# Why do some people consider 1975 an end of a period in classical music?



## Fabulin (Jun 10, 2019)

Because of the death of Shostakovich?


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## HenryPenfold (Apr 29, 2018)

I didn't know people did


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## Strange Magic (Sep 14, 2015)

Fabulin said:


> Because of the death of Shostakovich?


It may regarded as the death of the Last of the Heavyweights, a final hangover of the Soviet years and the years of World War II and shortly thereafter. The 1930s and 1940s saw a greater rise of popular knowledge of the existence of Russian music and composers in the West, with the exiles of Stravinsky, Prokofiev, and Rachmaninoff. Their music and their comings and goings became newsworthy among large swaths of the educated public, and, with the advent of the alliance with Soviet Russia, it became even more "OK" to be aware of their music, to hear it, to play it, and such composers joined the pantheon of great and important "international" composers alongside those somewhat recent contemporaries already in their graves such as Puccini, Debussy, Ravel--Beethoven, Brahms, Tchaikovsky, etc. having passed long before. I don't think contemporary English or American composers or the Serialists really counted in the popular mind (as opposed to the knowledgeable CM lover).


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## Duncan (Feb 8, 2019)

This is a link to a page entitled "1975 in music"

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1975_in_music

Nothing there suggests the end of a period in classical music...


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## mmsbls (Mar 6, 2011)

Often 1975 is considered the end of the Modern era and the start of the Contemporary era. I'm not sure there is a clearly defined reason to pick 1975. It seems a reasonable, although ambiguous, dividing line. Classical Archives says, "From the mid-1970s, an opposing anti- or post-modernist aesthetic began to emerge, where modernist assumptions were questioned if not rejected."


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## Mandryka (Feb 22, 2013)

Duncan said:


> This is a link to a page entitled "1975 in music"
> 
> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1975_in_music
> 
> Nothing there suggests the end of a period in classical music...


Well the end of Shostakovich marks the end of the second, or even third, pressing of Mahler maybe.


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## Barbebleu (May 17, 2015)

Because they are musical nincompoops?


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## Mandryka (Feb 22, 2013)

mmsbls said:


> "From the mid-1970s, an opposing anti- or post-modernist aesthetic began to emerge, where modernist assumptions were questioned if not rejected."


This is not true. Anti modernist ideas were alive and kicking ten years before that in New York (Feldman and Cage and Wolff)


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## HenryPenfold (Apr 29, 2018)

Mandryka said:


> Well the end of Shostakovich marks the end of the second, or even third, pressing of Mahler maybe.


Interesting comment. I would put Mahler and DSCH as poles apart ..........


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## AeolianStrains (Apr 4, 2018)

Duncan said:


> This is a link to a page entitled "1975 in music"
> 
> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1975_in_music
> 
> Nothing there suggests the end of a period in classical music...


"My gosh! There isn't a sky," said the man with his head buried in the sand.

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



> The major time divisions of classical music up to 1900 are the Early music period, which includes Medieval (500-1400) and Renaissance (1400-1600) eras, and the Common practice period, which includes the Baroque (1600-1750), Classical (1750-1820) and Romantic (1810-1910) eras. The current period encompasses the 20th century (1901-2000) and includes most of the Early modern musical era (1890-1930), the entire High modern (mid 20th-century), and *the first part of the Contemporary (1945 or 1975-current)* or Postmodern musical era (1930-current). The 21st century has so far been a continuation of the same period and the same Contemporary/Postmodern musical era which both began mostly in the 20th-century.


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



> *Between 1975 and 1990, a shift in the paradigm* of computer technology had taken place, making electronic music systems affordable and widely accessible. The personal computer had become an essential component of the electronic musician's equipment, superseding analog synthesizers and fulfilling the traditional functions of composition and scoring, synthesis and sound processing, sampling of audio input, and control over external equipment.


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## Mandryka (Feb 22, 2013)

AeolianStrains said:


> "My gosh! There isn't a sky," said the man with his head buried in the sand.
> 
> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Classical_music
> 
> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Contemporary_classical_music


Ah right, the answer to the question _*Why *_do some people consider 1975 an end of a period in classical music? is "Because wikipedia says so."


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## Duncan (Feb 8, 2019)

Mandryka said:


> Well the end of Shostakovich marks the end of the second, or even third, pressing of Mahler maybe.





HenryPenfold said:


> Interesting comment. I would put Mahler and DSCH as poles apart ..........


He nicked that line from Boulez and it should have been in quotes for the proper attribution -

"A modish enthusiasm for him was bound to be short-lived, suggested Boulez, for the music itself was just "third-pressing Mahler" (an allusion to the process used to extract the cheapest and most tasteless kind of olive oil)."

https://www.theguardian.com/music/2006/jan/14/classicalmusicandopera


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## AeolianStrains (Apr 4, 2018)

Mandryka said:


> Ah right, the answer to the question _*Why *_do some people consider 1975 an end of a period in classical music? is "Because wikipedia says so."


Your response makes no sense. I wasn't answering why, I was showing that clearly some people think so. (Plus, the second page mentions a why, if you'd like to actually read what I posted instead of off the cuff and trolling remarks.)


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## elgar's ghost (Aug 8, 2010)

If there is an 'end of an era' aspect to it then it might have something to do with Shostakovich's name going beyond those who liked CM. For instance, had a teacher back in the early-mid 1970s asked me to name a famous living composer then Shostakovich's name would probably be the only one I could actually offer, and even then I wouldn't have been totally sure that he wasn't already dead.


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## DaveM (Jun 29, 2015)

Not just the end of a period of classical music: More and more, I think that classical music in the post-Shostakovich era (or even 2-3 decades earlier for that matter) -which would be now almost half a century- is almost irrelevant when it comes to keeping CM, as we have known it, alive. A significant amount -specifically avant-garde- does not even fall under what I consider to be the definition of classical music.

Classical music as it was known for 3+ centuries will continue to survive as a much-treasured niche and could do so without any programmed post-1975 classical music, alleged CM as some of it is. Post 1975 CM, alleged CM as some of it is, could not.

The Masterpieces of 1945-Present thread has a number of works that are frankly in a category so remote from traditional CM as to deserve a totally separate category of music. Why one can declare that music without melody, harmony and structure -and which often consists of constant unresolved dissonance- is supposed to be under the CM umbrella continues to be beyond me. One explanation given is that some of it uses the piano and various orchestral instruments. Well, other categories of music eg. jazz and western use the piano and some orchestral instruments.

This was probably inevitable. Traditional classical music was tied to a cultural, artistic era that is no more.


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## Duncan (Feb 8, 2019)

Welcome to the newest thread that will be closed within the week...


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## DavidA (Dec 14, 2012)

HenryPenfold said:


> I didn't know people did


Ditto ..


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## Strange Magic (Sep 14, 2015)

HenryPenfold said:


> I didn't know people did


Now you know. So long as some people believe that 1975 marked the end of an era, then it did.......


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## TMHeimer (Dec 19, 2019)

Maybe that it was about 1976 (?) when "A Fifth of Beethoven" came out? Kidding aside, I too have never heard of this 1975 thing.


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## Dimace (Oct 19, 2018)

Very sentimentally, I consider the 1949 (death of Richard Strauss) as an end not of a CM period but of CM as a whole. (very personal view, nowhere written).


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## Art Rock (Nov 28, 2009)

I blame the rise of disco.


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## Duncan (Feb 8, 2019)

Deleted post... _______________________


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## DaveM (Jun 29, 2015)

Dimace said:


> Very sentimentally, I consider the 1949 (death of Richard Strauss) as an end not of a CM period but of CM as a whole. (very personal view, nowhere written).


You are not alone my friend.  It was essentially written in my post above.


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## Fabulin (Jun 10, 2019)

Dimace said:


> Very sentimentally, I consider the 1949 (death of Richard Strauss) as an end not of a CM period but of CM as a whole. (very personal view, nowhere written).


I think I understand your sentiment, even if I do not agree with it. I had the same thought today, of an end of a certain era, with the death of Korngold in 1957, or possibly a bit earlier, with his retirement.


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## mbhaub (Dec 2, 2016)

It's easy to get despondent about the state of affairs in CM, especially if you live in the US where the cultural wars are over - it's clear pop music won the battle. But if you dig deeper, things are pretty good. Worldwide there is a bounty of summer festivals offering everything from baroque to avant garde. Opera festivals, orchestral extravaganzas, brass bands and so much more. We live at a time when the orchestral playing is at a higher standard than it has ever been, when even small orchestras and communities can put on excellent performances of difficult music - such as the Cheyenne Symphony's Mahler 2 a year ago. The talent of instrumental soloists on violin and piano is stunning today - earlier generations may have had Horowitz and Richter, but there are many players today who are technically fully their equal. We have conductors who have to be able to handle music from the 17th on to the most complex scores of the 21st - and many do it with aplomb. Recording techniques are at an astonishingly high level unimaginable to someone living in 1920 with a Victrola. There is more recorded music available than any one person can listen to in one lifetime. Who ever would have thought that you can sit in your armchair, crank up the volume and hear marvelous performances of any of the symphonies of Raff, Rubinstein, Schmidt, Bax and many more. Ok, there are weaknesses - singers. Long gone are the extraordinary voices of the '30s through '60s. I hope it changes...but a lot of those voices were the product of a teaching technique that is long lost I'm afraid. And audiences today are definitely inferior to what they used to be. People on this site are the extreme minority - we know and care about great music. The average concert goer doesn't - they're content to hear the Tchaikovsky 4th replayed ad naseum and would never bother giving a symphony of Roger Sessions a chance. When it comes to writing for symphonic ensembles I do think sometimes music has died. But there's a lot of excellent new music being written for choir, for wind ensembles, and other non-orchestral forces. And the press - what's left of it - has done a poor job of preserving CM. Just today, USA Today had a list of 100 songs to cheer you up in these troubled, virus-ridden days. It's a shame they couldn't find any great music, really good stuff, to make people feel better and offer some hope. But that's the world we live in. CM isn't dead, it's just changing rapidly and it's up to those of us who love it and care about to help. Buy cds, subscribe to streaming services, buy classical magazines, go to concerts, and play it loudly in your car stereo with the windows down!


