brahms and Beethoven where also huge in the UK, the English asked them to visit there as Haydn did, but these guys did not travel, they did not like to leave far beyond Vienna or Central Europe. Bruckner had succeses (eg. the 7th symphony was a turning of the tide for him, a big one). Admittedly a number of his symphonies where not given their full performances till long after his death. But he did recieve some recognition in his life. Saint-Saens had successes with his music too, as did Berlioz, and Bizet. Sibelius and R. Strauss where making a name for themselves in the late 19th century.

In terms of opera, even Wagner had success with Tannhauser, and Bizet with CArmen just as he died, and Gounod with Faust (it was huge). So too Rossini, Donizetti, Bellini - they where huge hits even away from home turf, in Vienna and Paris. Verdi's operas where in huge demand, hence commissions from as far afield as CAiro (Aida) and Russia (The Force of Destiny). These guys where in demand, and apart from Wagner who had big issues with debt, my understanding is that they where pretty comfortably off in financial terms.

I could give more detail, this is only a broad outline, but I would like to hear your story re all this? & that of others as well.


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## Ramako (Apr 28, 2012)

Well, people know what I think.

1827 things started to go downhill.

But then I like Mahler, so I guess I have to go to 1911.

But then I quite people like Arvo Part, so I guess it didn't die after all, even for a dinosaur like me 

Still, most music I listen to is pre-1827 (and post 1750 or whenever though lol).

As for its popularity, that began to go downhill during the nineteenth century - although it had recently gained a great deal of popularity through the works of composers like Haydn who's music was very widely popular, as well as the rising middle classes as we know. I have the idea that Classical Music reached its low point in the mid twentieth century and might actually be gaining in popularity now, but I'm not entirely sure about that.


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## mmsbls (Mar 6, 2011)

Genoveva said:


> This may be true but I'm not clear how you infer this question from the fact that "_the average age of our favorite pieces"_ is 207 years, as suggested in the OP. In fact, I don't see any necessary connection between the average age of our classical music favorites and the popularity of classical music in general. Popularity could change over time without implying any change in the average age of the actual classical music we happen to like, and vice versa.


I agree with what you say, but my comment was not related to that part of the OP. I was responding to the question in the OP, "Is the world no longer hungry for new "serious" music?"



KenOC said:


> Re general popularity of the genre, I think that's of less concern. We probably have too many orchestras anyway, given technology and so forth. But renewal of the pool of music is the big issue.


I understand now that my thoughts were not really the focus of the OP, and I didn't properly understand the question.


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## arpeggio (Oct 4, 2012)

*The premature death of classical*

I have been listening to people bemoaning the state of classical music my entire life, yet it is still thriving.

Many of these individuals are unaware of the great contemporary tonal composers. For example, the concert band movement is thriving in the USA. Our community band has performed two premiers in the past few years:

_Foundation_ by Mark Camphouse, Director of Bands George Mason University
_And the Grass Sings in the Meadows_ by Travis Cross, a new young composer who is director of the Virginia Tech Wind Ensemble

99% of the band junkies know of Mark Camphouse. Many of his works have become standard repertoire in the band world.

Classical music will never be as popular as Elvis or Michael.

In my world contemporary classical music is still alive and well.


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## neoshredder (Nov 7, 2011)

arpeggio said:


> I have been listening to people bemoaning the state of classical music my entire life, yet it is still thriving.
> 
> Many of these individuals are unaware of the great contemporary tonal composers. For example, the concert band movement is thriving in the USA. Our community band has performed two premiers in the past few years:
> 
> ...


Great post. Take that KenOC.


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## KenOC (Mar 7, 2011)

neoshredder said:


> Great post. Take that KenOC.


Staggered but still standing. Hah! I like Ramako's "In 1827 things started to go downhill."


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## SerbenthumInDerMusik (Nov 9, 2012)

Well, the topic about Indian Ragas was active recently. And, if we can make this comparison, Ragas miraculously haven't gone away even though Indian elite culture has been hit harder than the Western one. Colonialism, westernization, then socialism, and all that before the rise of pop culture and individualization ... sort of a cultural apocalypse, but there are still sitars and tamburas around.

