# When did Classical music peak?



## Couchie (Dec 9, 2010)

When did Classical music peak?


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## 4chamberedklavier (12 mo ago)

I think each period provided something important to the genre, so each period can be thought of as a "peak" in its own right. This sounds like I'm sidestepping the question, but a more precise answer will depend on what is meant by both "classical music" and "peak".

My preference at the moment leans towards the capital C Classical period, so that's my personal peak. I like the conciseness brought about by adhering to forms


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## hammeredklavier (Feb 18, 2018)

1882, a glorious year for non-German music. August 20 , Tchaikovsky's 1812 Overture debuts in Moscow.


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## ORigel (May 7, 2020)

I chose 1800 because the poll didn't have an option for 1818-1828, the Schubert and Late Beethoven era.

Late Haydn and Early to Middle Beethoven is a good consolation prize.


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## MatthewWeflen (Jan 24, 2019)

ORigel said:


> I chose 1800 because the poll didn't have an option for 1818-1828, the Schubert and Late Beethoven era.
> 
> Late Haydn and Early to Middle Beethoven is a good consolation prize.


Came to say much the same thing. 50 Year increments are rather clumsy.


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## Strange Magic (Sep 14, 2015)

The hundred years beginning in 1845 with the Schumann piano concerto and concluding with things like the Martinu First Symphony, Bartok's Concerto for Orchestra, and Rachmaninoff's Symphonic Dances.


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## BachIsBest (Feb 17, 2018)

Couchie said:


> When did Classical music peak?


 If I had to guess your answer to this question, my random shot in the dark would be, just approximately, May 22 1813 to the 13th of February 1883. Sometime around then.

Personally, I answered 1700. Surely the real answer must coincide with Bach's lifetime!


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## SONNET CLV (May 31, 2014)

Classical music peaked when J.S. Bach sat down to write the music he had been hearing in his head and beneath his fingers on his keyboards and organs. It's been sliding downhill ever since.

Oh, but what a glorious slide that is. Like an out of control bob sled on a steep and endless track. Hey! I'm along for the ride, and am not complaining.


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## Forster (Apr 22, 2021)

Couchie said:


> When did Classical music peak?


"When did you stop beating your wife?"


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## Forster (Apr 22, 2021)

hammeredklavier said:


> 1882, a glorious year for non-German music. August 20 , Tchaikovsky's 1812 Overture debuts in Moscow.


I don't think that's why the OP picked 1882. Maybe because _Parsifal _was premiered?


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## Ludwig Schon (10 mo ago)

hammeredklavier said:


> 1882, a glorious year for non-German music. August 20 , Tchaikovsky's 1812 Overture debuts in Moscow.


Every year pre 1970 is a glorious year for Germanic music and by extension classical music, because classical music is a mere genre of Germanic music. 

They are, were and always will be that greatest of nations, the Holy Roman Empire, and her wonderful successor: the European Union. EU Uber Alles!


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## Enthusiast (Mar 5, 2016)

Peak implies going downhill after and I don't think that has ever happened in a sustained way. I can only think of multiple peaks.


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## NoCoPilot (Nov 9, 2020)

"Classical Music" is not one monolithic entity.


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## Aries (Nov 29, 2012)

Its hard to beat the 1880s imo.


WagnerBorodinTchaikovskiBrucknerDvorakRimsky-KorsakovBruchSaint-SaensSatie18801812, Cappricio italien18816th symphony1882Parsifal3rd symphony18837th symphony1884Te Deum188518863rd symphony1887Prince Igor8th symphonyCappriccio espangnol18885th symphonyScheherazade3 Gymnopedies18898th symphony

1890s and 1870s are also great centuries decades.

1887-1888 are the peak when the style was the highest, most developed without exaggeration and signs of decay yet.


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## Aries (Nov 29, 2012)

See also this poll: What is your favorite quarter of a century of classical...