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## larold (Jul 20, 2017)

Since Shostakovich died 1975 there has not been a classical music composer that could rank with the greatest composers in history in terms of quantity and quality of repertoire. 

Shostakovich wrote at least one opera in the standard repertory, he write violin and cello concertos of quality as good as any, he wrote concertos for piano of high quality, he wrote 15 symphonies of which at least a half-dozen are considered masterpieces and are played in concert and recorded regularly.

No composer since his death has written as many string quartets of high or masterpiece quality. He also wrote solo piano music, songs, chamber music, music for film and theater, and various other forms of music that are of high quality.

Since he died 1975 there has not been a classical music composer whose output in terms of quantity and quality comes close to this. That is now 45 years, a lifetime.

If looked at the other way, going backward in time 45 years from 1975 to 1930, you have all manner of master composers either alive or recently deceased: Richard Strauss, Edward Elgar, Prokofiev, Stravinsky and Sibelius as well as Schoenberg and the Second Viennese School. 

If you go back 45 more years to 1885 you have Brahms, Dvorak, Tchaikovsky, Mahler, Bruckner, Wagner and other late romantics.

If you go back another 45 years to 1840 you are in the midst of Romanticism with Grieg, Schumann, Mendelssohn and a lot of others. 

Another 45 years to 1795 puts you in the era of late Haydn, recently deceased Mozart and young Beethoven.

Another 45 years, 1750, just before Mozart is born, is the era of CPE Bach, Francesco Geminiani and Jean-Philippe Rameau in addition to Haydn.

Another 45 years back to 1705 is J.S. Bach, Vivaldi and Handel. 

Another 45 years back from that, 1660, is Henry Purcell. Palestrina, probably the first great composer, died 1594. This is how far back you have to go to find a period in classical music history when greatness wasn't common among composers. 

This is why some people think classical music essentially ended, or at a minimum changed dramatically for the worse, in 1975 -- because there hasn't been a 45-year drought like the one we are in for centuries.

If you doubt this all you have to do is list one composer from the period 1975-2020 who wrote an opera in the standard repertory, a violin and cello concerto as good as Beethoven's and Dvorak's, symphonies as good as Tchaikovsky's and Mahler's, piano concertos as good as Mozart's, string quartets as good as Haydn's and Beethoven's, etc.

Oh yes, the composer would had to have written them in quantity, also, not just a couple of anything except maybe opera.


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## norman bates (Aug 18, 2010)

Strange Magic said:


> It may regarded as the death of the Last of the Heavyweights,


I love Shostakhovich but there were many composers at least as great as him still alive after him.



Strange Magic said:


> a final hangover of the Soviet years and the years of World War II and shortly thereafter. The 1930s and 1940s saw a greater rise of popular knowledge of the existence of Russian music and composers in the West, with the exiles of Stravinsky, Prokofiev, and Rachmaninoff. Their music and their comings and goings became newsworthy among large swaths of the educated public, and, with the advent of the alliance with Soviet Russia, it became even more "OK" to be aware of their music, to hear it, to play it, and such composers joined the pantheon of great and important "international" composers alongside those somewhat recent contemporaries already in their graves such as Puccini, Debussy, Ravel--Beethoven, Brahms, Tchaikovsky, etc. having passed long before. I don't think contemporary English or American composers or the Serialists really counted in the popular mind (as opposed to the knowledgeable CM lover).


the funny thing is that Shostakhovic wanted to write something much more in a modern vein (like his last atonal symphonies), so if he was for him, probably the popular mind would have ignored him too even if he had wrote even better music.


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## Mandryka (Feb 22, 2013)

The sea is calm tonight.
The tide is full, the moon lies fair
Upon the straits; on the French coast the light
Gleams and is gone; the cliffs of England stand,
Glimmering and vast, out in the tranquil bay.
Come to the window, sweet is the night-air!
Only, from the long line of spray
Where the sea meets the moon-blanched land,
Listen! you hear the grating roar
Of pebbles which the waves draw back, and fling,
At their return, up the high strand,
Begin, and cease, and then again begin,
With tremulous cadence slow, and bring
The eternal note of sadness in.

Sophocles long ago
Heard it on the Ægean, and it brought
Into his mind the turbid ebb and flow
Of human misery; we
Find also in the sound a thought,
Hearing it by this distant northern sea.

The Sea of Faith
Was once, too, at the full, and round earth’s shore
Lay like the folds of a bright girdle furled.
But now I only hear
Its melancholy, long, withdrawing roar,
Retreating, to the breath
Of the night-wind, down the vast edges drear
And naked shingles of the world.

Ah, love, let us be true
To one another! for the world, which seems
To lie before us like a land of dreams,
So various, so beautiful, so new,
Hath really neither joy, nor love, nor light,
Nor certitude, nor peace, nor help for pain;
And we are here as on a darkling plain
Swept with confused alarms of struggle and flight,
Where ignorant armies clash by night.


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## bz3 (Oct 15, 2015)

DaveM said:


> Not just the end of a period of classical music: More and more, I think that classical music in the post-Shostakovich era (or even 2-3 decades earlier for that matter) -which would be now almost half a century- is almost irrelevant when it comes to keeping CM, as we have known it, alive. A significant amount -specifically avant-garde- does not even fall under what I consider to be the definition of classical music.
> 
> Classical music as it was known for 3+ centuries will continue to survive as a much-treasured niche and could do so without any programmed post-1975 classical music, alleged CM as some of it is. Post 1975 CM, alleged CM as some of it is, could not.
> 
> ...


Here's to hoping for a resurrection. I don't even bother to listen to newer classical except on the radio, and there they only play the more tuneful concoctions. I heard a newer piece that was allegedly in the mould of Bartok in a concert last year. It was dreadful.


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## Portamento (Dec 8, 2016)

The first thing we do to 'save' classical music is to ditch the term "classical." It is antiquated and gives a potential listener the wrong idea of what the music is about.

Secondly, we need to make a great effort to eliminate all classist associations that permeate our music -- no unspoken rules in concerts about when and when not to clap. Unfortunately, these associations have been there for centuries with composers working for royalty. Wagner's _Gesamtkunstwerk_ (higher synthesis) put into place divisions between "classical" music and everything else. Looking down upon popular forms has caused the same reaction towards classical music from popular musicians. Classical music became the bourgousie music, and popular music become the music of the people. This continued well into the 20th century: according to Elliott Schwartz, "Wuorinen... [saw] himself as the defender of high culture, holding the fort against the onslaught of popular music." Thankfully, the vast majority of composers working today are more than ready to engage with popular forms (as has been the tradition since Bach's chorales).

If all this can be done, then there is a chance of saving 'concert-hall music.'


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## Portamento (Dec 8, 2016)

You know, the funny thing is that if the experience of sitting in a concert hall didn't make so many people feel that they don't belong, post-1975 music would be a lot more popular. When I play a Xenakis piece to someone who is familiar with "classical" music, they usually grimace; when played to someone that hears only popular music, they are amazed by its chaotic nature and tribalistic energy. More often than not, they want to hear it again.


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## adriesba (Dec 30, 2019)

Fabulin said:


> Because of the death of Shostakovich?


I don't know, but I just came here to mention the death of Shostakovich. Plus, Stravinsky died around the same time.


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## PeterFromLA (Jul 22, 2011)

Well, Britten survived Shostakovich by a year, and for at least some (especially in Britain), he was a better "traditional" composer.

If you were to ask a music lover in, say, 1982, to name a living contemporary composer, certainly if they were in the US, they would likely say either Leonard Bernstein or Aaron Copland. Now, it's true that Copland and Bernstein were not nearly as prolific as Shostakovich, but if I had to hazard a guess, I believe more Americans would say they love Lenny and Aaron than would say they love Dmitri. (Soviet citizens would likely have said the converse, of course.)

As for composers who were at the peak of their powers at the time of Shostakovich's death, who survived him by some 15 to 20 or more years, I'd suggest the names Dutilleux, Lutoslawski, and Messiaen. These composers all wrote works for traditional western classical music groupings that are genuinely loved by passionate admirers and which leave them without a sense of yearning for the likes of Mr. Shostakovich. 

Just my two cents.


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## bz3 (Oct 15, 2015)

Portamento said:


> The first thing we do to 'save' classical music is to ditch the term "classical." It is antiquated and gives a potential listener the wrong idea of what the music is about.
> 
> Secondly, we need to make a great effort to eliminate all classist associations that permeate our music -- no unspoken rules in concerts about when and when not to clap. Unfortunately, these associations have been there for centuries with composers working for royalty. Wagner's _Gesamtkunstwerk_ (higher synthesis) put into place divisions between "classical" music and everything else. Looking down upon popular forms has caused the same reaction towards classical music from popular musicians. Classical music became the bourgousie music, and popular music become the music of the people. This continued well into the 20th century: according to Elliott Schwartz, "Wuorinen... [saw] himself as the defender of high culture, holding the fort against the onslaught of popular music." Thankfully, the vast majority of composers working today are more than ready to engage with popular forms (as has been the tradition since Bach's chorales).
> 
> If all this can be done, then there is a chance of saving 'concert-hall music.'