But, who knows if this is a good comparison. And I generally prefer when people raise panic. :tiphat:


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## KenOC (Mar 7, 2011)

SerbenthumInDerMusik said:


> ...but there are still sitars and tamburas around.But, who knows if this is a good comparison.


I think it's a very interesting one. I understand that most classical music performances in India are now in the evening, so the usual Hindustani assignment of ragas to the time of day is going out the window. Has it hurt classical music in any way? Well, I don't know, but it still has its audience there (and here).

Otherwise, Bollywood music seems to rule. But again, classical music still has its audience. And its musicians! But my feeling is that Indian classical music is mostly a performance art, with new ragas appearing only rarely. On this side of the ditch we expect new music all the time, and the performers are more facilitators, so maybe it's a different thing altogether.


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## PetrB (Feb 28, 2012)

A huge proportion of those audiences who do not / will not consume the newer works are the same complaining that music has died, painting has died, etc. Death Death Death.

Those same complainants have been consuming dead people's music and art continually, from their earlier years on, and are now complaining that -- get this -- no one is anymore writing like Brahms or Mahler, or Painting like Reubens or Matisse. *How Utterly Shocking and Amazing that No One is Doing That.*

Well, those who whine and mourn are living in an electrified world with more orchestras, concerts, and have access to a medium that did not exist a century ago which allows them to just keep consuming all the archival / museum stock.

*Anyone can stop this fear-monger alarmist sob-fest by asking themselves one question.*

*Is there any reason on earth why contemporary authors should still write, keeping a style close to and the content similar to that of Charles Dickens, and then are today's painters and composers expected to follow suite along similar lines in their respective crafts?*

.. All because the public have gotten hopelessly behind their own time. Those complainants and mourners of the dead they consume need to either take a big boy or big girl pill and steel themselves, gird their loins, and start delving into the later generation of dead artist's works (as in the 20th century to the present), or realize and 'own' that _they are the cause of 'the death of music.'_

_Or_ ~ It might not a bad idea, really, and more than high time since there are already extant old music and period performance ensembles, to appropriately turn those symphonies into specialized orchestras which play the antique music! Nothing past late romantic and 1912! Of course that might make those sophisticated concert goers very much aware they were listening to antique music. [But think of the comfort of knowing your ears and sensitivity will not be assaulted by anything from your own time.]

Stravinsky's The Rite of Spring is soon to turn 100 years old. Charles Ives' Unanswered Question is over 100 years old. There is more than one generation now who don't even consume the older of what is clearly The 'NEWer' OLD MUSIC.'

If those who can't handle much past Debussy or Rachmaninoff are so lame, Luddite-like, and use art for a sort of cozy warm hot-tub escape, i.e. to escape into their warm fuzzy zone, or revisit deathly familiar old rousing excitements, that can not be helped -- nor can they. Fact is even the dead composers they adore where never writing for that kind of audience.

Write them off completely and start to look for the new audiences. Really.


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## violadude (May 2, 2011)

Music hasn't died. Calm down.


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## PetrB (Feb 28, 2012)

some guy said:


> Wow. An entire troll thread (mmsbls's post notwithstanding). What a glorious use of computer technology.
> 
> "Classical music" is a term, an expression. Since its first use (in 1810), it has been used to cover a wide range of quite different things. And its contents shifted from time to time, too. Both opera and songs used to be outside. Mendelssohn's symphonies? Classical music. Mendelssohn's songs. No.
> 
> ...


Why you choose to discount the entire body of your excellent answer by first walking into the room and mouthing your first sentence to, essentially, everyone in the room / thread, only you can answer. Is self-sabotage your hobby?

Otherwise, guy, great post.


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## PetrB (Feb 28, 2012)

jani said:


> True but when modern composers write and they don't write *music for the public* they can't expect to be "liked" very much.
> When you do something new you are also taking a risk.
> If the composer only writes for him/herself they are taking a knowledgeable risk of not being liked/ their music not being liked.
> So if they don't write for the public they can't complain if their music isn't liked very much.
> ...


Only cynical pop entertainment and the authors of its product 'write for the audience.' Really.
I can no more second guess your taste when I am choosing notes to put down on paper than anyone else could at so far a remove. Too, after a lifetime of training and perhaps having something to say, and really only able to write 'how I write,' I wouldn't listen to your checklist of 'what my music should be like' to merely accomodate your comfort zones anyway.