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## ORigel (May 7, 2020)

Enthusiast said:


> Peak implies going downhill after and I don't think that has ever happened in a sustained way. I can only think of multiple peaks.


What is your _favorite _peak, then?

I think of the Baroque Peak (1710-1750), Mozart-Haydn-Beethoven peak (late 1770s to 1812), the Schubert-Late Beethoven peak (1818-1828)-- my favorite, and the Romantic peak (1870-1900). Some would include peaks ranging from 1900-1980, but I have more conservative tastes.


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## ORigel (May 7, 2020)

Aries said:


> Its hard to beat the 1880s imo.
> 
> 
> WagnerBorodinTchaikovskiBrucknerDvorakRimsky-KorsakovBruchSaint-SaensSatie18801812, Cappricio italien18816th symphony1882Parsifal3rd symphony18837th symphony1884Te Deum188518863rd symphony1887Prince Igor8th symphonyCappriccio espangnol18885th symphonyScheherazade3 Gymnopedies18898th symphony
> ...


Tchaikovsky's fifth symphony isn't "exaggerated"?


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## Aries (Nov 29, 2012)

ORigel said:


> Tchaikovsky's fifth symphony isn't "exaggerated"?


No, his methodes, craftsmanship and capabilities are good enough for what he wants to express. Its a great symphony, I love it. Mahler and Sibelius are the first great composers where the craftsmanship lacks behind the idea. But they are still great because they are still close to the peak. Debussy also. Its like they want to express more and more, but don't quite have the required increased craftsmanship and then things get weird. And 20 years later it all breaks apart with Schönberg etc.


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## EdwardBast (Nov 25, 2013)

1400, 1440, 1500, 1540, 1580, 1620 … … … 1720, 1740, 1770, 1785, 1805 … … … 1940, 1960 … … … etc.


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## Art Rock (Nov 28, 2009)

20 November 1911, probably around 8PM CET.


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## VoiceFromTheEther (Aug 6, 2021)

1936:
Stravinsky, Schönberg, Prokofiev, Shostakovich, Strauss, Rachmaninoff, Vaughan Williams, Holst, Bartok, Sibelius, Respighi, Hindemith, Khachaturian, Gliere, Korngold, Waxmann, Britten, Peterson-Berger, Respighi, Glazunov, Casella, Wyschnegradtzky, Schmidt, Zemlinsky, Mascagni, Hanson, Schmitt, Widor, Copland, Rózsa, Poulenc, Widor, Scelsi

i miss this moment being an option

of the options presented, I will go for 1882:
Wagner, Tchaikovsky, Brahms, Verdi, Bruckner, Saint-Saens, Borodin, Alkan, J. Strauss, Bruch, Mussorgsky, Liszt, Suppe, Rott, Lachner, Mayer, Massenet, Franck, Widor, Gernsheim, Gade, Raff

Note that Widor was present both in 1882 and 1936!


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## AndorFoldes (Aug 25, 2012)

Probably around 1950, when atonal serialism became the dominant style of composition.


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## Gallus (Feb 8, 2018)

Somewhere between 1790 and 1820. The 18th century perfected a pure, stable harmonic language that allowed music to be as it ought to: the expression of an explicable, rational universe. Nothing like it will ever come again...


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## Enthusiast (Mar 5, 2016)

ORigel said:


> What is your _favorite _peak, then?
> 
> I think of the Baroque Peak (1710-1750), Mozart-Haydn-Beethoven peak (late 1770s to 1812), the Schubert-Late Beethoven peak (1818-1828)-- my favorite, and the Romantic peak (1870-1900). Some would include peaks ranging from 1900-1980, but I have more conservative tastes.


Sorry but I don't have one. I'm in love with the whole story!


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## clavichorder (May 2, 2011)

Aries said:


> No, his methodes, craftsmanship and capabilities are good enough for what he wants to express. Its a great symphony, I love it. Mahler and Sibelius are the first great composers where the craftsmanship lacks behind the idea. But they are still great because they are still close to the peak. Debussy also. Its like they want to express more and more, but don't quite have the required increased craftsmanship and then things get weird. And 20 years later it all breaks apart with Schönberg etc.