So all we have to do to save classical music is to change its name and change its form and content. I think I'd rather wait for a better solution.


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## Portamento (Dec 8, 2016)

bz3 said:


> So all we have to do to save classical music is to change its name and change its form and content. I think I'd rather wait for a better solution.


When did I suggest changing the music's form and content? If you're looking for a solution that _doesn't_ involve making CM less classist, then I think you're out of luck.


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## bz3 (Oct 15, 2015)

Portamento said:


> When did I suggest changing the music's form and content? If you're looking for a solution that _doesn't_ involve making CM less classist, then I think you're out of luck.


I'd rather cultivate the upper class than pauperize the highest form of musical arts in recorded human history. But I'm just one guy with one opinion.


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## Portamento (Dec 8, 2016)

bz3 said:


> I'd rather cultivate the upper class than pauperize the highest form of musical arts in recorded human history. But I'm just one guy with one opinion.


In my opinion, calling classical/concert-hall music the "highest form of musical arts in recorded human history" is dead wrong. It's elitist, and precisely the reason why so many have flocked to other genres (where they might be welcomed) instead. We-the CM community in general-seem to think that, since we notate everything, our music is the most sophisticated. Try notating the subtle inflections of an improvising saxophonist or the 'flow' of a rapper: you'll find that the result is just as complicated and multi-faceted as a typical classical work.


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## bz3 (Oct 15, 2015)

Portamento said:


> In my opinion, calling classical/concert-hall music the "highest form of musical arts in recorded human history" is dead wrong. It's elitist, and precisely the reason why so many have flocked to other genres (where they might be welcomed) instead. We-the CM community in general-seem to think that, since we notate everything, our music is the most sophisticated. Try notating the subtle inflections of an improvising saxophonist or the 'flow' of a rapper: you'll find that the result is just as complicated and multi-faceted as a typical classical work.


If you think saxophone noodling or, heaven forbid, rap music is 'just as complicated and multi-faceted' as typical classical music then I am not sure this discussion will bear further fruit. I disagree, and vigorously. Rap is not even music, it is retrograde art beneath even a McDonald's advertisement.


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## Mandryka (Feb 22, 2013)

DaveM said:


> The Masterpieces of 1945-Present thread has a number of works that are frankly in a category so remote from traditional CM as to deserve a totally separate category of music. Why one can declare that music without melody, harmony and structure -and which often consists of constant unresolved dissonance- is supposed to be under the CM umbrella continues to be beyond me. One explanation given is that some of it uses the piano and various orchestral instruments. Well, other categories of music eg. jazz and western use the piano and some orchestral instruments.


 I am sure you're wrong, there is plenty of music with melody, harmony, structure and even cadences. The thing that prompted me to respond was listening to Michael Finnissy's second string quartet this morning.


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## tdc (Jan 17, 2011)

I prefer the music of Joaquin Rodrigo (died in 1999) to Shostakovich. But, no I don't think 1999 marks the end of any particular period in classical music, nor does 1975.


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## DaveM (Jun 29, 2015)

Mandryka said:


> I am sure you're wrong, there is plenty of music with melody, harmony, structure and even cadences. The thing that prompted me to respond was listening to Michael Finnissy's second string quartet this morning.


Re-read my post. It didn't say that all works were without melody, harmony and structure. It said that _some_ of those selected as masterpieces were in that category and I'm sure you know some of them.


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## Portamento (Dec 8, 2016)

bz3 said:


> *Rap is not even music, it is retrograde art beneath even a McDonald's advertisement.*


This is an outrageous statement. Agreed, discussion over.


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## Portamento (Dec 8, 2016)

DaveM said:


> Re-read my post. It didn't say that all works were without melody, harmony and structure. It said that _some_ of those selected as masterpieces were in that category and I'm sure you know some of them.


Name me a selected masterpiece without melody, harmony, or structure.


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## Mandryka (Feb 22, 2013)

Portamento said:


> Name me a selected masterpiece without melody, harmony, or structure.


I don't know about masterpieces but I can name a piece which has inspired some musicians to make music which has stimulated me. John Cage Four4.


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## Portamento (Dec 8, 2016)

Correct me if I am wrong, but _Four4_ does have structure (albeit a minimal one) by using flexible time-brackets. In other words, it is not "free" improvisation like something Derek Bailey would do.


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## Mandryka (Feb 22, 2013)

Portamento said:


> Correct me if I am wrong, but _Four4_ does have structure (albeit a minimal one) by using flexible time-brackets. In other words, it is not "free" improvisation like something Derek Bailey would do.


There is a score, I'm not sure that means that there is a structure, even less so that a structure is perceivable by a listener.

Cage wrote some things about form and structure, and indeed anarchy, it's all very enigmatic. He said (I may be misquoting) that structure is a sequence of bridges from nowhere to nowhere. In my opinion it's up to the performer to stimulate the listener to create those bridges. A good performance of a piece of music which is a patchwork will make you feel some sort of inevitability.

Yesterday I listened to Beat Furrer's 3rd Quartet, I wonder if there's a structure there, but certainly I found myself sensing repetitions, maybe it was an illusion.


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## Guest002 (Feb 19, 2020)

Fabulin said:


> Because of the death of Shostakovich?


Well, the premise is faulty. Everyone knows that 197*6* was the end of a period in classical music. December 4th, to be specific.

The death of Benjamin Britten.

Just sayin'


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## mikeh375 (Sep 7, 2017)

dizwell said:


> Well, the premise is faulty. Everyone knows that 197*6* was the end of a period in classical music. December 4th, to be specific.
> 
> The death of Benjamin Britten.
> 
> Just sayin'


Just secondin'..........


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## Guest002 (Feb 19, 2020)

larold said:


> Since Shostakovich died 1975 there has not been a classical music composer that could rank with the greatest composers in history in terms of quantity and quality of repertoire.
> 
> Shostakovich wrote at least one opera in the standard repertory, he write violin and cello concertos of quality as good as any, he wrote concertos for piano of high quality, he wrote 15 symphonies of which at least a half-dozen are considered masterpieces and are played in concert and recorded regularly.


Oh go on then...

Britten wrote at least one symphony in the standard repertoire. He wrote piano and violin concertos of quality as good as any. He wrote cello 'works' of high quality. He wrote 15 operas of which at least 9 are considered masterpieces and are played in opera houses and recorded regularly...



larold said:


> No composer since his death has written as many string quartets of high or masterpiece quality. He also wrote solo piano music, songs, chamber music, music for film and theater, and various other forms of music that are of high quality.


Britten died after Shostakovich. So, yes, since his death, a composer lived who wrote many string quartets of high or masterpiece quality. He also wrote solo piano music, songs, chamber music, music for film and theatre (and radio) and various other forms of music that are of high quality...



larold said:


> Since he died 1975 there has not been a classical music composer whose output in terms of quantity and quality comes close to this.


Again, for more than a year 'since he died in 1975', there lived a classical music composer whose output in terms of quantity and quality quite possibly surpasses that of Shostakovich. As Dmitri himself said to Ben, "_You_, _great composer_ - _me little composer". _Though as Britten wrote on hearing of Shostakovich's death in return, "_Shostakovich was the greatest composer that I shall ever have the honour to know_".

I am only joshing with your original post a little. I'm just trying to point out that Shostakovich was not the last great composer to die. If not Britten, then Tippet. Or Takemitsu. Or Górecki. Or Ligetti. None of those may be to your _taste_, of course, and that's entirely fine. But to seek to define an end of an era because someone whose music accords with your taste died is ...er, taking things a little too far, imho.


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## Nereffid (Feb 6, 2013)

I'm reluctant to wade into this one, having tried and failed to start a similar discussion here a couple of years ago. But anyway...



DaveM said:


> Not just the end of a period of classical music: More and more, I think that classical music in the post-Shostakovich era (or even 2-3 decades earlier for that matter) -which would be now almost half a century- is almost irrelevant when it comes to keeping CM, as we have known it, alive. A significant amount -specifically avant-garde- does not even fall under what I consider to be the definition of classical music.


I disagree with the latter part of this paragraph, but I think DaveM is right to push the date back a few decades. To my mind, 1960 seems like a reasonable demarcation line. It's not so much the end of a period in music, as a change in public perception. Many years ago I was putting together a big playlist for someone, a chronological guide to classical music, and it struck me that it was easy to pick out "popular classics" for most years until the 1950s. We listened to Shostakovich's 2nd piano concerto (1957) and then I joked, "and that's the end of classical music". Not true, of course, but there's certainly a dearth of music that's well-liked by both discerning listeners and the general public. Which isn't to say there's a dearth of good music. There's a _ton_ of music that's well-liked by discerning listeners, but the general public isn't interested in it.


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## Guest002 (Feb 19, 2020)

Portamento said:


> In my opinion, calling classical/concert-hall music the "highest form of musical arts in recorded human history" is dead wrong. It's elitist, and precisely the reason why so many have flocked to other genres (where they might be welcomed) instead. We-the CM community in general-seem to think that, since we notate everything, our music is the most sophisticated. Try notating the subtle inflections of an improvising saxophonist or the 'flow' of a rapper: you'll find that the result is just as complicated and multi-faceted as a typical classical work.


You are right that classical music is the only _literate_ form of music, in that it's notated and written down, not improvised.