Artist's are out to excite and agitate people, even with beauty. There is a current notion that art should be made for the people and calculated to induce in the listener more of a hot-tub scented candle experience than something exciting or challenging. It is horribly wrong, a wildly mistaken notion on the part of the public; _that is a mere brief trend which will go away soon._


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## PetrB (Feb 28, 2012)

Classical music has been taking care of itself for one thousand years, without so much of a huge public, large organizations, and I can only see that something might mutate, i.e. current classical music is already more in the realms of the cognoscenti than in the hands of larger symphonic organizations or the general public, as it was throughout Mozart's lifetime. Mozart got by, music during his period, including many other composers, got by.

There really is no reason to be so alarmed. 

Before symphonic organizations die, they will figure out that their conductor with the salary in the one million or more per annum -- who is globetrotting, conducting other symphonies half the year, half the season -- so absent half the season, might be let go for an equally good conductor willing to stay at home who would be quite happy with salary of half a million 

There is a lot 'wrong' within those organizations fiscal structures which only they can address, and it has nothing, really, to do with the public, little to do with royalty for performance costs, or resistance to newer music. 

The symphony organization's failing business is a completely different 'problem,' and a real one. They may be dying, but classical music is not.


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## superhorn (Mar 23, 2010)

There's a good reason why conductors don't stay with one orchestra the whole year . (The major ones, that is, with 52 week seasons ). It's just not feasable for one conductor to lead 150 -200 concerts a season .
Years ago, orchestra seasons were much shorter ; for example, under Fredrick Stock , who led the Chicago symphony from 1905 until his death in 1942 , the orchestra had a 21 week season, with only two concerts a week .
Now the orchestra has a season lasting from September through about June, and is the resident orchestra of the Ravinia festival outsid eof Chicago . And there are about four concers per week of the same program .
It's necessary to have guest conductors ; it enables the orchestra to play a much wider variety of music .
The music director may not like the music of certain composers and doesn't want to conduct them, but a guest conductor may be a comitted advocate of those conmposers . Or the music director may not be familiar with certain works the guest ocnductors do .
And it's good for orchestra to have the experience of working under different conductors ; it makes life mor einteresting for them .


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## Rapide (Oct 11, 2011)

Unless the conductor has a contract with the orchestra and or the recording company label.


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## drpraetorus (Aug 9, 2012)

The death of classical music was a problem in the 1900's of the composer of "modern" music writing what the audience did not want to hear. There is still a great deal of good music being written that audiences reject, I write some myself, but co0mposers have retrenched a bit and realize that they do need to be aware of their audience. If you write musica resevata, don't be suprised if the general audience doesn't like it. 

Orchestral classical music in the 1900's shifted it's location from the concert hall the movie theatre. Most of the music that became popular inb that time period, and really even now, was written for movies. There are just a handfull of concert composers that were able to make a living at it in the 1900's but many movie composers who have become rather well off and who's movie music is considered every bit as good a the concert composers. Waxman, Korngold, Steiner, Copeland, Bernstein (both Lenny and Elmer), Rosza, Hermann, Horner, Williams, Polydorus, Gershwin, Tiomkin, Elfman, etc. ad infinitum, ad nausium. 

More people have been introduced to the sound of a full symphonic orchestra through the movies than through school general music classes or classical radio. The use of dissonance and atonality in movie music has actually helped open these listeners to the sounds and concepts rathet than close their minds and ears to the less than romantic music of current times.


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## BurningDesire (Jul 15, 2012)

It died with the death of Bach, but then Beethoven promptly resurrected it and its been doin fine ever since :3


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## pendereckiobsessed (Sep 21, 2012)

The day the music died hasn't happened yet, I'm still alive and well ut:


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## neoshredder (Nov 7, 2011)

BurningDesire said:


> It died with the death of Bach, but then Beethoven promptly resurrected it and its been doin fine ever since :3


It never really died then since CPE Bach made it all the way to 1788.


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## KenOC (Mar 7, 2011)

neoshredder said:


> It never really died then since CPE Bach made it all the way to 1788.


Guess we can safely ignore Haydn and Mozart and those other guys...


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## neoshredder (Nov 7, 2011)

KenOC said:


> Guess we can safely ignore Haydn and Mozart and those other guys...


Who are they?


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