The Beatles didn't write their music down. They improvised it, perhaps writing down some chord progressions, and after they'd recorded the work, they paid someone to transcribe it, so they could sell the sheet music. Thus,when George Martin was writing down the melody of 'A Hard Day's Night', which is in G, and in the line 'And I've been working like a dog', he couldn't figure out what note Lennon was singing. One could characterise it as an untempered F. Martin asked Lennon if it was E or F, and Lennon replied 'Yeah, one of those.' He went with F.

Now, writing things down maybe doesn't inevitably make them more subtle or complicated or multi-faceted. Doodling, I'm looking at you! But it surely means it's likely to be rather more thought-through music than that produced by a guy who doesn't even know what note he's singing -and seemingly, couldn't really care about it anyway. And that extra level of thought is surely discernible and tangible in classical music to the exclusion of other music forms.

Thus, I can see why a saxophonist's improvisations are music (just as Bach's organ improvisations must have been). As someone who has happily played in a Balinese gamelan orchestra, I would regard _that_ as musical art of a very high order, too (and it's bloody hard to concentrate on all the counting!) I can also see why you could call a rapper's 'work' music (though it's essentially rhythm without the harmony or melody, which means it's missing two thirds of the things we usually associate with music of any sort, but let that slide for now).

So, it's certainly _possible_ for non-literate music to be complex and subtle and multi-faceted. It's just that if it is, it's a bonus. Whereas, if classical music lacks those attributes, it's swiftly regarded as not very good classical music. In other words, classical music is _inherently_ more complex than non-literate forms of music because that's what writing things down does for you. It's why Charles Dickens or Jane Austen are inherently more complex than the Aborigine Dream Time legends that have been passed down for thousands of years by oral tradition.

I think if we ignore the complexity and subtlety and multi-faceted-ness that can arise by dint of writing things down, we've missed something very fundamental about classical music that is only sometimes, and incidentally, possibly true of other music types.


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## elgar's ghost (Aug 8, 2010)

I think Benjamin Britten was a sufficiently significant figure - he didn't have quite the monumental status that Shostakovich enjoyed (or had foisted upon him) but it's not as if Britten's popularity was restricted to the UK alone. By the time of Britten's death the UK still had William Walton from the old guard - he was eleven years older than Britten and four years older than Shostakovich but he had pretty much wound down his career by then (he wasn't exactly prolific in the first place) whereas in their final years both Britten and Shostakovich were as active as their respective heath problems allowed. 

So for those who think that the deaths of Britten and Shostakovich were equally noteworthy why not compromise and say 1975-76.


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## Guest002 (Feb 19, 2020)

elgars ghost said:


> I think Benjamin Britten was a sufficiently significant figure - he didn't have quite the monumental status that Shostakovich enjoyed (or had foisted upon him) but it's not as if Britten's popularity was restricted to the UK alone. By the time of Britten's death the UK still had William Walton from the old guard - he was eleven years older than Britten and four years older than Shostakovich but he had pretty much wound down his career by then (he wasn't exactly prolific in the first place) whereas in their final years both Britten and Shostakovich were as active as their respective heath problems allowed.
> 
> So for those who think that the deaths of Britten and Shostakovich were equally noteworthy why not compromise and say 1975-76.


Because Bernstein. Copland. Tippet. Ligetti. Messiaen. And on and on.

It is the destiny of every musical generation to think they are worse off in some way than their forebears. Get back to me in 2140 and let's have a discussion about whether 1975-6 was signficant as the end-marker of anything much.


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## elgar's ghost (Aug 8, 2010)

I wasn't saying that 75-76 _was_ the definitive cut-off, but if anyone does think that Shostakovich's death is the final word then I was suggesting that Britten's inclusion in the equation is valid.


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## Guest002 (Feb 19, 2020)

elgars ghost said:


> I wasn't saying that 75-76 _was_ the definitive cut-off, but if anyone does think that Shostakovich's death is the final word then I was suggesting that Britten's inclusion in the equation is valid.


But I'm pointing out the logical absurdity of that position.

If anyone does think that Shostakovich's death is the final word, then it's either the final word or it isn't. You cannot meaningfully say, "It ends with Shostakovich... and that other guy" unless you also allow "Oh, and that one too, and that other one, and him, and him. Oh, go on then, him too".

And if one permits the addition of anyone other than Shostakovich then, logically, the initial assertion that Shostakovich's death was the final word on anything is clearly null and void.


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## elgar's ghost (Aug 8, 2010)

Fair enough - I'll crawl back under my stone now.


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## Guest002 (Feb 19, 2020)

elgars ghost said:


> Fair enough - I'll crawl back under my stone now.


I am unsure what that comment implies, but I'm inferring from it that I've offended you in some way. In which case, I apologise. But I was saying the _argument_ was a logical absurdity, not that you were being absurd.

True story that will perhaps put things into perspective.

When at Uni, my Dean of Chapel (also a renowned scholar of Norman history) once laughed at me when I mentioned I was studying the Vietnam War for my history degree. He said, "Anything after 1236 is current affairs".

The musical equivalent is, I think, to suggest that 1750, or 1791, or 1827, or 1883, or 1910, or ... or 1975 marks the boundary of something.

Everything after 1236 is just pop music, really.


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## Fabulin (Jun 10, 2019)

Nereffid said:


> I'm reluctant to wade into this one, having tried and failed to start a similar discussion here a couple of years ago. But anyway...
> 
> I disagree with the latter part of this paragraph, but I think DaveM is right to push the date back a few decades. To my mind, 1960 seems like a reasonable demarcation line. It's not so much the end of a period in music, as a change in public perception. Many years ago I was putting together a big playlist for someone, a chronological guide to classical music, and it struck me that it was easy to pick out "popular classics" for most years until the 1950s. We listened to Shostakovich's 2nd piano concerto (1957) and then I joked, "and that's the end of classical music". Not true, of course, but there's certainly a dearth of music that's well-liked by both discerning listeners and the general public. Which isn't to say there's a dearth of good music. There's a _ton_ of music that's well-liked by discerning listeners, but the general public isn't interested in it.





Fabulin said:


> I had the same thought today, of an end of a certain era, with the death of Korngold in 1957


Could you link that thread? I would be interested in reading it.


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## Nereffid (Feb 6, 2013)

Fabulin said:


> Could you link that thread? I would be interested in reading it.


"Classical music" came to an end 60 years ago

The crucial point, which very few people seemed to pick up on, was that I was talking about _popular perceptions of, and interest in, classical music_, not about classical music per se.


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## larold (Jul 20, 2017)

_Name me a selected masterpiece without melody, harmony, or structure._

I've asked similar questions relentlessly to certain people; it is rarely answered. I'm unsure if Ligeti's Lux Aeterna and Atmospheres have structure; I've never seen the scores and couldn't find them at ISMLP. Clearly they are masterful works of music in a sound world beyond melody.


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## larold (Jul 20, 2017)

The 1975 question doesn't just apply to classical music, I believe. If you look at film it has declined in quality since the 1970s. I think that is probably true for literature as well. I don't know enough about painting, sculpture and similar art forms to make judgment on those.

I also know musical theater and architecture are two art forms that have continued to thrive in the 21st century. People still build skyscrapers and music theater continues to crank out hit after hit that draws living, breathing customers to theaters on and off Broadway.

I have found the diminution trend of classical music even more disturbing in this century than the late 20th. I am beginning to wonder, in a world where handheld devices can do anything for anyone at any moment, if we even need this kind of art any longer.

We used to need art to elevate ourselves from our mundane existence. I continue to wonder if our gadgetry has diminished the artistic impulse so greatly that we even need it anymore.

I know writers and filmmakers and they are driven by their art forms to make new products -- but they freely admit the greatest joy is in the creation, the process, not the final product. They do it for themselves, not for an audience.

As it relates to classical music I have said repeatedly the difference between it through about 1930 and before was the invention or playback technology anyone could own for a price. This meant a time existed, that had never existed before, where composers did not have to satisfy audiences to have their music performed. They could have it performed on recordings. 

To me this made a lot of music that is neither tonal nor harmonic possible. And we know the world is a big enough place that most things will eventually find a niche or a market or an "audience."


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## larold (Jul 20, 2017)

I would say there is one form of "classical" music that has expanded in both quality and quantity since 1975 -- film music. Perhaps the greatest artists ever in that format were active since 1945 -- Jerry Goldsmith, Bernard Herrmann and Mikos Rosza just to name three.

The kicker is you have to accept film scores, and elongated scores available on recordings, as 'classical' music. And the irony that film declined in quality while its music got better.


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## larold (Jul 20, 2017)

_"Classical music" came to an end 60 years ago...The crucial point, which very few people seemed to pick up on, was that I was talking about popular perceptions of, and interest in, classical music, not about classical music per se._

I'd say the two are the same, not different. If there is no or little interest in an art form it loses relevance -- exactly what has happened to classical music.


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## DaveM (Jun 29, 2015)

Portamento said:


> Name me a selected masterpiece without melody, harmony, or structure.


What, you couldn't find any? Stockhausen Kontakte.


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## AeolianStrains (Apr 4, 2018)

DaveM said:


> What, you couldn't find any? Stockhausen Kontakte.


Kontakte has structure.


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## Mandryka (Feb 22, 2013)

Whether there's a structure in the music or not doesn't seem to me to be a very interesting question. Structure matters because it guides the listener, the patterns and the relief give the listener some events to latch on to. The interesting question is whether there's _perceivable _structure. The idea that all or most major pieces of recent music have no perceivable structure is utter nonsense!

Something early by Boulez -- my favourite example is Notations 1a -- has some sort of structure. It is certainly not random. It's just that it's not possibly to hear it. That's why he very rapidly gave up composing that sort of stuff.


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## DaveM (Jun 29, 2015)

AeolianStrains said:


> Kontakte has structure.


I just knew someone would come back with that. Desperation time.


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## Mandryka (Feb 22, 2013)

DaveM said:


> Desperation time.


Well it does have a structure! What's your problem exactly?


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## DaveM (Jun 29, 2015)

Mandryka said:


> Well it does have a structure! What's your problem exactly?


It may have structure of a form of music that involves a series of noises which have no relationship to those that came before. The work may even be a masterpiece of a form of music consisting of a series of noises (bloop-bloop-bloop-ding-ding-ding etc.). (I wouldn't know since my experience is with classical music.)

It doesn't have the structure of classical music where there is a line that moves from a melodic theme often through a development towards an eventual resolution. The latter is a carefully constructed structure peculiar to classical music that requires an educated skill. Perhaps you're unclear about that since you've (according to you) eliminated the entire 19th century from your listening.


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## Mandryka (Feb 22, 2013)

DaveM said:


> It may have structure of a form of music that involves a series of noises which have no relationship to those that came before. The work may even be a masterpiece of a a form of music consisting of a series of noises (bloop-bloop-bloop-ding-ding-ding etc.). (I wouldn't know since my experience is with classical music.)
> 
> It doesn't have the structure of classical music where there is a line that moves from a melodic theme often through a development towards an eventual resolution.


 Let's call music like kontakte Shclassical music. You think that shclassical music essentially a different kind of thing from classical music. That when someone says "Kontakte is classical music" they're wrong like when someone says that copper is gold.

Is that right?


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## AeolianStrains (Apr 4, 2018)

DaveM said:


> I just knew someone would come back with that. Desperation time.


I also question whether it's a) music or b) a masterpiece, but there's no arguing its structure. Stockhausen himself argued vehemently for its structure.


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## Mandryka (Feb 22, 2013)

AeolianStrains said:


> I also question whether it's a) music or b) a masterpiece, but there's no arguing its structure. Stockhausen himself argued vehemently for its structure, so you're seriously projecting to call it desperation.


He knows it has a structure. But he doesn't want to say that it's classical music because it's not the right kind of structure, and it doesn't use the right kind of sounds.


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## Mandryka (Feb 22, 2013)

Here's a review of Strauss's Salome from New-York Tribune, August 1906



> . . . the music is
> unexampled lunacy. It can scarcely be called music at all-a chaos of 103
> instruments playing in different keys at the same time, while the singers
> sing-beg pardon, screech-in other keys. It is interesting, but very little
> of it is beautiful. The subject is repulsive-perverse.


The author of this review stands to Salome as David stands to Kontakte I guess.


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## AeolianStrains (Apr 4, 2018)

Mandryka said:


> He knows it has a structure. But he doesn't want to say that it's classical music because it's not the right kind of structure, and it doesn't use the right kind of sounds.


But is it Classical music? What makes it "Classical"? What makes it music?


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## Mandryka (Feb 22, 2013)

And here's one of Beethoven 9 from The Quarterly Music Magazine and Review



> the darning boisterous jollity of the concluding part, wherein, besides the usual allotment of triangles, drums, trumpets, &c. dtc. all the known acoustical missile instruments I should conceive were employed, with the assistance of their able allies, the corps of Sfornndos, Crescendos, Accelerandos, and many other os, that they made even the very ground shake under us, and would, with their fearful uproar, have been sufficiently penetrating to call up from their peaceful graves (if such things were permitted) the revered shades of Tallis, Purcell, and Gibbons, and even of Handel and Mozart, to witness and deplore the obstreperous roarings of modern frenzy in their art. . . .
> 
> . . . [the] elegance, purity, and propriety, as principles of our art, have been gradually yielding
> with the altered manners of the times to multifarious and superficial accomplishments,
> ...


This correspondent stands to Beethoven 9 as David stands to Kontakte I think.


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## Mandryka (Feb 22, 2013)

AeolianStrains said:


> But is it Classical music? What makes it "Classical"? What makes it music?


Whatever it is that makes Salome and Beethoven 9 music and classical I guess.


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## Nereffid (Feb 6, 2013)

larold said:


> _"Classical music" came to an end 60 years ago...The crucial point, which very few people seemed to pick up on, was that I was talking about popular perceptions of, and interest in, classical music, not about classical music per se._
> 
> I'd say the two are the same, not different. If there is no or little interest in an art form it loses relevance -- exactly what has happened to classical music.


Popular perceptions of, and interest in, classical music = "Moonlight" sonata
Classical music per se = "Hammerklavier" sonata

The general public's interest in classical music has always been tangential to the dedicated classical listener's interest.


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## flamencosketches (Jan 4, 2019)

Mandryka said:


> And here's one of Beethoven 9 from The Quarterly Music Magazine and Review
> 
> This correspondent stands to Beethoven 9 as David stands to Kontakte I think.


It's so interesting reading comments like that from centuries ago, and then realizing that some things never change. Conservative people still continue with the exact same rhetoric as always when denouncing contemporary music, ie. it's not music, why doesn't this follow the rules of the great composers of the past, etc. Kind of hilarious, really.


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## DaveM (Jun 29, 2015)

Mandryka said:


> He knows it has a structure. But he doesn't want to say that it's classical music because it's not the right kind of structure, and it doesn't use the right kind of sounds.


Yes, that's pretty close. I would go so far to say that a good melodic pop song is closer to classical music than the Stockhausen work.

Fwiw, my perspective on this subject has changed from the past: my issue now is people trying to fit the square peg of these kinds of works into the round hole of what we have known as classical music for 300+ years. I emphasize now that they may be wonderful works for some people and the more power to people who love them...but as a totally different genre of music.


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## flamencosketches (Jan 4, 2019)

DaveM said:


> Yes, that's pretty close. I would go so far to say that a good melodic pop song is closer to classical music than the Stockhausen work.
> 
> Fwiw, my perspective on this subject has changed from the past: my issue now is people trying to fit the square peg of these kinds of works into the round hole of what we have known as classical music for 300+ years. I emphasize now that they may be wonderful works for some people and the more power to people who love them...but as a totally different genre of music.


And what do you have to say to those of us who love Mozart and Stockhausen, and _hear_ the continuity from one to the other?


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## Mandryka (Feb 22, 2013)

DaveM said:


> Fwiw, my perspective on this subject has changed from the past: my issue now is people trying to fit the square peg of these kinds of works into the round hole of what we have known as classical music for 300+ years. I emphasize now that they may be wonderful works for some people and the more power to people who love them...but as a totally different genre of music.


Yes, I can understand where you're coming from.

I suppose we'll have to see how people use the expression "classical music" , whether they use it in a way which includes Kontakte or not. I'm not sure whether you'll agree with that . . .


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## Mandryka (Feb 22, 2013)

flamencosketches said:


> It's so interesting reading comments like that from centuries ago, and then realizing that some things never change. Conservative people still continue with the exact same rhetoric as always when denouncing contemporary music, ie. it's not music, why doesn't this follow the rules of the great composers of the past, etc. Kind of hilarious, really.


The structure of their arguments are _prima facie_ similar.

1. There are properties which have been present in classical music of the past.
2. These properties are absent in Salome and Beethoven 9 and Kontakte
SO
3. Salome and Beethoven 9 and Kontakte are not classical music

In the case of Salome and Beethoven 9, they were wrong. And they were wrong because the community of speakers decided to include them as classical music. They decided that the properties of ugliness, impropriety etc which the critics averted too were irrelevant. The concept of classical music was extended.

My real point is that, whether something is classical music is a human thing, it is determined by human practices. Not some internal property of the music.


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## DaveM (Jun 29, 2015)

Mandryka said:


> Yes, I can understand where you're coming from.
> 
> I suppose we'll have to see how people use the expression "classical music" , whether they use it in a way which includes Kontakte or not. I'm not sure whether you'll agree with that . . .


That may be the main issue. I think that it has become convenient for people who like this music to call it classical music because it does not have the widespread support/foundation -or so it seems- to declare it as a different genre. That might not be as big a problem if its supporters were realistic/honest about how different this music is, but on this forum some of these works are said to be masterpieces of classical music. So Kontakte is up there with Beethoven's 9th? That's a problem. (It might be a masterpiece of a different genre of music. I can't say.)


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## larold (Jul 20, 2017)

_"Classical music" came to an end 60 years ago_...

That premise also says this:

And now here are the 10 most popular works since 1960:
Ungar: The Ashokan Farewell
Jenkins: The Armed Man - A Mass for Peace
Shore: The Lord of the Rings
Górecki: Symphony no. 3
Williams: Schindler's List
Pärt: Spiegel im Spiegel
Morricone: The Mission (Gabriel's Oboe)
Einaudi: Le Onde
Williams: Star Wars
Jenkins: Adiemus (Songs of Sanctuary)

I find this very difficult to believe.


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## Mandryka (Feb 22, 2013)

DaveM said:


> That may be the main issue. I think that it has become convenient for people who like this music to call it classical music because it does not have the widespread support/foundation -or so it seems- to declare it as a different genre. That might not be as big a problem if its supporters were realistic/honest about how different this music is, but on this forum some of these works are said to be masterpieces of classical music. So Kontakte is up there with Beethoven's 9th? That's a problem. (It might be a masterpiece of a different genre of music. I can't say.)


Yes, well I don't know what to make of talk of "up there with" and "masterpiece" It's not that I'm saying that these concepts are incoherent, I'm just not sure.

Thanks, by the way, for taking the trouble to explain your ideas to me. They're very interesting ideas.


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## DaveM (Jun 29, 2015)

Mandryka said:


> Yes, well I don't know what to make of talk of "up there with" and "masterpiece" It's not that I'm saying that these concepts are incoherent, I'm just not sure.
> 
> Thanks, by the way, for taking the trouble to explain your ideas to me. They're very interesting ideas.


Well, we're communicating non-confrontationally on a subject that often becomes confrontational. That's a good thing.


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## mmsbls (Mar 6, 2011)

Mandryka said:


> The structure of their arguments are _prima facie_ similar.
> 
> 1. There are properties which have been present in classical music of the past.
> 2. These properties are absent in Salome and Beethoven 9 and Kontakte
> ...


I agree 100% with the bolded part. One can easily say that Kontakte is not written in the style of common practice tonality, and that would be true. But the classical music community includes Stockhausen as a classical composer. The Naxos Music Library includes him, arkivmusic.com includes him, Tom Service at The Guardian writes about him is his _Guide to Contemporary Classical Music_, Dubal includes him in his _The Essential Canon of Classical Music_, classical-music.com includes him, classical.net includes him, and the world's premiere classical music authority, TalkClassical, includes him.

So classical music is not defined by some rigorous set of specifications. It grows to include what people view very generally as Art Music.


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## DaveM (Jun 29, 2015)

mmsbls said:


> I agree 100% with the bolded part. One can easily say that Kontakte is not written in the style of common practice tonality, and that would be true. But the classical music community includes Stockhausen as a classical composer. The Naxos Music Library includes him, arkivmusic.com includes him, Tom Service at The Guardian writes about him is his _Guide to Contemporary Classical Music_, Dubal includes him in his _The Essential Canon of Classical Music_, classical-music.com includes him, classical.net includes him, and the world's premiere classical music authority, TalkClassical, includes him.
> 
> So classical music is not defined by some rigorous set of specifications. It grows to include what people view very generally as Art Music.


Kontakte is not written in the style of atonal/serial music either. Anyway, I await the renaming of TC to Talk Art Music.


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## chu42 (Aug 14, 2018)

flamencosketches said:


> It's so interesting reading comments like that from centuries ago, and then realizing that some things never change. Conservative people still continue with the exact same rhetoric as always when denouncing contemporary music, ie. it's not music, why doesn't this follow the rules of the great composers of the past, etc. Kind of hilarious, really.


I think you will greatly enjoy the book "Lexicon of Musical Invective" if you do not already own it; illustrates this point perfectly.


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## Portamento (Dec 8, 2016)

This discussion is proof of why the term "classical music" is a bad one. "Non-vernacular music" is wordy but gets the job done.

Here's to Talk Non-Vernacular! :cheers:


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## mmsbls (Mar 6, 2011)

DaveM said:


> Kontakte is not written in the style of atonal/serial music either. Anyway, I await the renaming of TC to Talk Art Music.


Classical music is simply a name for a broad type of music. In physics there's a subatomic particle called the charm quark. The particle has nothing to do with charm. That's just its name. Classical music doesn't have to be related to things that are classical. It's a term for a very broad type of music - Medieval through today. Medieval is not much like Classical era music, and Baroque is not much like Varese. They are all classical music.

Yes, we get that some modern and contemporary music is really different from Baroque or Romantic music. Some sounds horrible to large groups of people including some who adore earlier classical music. Why is it so important to challenge the use of a term that is used by music schools, by those who study music for a living, in orchestral settings, and by highly trained musicians. Why change it? It's just a name that everyone uses.

What difference does it make that people call Hildegard von Bingen's Ordo Virtutum, Schumann's Piano Concerto, and Stockhausen's Kontakte all classical music?


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## flamencosketches (Jan 4, 2019)

Portamento said:


> This discussion is proof of why the term "classical music" is a bad one. "Non-vernacular music" is wordy but gets the job done.
> 
> Here's to Talk Non-Vernacular! :cheers:


That's the worst one I've heard yet :lol: I hope that we can all agree that classical music ought not to be defined by what it is _not_.


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## KenOC (Mar 7, 2011)

Simple. Classical music is the stuff people who like classical music like. :lol: Or at least argue about...


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## AeolianStrains (Apr 4, 2018)

mmsbls said:


> Classical music is simply a name for a broad type of music. In physics there's a subatomic particle called the charm quark. The particle has nothing to do with charm. That's just its name. Classical music doesn't have to be related to things that are classical. It's a term for a very broad type of music - Medieval through today. Medieval is not much like Classical era music, and Baroque is not much like Varese. They are all classical music.
> 
> Yes, we get that some modern and contemporary music is really different from Baroque or Romantic music. Some sounds horrible to large groups of people including some who adore earlier classical music. Why is it so important to challenge the use of a term that is used by music schools, by those who study music for a living, in orchestral settings, and by highly trained musicians. Why change it? It's just a name that everyone uses.
> 
> What difference does it make that people call Hildegard von Bingen's Ordo Virtutum, Schumann's Piano Concerto, and Stockhausen's Kontakte all classical music?


Genres are inherently arbitrary, but they should serve a purpose. When we include both Dufay, Xenakis, and Einaudi, we no longer have a useful name for that genre. Why include Kontakte but not Hoffman's Music out of the Moon or Kraftwerk? Why not Charlie Parker or Miles Davis?

It's because Classical Music isn't a genre at all. It's an umbrella term describing precisely what flamencosketches doesn't want it to describe: it's everything that pop music doesn't describe. It's high art v. low art with jazz forming a weird middle ground. There is no substantial connection between Dufay and Xenakis except neither composed pop songs and both are talked about here and by other art specialists.


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## mmsbls (Mar 6, 2011)

AeolianStrains said:


> Genres are inherently arbitrary, but they should serve a purpose. When we include both Dufay, Xenakis, and Einaudi, we no longer have a useful name for that genre. Why include Kontakte but not Hoffman's Music out of the Moon or Kraftwerk? Why not Charlie Parker or Miles Davis?
> 
> It's because Classical Music isn't a genre at all. It's an umbrella term describing precisely what flamencosketches doesn't want it to describe: it's everything that pop music doesn't describe. It's high art v. low art with jazz forming a weird middle ground. *There is no substantial connection between Dufay and Xenakis except neither composed pop songs and both are talked about here and by other art specialists*.


I agree completely.


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## DaveM (Jun 29, 2015)

*-*



mmsbls said:


> Classical music is simply a name for a broad type of music. In physics there's a subatomic particle called the charm quark. The particle has nothing to do with charm. That's just its name. Classical music doesn't have to be related to things that are classical. It's a term for a very broad type of music - Medieval through today. Medieval is not much like Classical era music, and Baroque is not much like Varese. They are all classical music.
> 
> Yes, we get that some modern and contemporary music is really different from Baroque or Romantic music. Some sounds horrible to large groups of people including some who adore earlier classical music. Why is it so important to challenge the use of a term that is used by music schools, by those who study music for a living, in orchestral settings, and by highly trained musicians. Why change it? It's just a name that everyone uses.
> 
> What difference does it make that people call Hildegard von Bingen's Ordo Virtutum, Schumann's Piano Concerto, and Stockhausen's Kontakte all classical music?


For one thing, it feels like someone is peeing on my leg and telling me it's raining.  Regarding your charm quark analogy, here's mine: Everyone knows what a bird is. If you remove the wings and the feathers, is it still a bird?

I don't contest the facts about music schools etc. There are reasons for that that go back several years. I don't understand it -well I do and I don't- and I don't support it. I have no interest in beating a dead horse, but threads with this kind of OP open the door to the discussion.


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## KenOC (Mar 7, 2011)

The question: "Why do some people consider 1975 an end of a period in classical music?"

Since it was a post of mine in another thread that likely prompted this thread, let me be more exact. 1975 was the end of classical music. Not just a period, but the whole shebang. Time to move on.


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## mmsbls (Mar 6, 2011)

DaveM said:


> For one thing, it feels like someone is peeing on my leg and telling me it's raining.  Regarding your charm quark analogy, here's mine: Everyone knows what a bird is. If you remove the wings and the feathers, is it still a bird?
> 
> I don't contest the facts about music schools etc. There are reasons for that that go back several years. I don't understand it -well I do and I don't- and I don't support it. I have no interest in beating a dead horse, but threads with this kind of OP open the door to the discussion.


First, I want to make sure we're arguing the same issue. Do you object to the specific term "classical" in classical music or do you object to tossing such disparate music together into a single category? If you would be happy to have people use the term "art music" to apply to all the music I have referred to (Medieval through Contemporary), then we are arguing separate things. My daughter tells me her musician friends do generally use the term "art music" more than "classical music", but they use it to refer to the wide variety of music I include. So if you object simply to "classical", then I have no problem with that. I use "classical" because essentially everyone else does, and it would be hard to change the name of the term.


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## Lisztian (Oct 10, 2011)

I simply see it as tradition based. Where did the composers come from and what influenced the compositions they wrote? 'Classical music' refers to the tradition stretching back into medieval times to the present day. There are various roads, offshoots, 'schools', etc...and loads of variety/innovation. In the modern age the speed of change accelerated, due to information from all over the world becoming accessible, but that doesn't mean the music comes from a different tradition.

Stockhausen, for example, was heavily influenced by Webern, Messiaen, and the possibilities of electronics in music (which was a topic of interest for many composers from the Classical tradition). Webern was influenced by Schoenberg and Renaissance polyphony, Messiaen by 'colorful' composers like Debussy, Chopin, Stravinsky, etc. Stockhausen in particular was extremely innovative apart from that 'base,' but so were many composers in the past, such as Wagner, Beethoven, C.P.E Bach, Monteverdi, Berlioz, Stravinsky, etc.

So why would we draw the line at someone like Stockhausen? Is it because he exploited electronics? Is it because he innovated heavily based on what some already consider to be only somewhat 'classical?' Is it because he frequently left a lot of creativity to the performer of his works? Some further questions based on these: as far as electronics, does this mean that Messiaen is suddenly not 'Classical' when he writes parts for the Ondes Martenot? Is Mozart not classical because he gives the performer the opportunity to improvise cadenzas?


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## flamencosketches (Jan 4, 2019)

DaveM said:


> For one thing, it feels like someone is peeing on my leg and telling me it's raining.  Regarding your charm quark analogy, here's mine: Everyone knows what a bird is. If you remove the wings and the feathers, is it still a bird?
> 
> I don't contest the facts about music schools etc. There are reasons for that that go back several years. I don't understand it -well I do and I don't- and I don't support it. I have no interest in beating a dead horse, but threads with this kind of OP open the door to the discussion.


Of course it is... it's a bird whose wings and feathers have been removed.


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## Mandryka (Feb 22, 2013)

A bird is a natural kind. It has an essence, its DNA. Scientists will be able to tell you the difference between a bird and a lizard in terms of its DNA. That's why it remains a bird when its feathers are removed -- its DNA remains. 

I believe David thinks music is like that. Classical music, he says, has an essence, the essence is that it's thematic and the themes are varied in certain ways and that it's constructed from sounds with determinate pitch. He believes this because those three things are a common trait of all classical music between 1975 (lets say) 1775. Apologies if I've put words in your mouth, David, I know you're able to correct me if I'm wrong. 

I'm proposing that classical music doesn't have an essence. Rather it's a concept which arises (in some as yet unspecified way!) from the practice of people calling certain sounds "classical music" 

In my view "Classical music" is like "game" -- there are all sorts of games, not much in common apart from the fact that people call them games. If people decide to call Super Mario Kart or Pokemon Go a game, so be it. If people start to call Kotakte classical music, so be it.


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## Fabulin (Jun 10, 2019)

The problem with name appropriation resulting from a broadening of a name meaning is that it forces a creation of a new name for the original concept that has been bearing it.

If someone complains that there is no (or little) great music like the masterpieces of Wagner, Mozart, Beethoven, Mendelssohn, or Mahler that has been written over the last few decades, he/she will be asked to get rid of their annoying "taste", and consume something else instead.

If you ask why, you will be told "Yes, there are, just extremely / completely different!".

The aknowledgement of certain phenomena becomes banished by linguistical means. This is totalitarian.


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## flamencosketches (Jan 4, 2019)

Fabulin said:


> The aknowledgement of certain phenomena becomes banished by linguistical means. *This is totalitarian.*


OK, that's just being overly dramatic. There's no Modern Music gestapo that's going to disappear you for listening to Mahler.


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## Allegro Con Brio (Jan 3, 2020)

Fabulin said:


> The problem with name appropriation resulting from a broadening of a name meaning is that it forces a creation of a new name for the original concept that has been bearing it.
> 
> If someone complains that there is no (or little) great music like the masterpieces of Wagner, Mozart, Beethoven, Mendelssohn, or Mahler that has been written over the last few decades, he/she will be asked to get rid of their annoying "taste", and consume something else instead.
> 
> ...


Contemporary classical music, including avant-gardism, electronic music, "concept music" like Cage, and everything in between; must be considered part of the classical tradition. If not, what else does it belong to? Stockhausen was influenced by Boulez, who was influenced by the 2nd Viennese School, who were influenced by the late Romantics, etc. You can't just say that Boulez or Stockhausen started his own separate thing in a totally different genre. It's a natural flow and progression from one to the other. I think those who say it's not "classical" are just projecting their own dislike onto it. I have liked some of the (limited!) exposure to contemporary classical I've had, and I really dislike electronic stuff, but for me it's pretty clear that's it's part of the classical/Art Music/whatever you want to call it tradition.

On the other hand, within the avant-garde movement, I can sometimes detect elitist sentiments like the one that is attacked in the quoted post. "If you don't like it, you just don't understand it!" No doubt that there are people who are aesthetically moved by this stuff, but there's no reason to lord it over others, just like I don't say that to people who don't like Bach (even though it's beyond my comprehension!) The avant-garde at its best has produced some great stuff with real artistic value and legacy (I recently listened to Sofia Gubaidulina's "Offertorium" and thought it was the most beautiful post-1975 piece of music I've ever heard); at its worst, its snobbish pretentiousness is quite harmful. I'm thinking of Boulez's insistence (at least early in his career, I take it he calmed down later) that any music not written within his style was "antiquated" (even though I've actually liked some Boulez I've heard) and Babbitt's famous "Who Cares if You Listen?"


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## Mandryka (Feb 22, 2013)

Allegro Con Brio said:


> Contemporary classical music, including avant-gardism, electronic music, "concept music" like Cage, and everything in between; must be considered part of the classical tradition. If not, what else does it belong to? Stockhausen was influenced by Boulez, who was influenced by the 2nd Viennese School, who were influenced by the late Romantics, etc. You can't just say that Boulez or Stockhausen started his own separate thing in a totally different genre. It's a natural flow and progression from one to the other. I think those who say it's not "classical" are just projecting their own dislike onto it. I have liked some of the (limited!) exposure to contemporary classical I've had, and I really dislike electronic stuff, but for me it's pretty clear that's it's part of the classical/Art Music/whatever you want to call it tradition.


It's not so simple. Cage, Wolff, Cardew, maybe Feldman, maybe others, all thought that the whole "classical music" thing stank. By "classical music" thing, I just mean the idea that a composer writes a set of instructions which a musician follows. They thought it stifled performer creativity, prevented performers from being wholly and authentically involved in music making. For this reason, I'm quite open to the idea that, for example, Cage's Variations 1, and Cardew's Treatise, aren't "classical music"

Something very fundamental changed in music around 1975. Composers began to conceive of themselves as the equals of performers -- the composer's job is to inspire the performers to make sounds. This is very different from, for example, how Shostakovich thought of himself -- Shostakovich wanted the performers to recreate in sound some more or less well formed musical work which he'd got in his head.


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## larold (Jul 20, 2017)

_Contemporary classical music, including avant-gardism, electronic music, "concept music" like Cage, and everything in between; must be considered part of the classical tradition. _

Most of what's listed here is already dead with no one any longer producing it. That happened because few liked it and there was no audience for it in the concert hall. That's the point of the 1975 question.


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## DaveM (Jun 29, 2015)

mmsbls said:


> First, I want to make sure we're arguing the same issue. Do you object to the specific term "classical" in classical music or do you object to tossing such disparate music together into a single category?


I would say that my problem is with such disparate music being placed under the single category of 'classical music'



> If you would be happy to have people use the term "art music" to apply to all the music I have referred to (Medieval through Contemporary), then we are arguing separate things. My daughter tells me her musician friends do generally use the term "art music" more than "classical music", but they use it to refer to the wide variety of music I include. So if you object simply to "classical", then I have no problem with that. I use "classical" because essentially everyone else does, and it would be hard to change the name of the term.


I think that it might make sense for Art Music to be applied as a broad umbrella category and reserve the term 'classical' for music that has the elements of melody, harmony and structure (or something close to it) as it has been known for centuries. It might put an end to the futile attempts to relate music that is an exploration of various noises/sounds to music that has the characteristics and long history of what many consider classical music to be.

It would also make sense for there to be a new term for what we are calling 'avant-garde'. Perhaps there should be a number of discrete categories including Electronic music, music for Magnetic Tape  etc. under the Art Music moniker. I suspect that this would go a long way to reducing conflict since those who like the 'avant-garde', electronic etc. might no longer feel the need to try to persuade (unsuccessfully IMO) how related the latter is to traditional classical music.


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## mmsbls (Mar 6, 2011)

DaveM said:


> I would say that my problem is with such disparate music being placed under the single category of 'classical music'
> 
> I think that it might make sense for Art Music to be applied as a broad umbrella category and reserve the term 'classical' for music that has the elements of melody, harmony and structure (or something close to it) as it has been known for centuries. It might put an end to the futile attempts to relate music that is an exploration of various noises/sounds to music that has the characteristics and long history of what many consider classical music to be.
> 
> It would also make sense for there to be a new term for what we are calling 'avant-garde'. I suspect that this would go a long way to reducing conflict since those who like the 'avant-garde' might no longer feel the need to try to persuade (unsuccessfully IMO) how related the latter is to traditional classical music.


I guess I'm still uncertain if you are objecting to the use of the specific term "classical" in the catch all category or if you think there ought not be such an expansive catch all category. The last paragraph suggests that you wish we did not place avant-garde music in the same catch all category even if it's called art music.

I think Lisztian and Allegro Con Brio talked about a continuing tradition where composers build on concepts and music of the past. Everyone I've ever spoken to about this idea says the same thing. There is a continuum of music starting a long time ago. We did not go from Baroque to Kontakte in a year. Each composer seems to have been influenced by earlier classical composers.

I think when you talked about birds with no feathers or wings, that's not the right analogy. Maybe a better one is life. Life includes archaebacteria through humans - species that are vastly different but have a common heritage and a continuous evolutionary path. I would say the concept of life is closer to how I view the concept of classical music.

Incidentally, I thought this thread was started because many break 20th and 21st century classical music into 2 categories - Modern and Contemporary, and the OP wondered why 1975 was the year some select as the dividing point.


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## Allegro Con Brio (Jan 3, 2020)

Mandryka said:


> It's not so simple. Cage, Wolff, Cardew, maybe Feldman, maybe others, all thought that the whole "classical music" thing stank. By "classical music" thing, I just mean the idea that a composer writes a set of instructions which a musician follows. They thought it stifled performer creativity, prevented performers from being wholly and authentically involved in music making. For this reason, I'm quite open to the idea that, for example, Cage's Variations 1, and Cardew's Treatise, aren't "classical music"
> 
> Something very fundamental changed in music around 1975. Composers began to conceive of themselves as the equals of performers -- the composer's job is to inspire the performers to make sounds. This is very different from, for example, how Shostakovich thought of himself -- Shostakovich wanted the performers to recreate in sound some more or less well formed musical work which he'd got in his head.


Sure, I'm quite open to the idea as well. I just think that the assertion that they lie totally outside the classical music tradition is faulty (and I don't think you're saying that...are you?). For me, there is a very logical (though nonlinear) progression in the 20th century, beginning with Mahler and Strauss as the last great German Romantics. In biblical language - "Mahler and Strauss begot the Fathers of the 2nd Viennese School, these fathers begot Boulez, Boulez begot Stockhausen, and the natural implications of their ideas indirectly begot Cage, minimalism, spectralism, and all the other "ism's" that continued into this century." There is indeed extreme relativism in the works/concepts of Cage, Feldman, and many others (was not even aware of the existence of Wolff and Cardew), but we can't ignore their predecessors and what influenced them to take such extreme approaches to art.


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## PeterFromLA (Jul 22, 2011)

Exposure to the classical tradition is essential to understanding a musical work as classical. Classical composers, whether writing in 1976, 1880 or 1800, were exposed to the traditions of composition and performance in which they were trained to participate. Rejecting, expanding, developing, or mimicking earlier practices are varied ways in which composers can work in that tradition. 

Musicians who are not so trained are sometimes classified as naive. That is not meant as a pejorative, I don't think, but rather as an indicator that the musician is not exposed to the tradition, perhaps doesn't even know how to read a score, much less compose one. That's okay, but it means that that work is not "classical," i.e., understood as emerging from the conservatory or its equivalent.

So can a composer be classical if they offer up a work that dismantles much of that tradition? Yes, because they are doing it in a way that is fully cognizant of the "rules" that they are violating in proposing an alternative. It is not naively done. The compositional radical John Cage, remember, studied with Arnold Schoenberg, who himself clearly came out of the central European tradition, even as he upended it (though I believe Schoenberg believed he was extending and preserving it). The implication is, therefore, that so long as subsequent generations of students are trained as composers within the tradition, classical music, from the perspective of composition, is not dead. (I find it interesting that no one is saying that classical music is dead in relation to performance.)


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## Mandryka (Feb 22, 2013)

Allegro Con Brio said:


> Sure, I'm quite open to the idea as well. I just think that the assertion that they lie totally outside the classical music tradition is faulty (and I don't think you're saying that...are you?). For me, there is a very logical (though nonlinear) progression in the 20th century, beginning with Mahler and Strauss as the last great German Romantics. In biblical language - "Mahler and Strauss begot the Fathers of the 2nd Viennese School, these fathers begot Boulez, Boulez begot Stockhausen, and the natural implications of their ideas indirectly begot Cage, minimalism, spectralism, and all the other "ism's" that continued into this century." There is indeed extreme relativism in the works/concepts of Cage, Feldman, and many others (was not even aware of the existence of Wolff and Cardew), but we can't ignore their predecessors and what influenced them to take such extreme approaches to art.


Yes, I think that, to take examples, Cage's Song Books, Cardew's Treatise, Wolff's Stones - they all lie outside the classical tradition. They knowingly reject it.

But yes, minimalism à la Einstein on the Beach, spectralism à la Quattre Chants pour franchir le seuil - that sort of stuff is really just an extension of the sort of thing that Sibelius and Vaughan Williams were up to. That's not contemporary in any interesting sense. No more contemporary than the latest hair doo.


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## flamencosketches (Jan 4, 2019)

Mandryka said:


> Yes, I think that, to take examples, Cage's Song Books, Cardew's Treatise, Wolff's Stones - they all like outside the classical tradition. They knowingly reject it.
> 
> But yes, minimalism à la Einstein on the Beach, spectralism à la Quattre Chants pour franchir le seuil - that sort of stuff is really just an extension of the sort of thing that Sibelius and Vaughn Williams were up to. That's not modern in any radical sense.


So does music _have_ to "lie outside the classical tradition" in order to be "modern in a radical sense"? That's the conclusion I'm drawing from your post.


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## DaveM (Jun 29, 2015)

mmsbls said:


> I guess I'm still uncertain if you are objecting to the use of the specific term "classical" in the catch all category or if you think there ought not be such an expansive catch all category. The last paragraph suggests that you wish we did not place avant-garde music in the same catch all category even if it's called art music.
> 
> I think Lisztian and Allegro Con Brio talked about a continuing tradition where composers build on concepts and music of the past. Everyone I've ever spoken to about this idea says the same thing. There is a continuum of music starting a long time ago. We did not go from Baroque to Kontakte in a year. Each composer seems to have been influenced by earlier classical composers.
> 
> ...


I could support the umbrella term, Art Music, underwhich would be classical music (as I've already defined it), avant-garde, electronic etc. IMO, there has to be a way of separating the music of the great classical music composers from works such as Kontakte that IMO bears no relationship.

I don't know who you are speaking to, but the people I talk to where I am, which has an active classical music following, are dismayed at the premise that there is any continuum from traditional classical music to something like the Stockhausen work in question. I would be willing to bet that my view is prevalent when it comes to pure numbers over those in the cloistered towers of music academia.

The broad category Art Music would probably solve a lot of misunderstanding and conflict. I would have far less issue with someone saying Kontakte is a masterpiece of avant-garde or even, broadly, Art Music, than one of classical music.

Fwiw, perhaps my bird analogy was not very good. I'm sure I could improve on it, but my brain is starting to hurt at the moment.


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## Mandryka (Feb 22, 2013)

flamencosketches said:


> So does music _have_ to "lie outside the classical tradition" in order to be "modern in a radical sense"? That's the conclusion I'm drawing from your post.


I don't know. Possibly. There's so much baggage associated with the tradition -- masterpieces, scores etc.

One of the things I want to say is that modernity isn't really a style thing. It's not about whether there's functional harmony or microtones or whether the music is dominated by indeterminate pitches. I mean, why on earth should anyone care about that sort of thing? It's about as interesting or as important as clothes fashion or wallpaper trends.

Modernity may involve rejecting hierarchies and authorities, committing to egality, pursuing authenticity. That's what drives real contemporary music -- not some idea about chord progressions.


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## TMHeimer (Dec 19, 2019)

Strombus is a category of seashells to describe the "true" conchs, such as Queen Conch, Fighting Conch, Rooster Conch, etc.
These are Haydn, Mozart, maybe Beethoven. Classical music.

"Conch" is a term non shell collectors refer to as any shell that's relatively big and has a "snail-like" opening (ie, not a clam).
Whelks, periwinkles, augers, etc.
These are all the other diatonic guys--Bach, Mahler, Stravinsky, Debussy, etc. 
They are also called "classical", perhaps with a small "c"?


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## Enthusiast (Mar 5, 2016)

Mandryka said:


> Yes, I think that, to take examples, Cage's Song Books, Cardew's Treatise, Wolff's Stones - they all lie outside the classical tradition. They knowingly reject it.
> 
> But yes, minimalism à la Einstein on the Beach, spectralism à la Quattre Chants pour franchir le seuil - that sort of stuff is really just an extension of the sort of thing that Sibelius and Vaughan Williams were up to. That's not contemporary in any interesting sense. No more contemporary than the latest hair doo.


That seems fair enough. It may be a little similar to the positioning of so-called conceptual art vis a viz abstract and figurative art. But isn't rejecting the past and tradition something of a tradition in art?


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## Mandryka (Feb 22, 2013)

Enthusiast said:


> It may be a little similar to the positioning of so-called conceptual art vis a viz abstract and figurative art.


Maybe. In fact I think I was mistaken to have chosen cage's Song Books, which seems to me relatively traditional compared with 4'33 No. 2: 0'00'', for example (For performer amplifying the sound of an auditorium to feedback level.)


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## Phil loves classical (Feb 8, 2017)

^ One of the more sensible things Boulez said is that Cage left too much to chance. The music establishment dictates the music they want to hear. Malcolm Arnold fought against it, his music was not of the times, and was criticized for being Romantic. I think that is why the 1970's were so pivotal, it was when music that some consider over-intellectual came into fashion.


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## Mandryka (Feb 22, 2013)

The music where he left a lot to chance - whether it be detailed scores composed by means of chance operations or whether it's "action music" like _4'33 No. 2: 0'00' _- represents a very small part of Cage's work. This work mostly dates from before the 1970s, in the 1970s he was producing expressive conventionally constructed music like _Hymns and Variations_ ans _Apartment House 1776. _

In fact, even in music composed mainly through chance a performer can make it expressive and beautiful, the scores are like rails but there are places where there is freedom for expression, if wished. I could give you examples if you want.

Basically I think that the "intellectual" / "conceptual" way of classifying is dangerous, it leads to sloppy thinking.


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## AeolianStrains (Apr 4, 2018)

DaveM said:


> Fwiw, perhaps my bird analogy was not very good. I'm sure I could improve on it, but my brain is starting to hurt at the moment.


You could shift it ever so slightly and ask, "Are birds dinosaurs?"


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