I tend to think the opposite is true. Sibelius's sense of form was incredible and unique, and Mahler people can argue is bloated but he's always extremely dynamic too, which is an amazing feat to keep all that material moving even at such tremendous length, that he must be doing something very right.


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## Disco (Mar 19, 2020)

I guess, 18th century


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## Forster (Apr 22, 2021)

Aries said:


> 1890s and 1870s are also great centuries.


Well, they may have been great...but decades, not centuries 😉


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## starthrower (Dec 11, 2010)

When Mozart's parents conceived little Wolfgang.


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## Aries (Nov 29, 2012)

clavichorder said:


> I tend to think the opposite is true. Sibelius's sense of form was incredible and unique, and Mahler people can argue is bloated but he's always extremely dynamic too, which is an amazing feat to keep all that material moving even at such tremendous length, that he must be doing something very right.


There are some aspects in Sibelius' music, that Sibelius even makes work, but which aren't anymore exactly the perfect style in my opinion but a bit over the top into some direction. Pure revelation in sound with loose form, viscousity, underorchstration in other sections. Isn't the motivic work less consistent?

Mahlers music has a shrill aspect, an gesticulating aspect. There are also solo vocal parts in symphonies. Mahler has the creativity, the great idea, monumentalism, but the implementation isn't as clean anymore as in the 1880s imo.

I also think the structure of music takes a subordinated position in the music of Mahler and Sibelius compared to Bruckner and Tchaikovsky for example. The music of the latter is like the highest amount of expression with everything still in order. The most charged music with yet no kind of deformation a side effect.


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## Aries (Nov 29, 2012)

Forster said:


> Well, they may have been great...but decades, not centuries 😉


Yes, of course, thanks.


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## composingmusic (Dec 16, 2021)

This is such a difficult question, in part because there's a variety in output in both the music that's being written today, and in historical times. I think a lot of it does come down to personal preference, although there is also a range in terms of technical capability and craft too. The sheer variety of music now is greater than ever though, I think.


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## Revitalized Classics (Oct 31, 2018)

There were some particularly fruitful years thinking about the operas I enjoy like 1835 which had Donizetti's Lucia di Lammermoor and Maria Stuarda, Bellini's I Puritani and Halevy's La Juive.

c.1850 would capture these as well as a lot of Verdi, Wagner etc


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## 59540 (May 16, 2021)

Disco said:


> I guess, 18th century


I agree. The Romantic era is like an overripe fruit that almost inevitably led to Schoenberg et al. I would actually say the 18th and 20th centuries.


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## fbjim (Mar 8, 2021)

It peaked when stereo recording/LPs first became popular.

Just to expand on that, I don't think there was a period where technology and the recording industry were in a better place for recordings of classical music (along with jazz, the classic audiophile genre until the last few decades) to produce so many great performances for anyone to listen to. It would still be a decade or so before rock and popular music became critically reputable, and future attempts to recreate that perfect storm with things like digital recording, surround, CD, etc never were able to recreate that boom of iconic recordings.


Nowadays, things like SACD and BD-A are released to a smaller group of super hobbyists, and even in audiophile press, something like Daft Punk's "Random Access Memories" is more likely to be the stereotypical audiophile test disc of choice versus a RCA or Telarc classical/jazz recording.


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## mbhaub (Dec 2, 2016)

Peak in what sense? The amount of music being written? The quality? The number of performances? The size of an audience? The popularity? 
If recordings were the criteria, using only the dates provided, 2000. Not only was there a vast LP legacy, but the CD market was going strong bringing us untold riches.

If mass popularity is it: 1950. You had live orchestras on radio and TV networks like NBC, CBS, even ABC. Magazines and newspapers had real critics and ran long stories on classical performers. Hollywood made dozens of movies in which classical music was important. From Laura to The Man Who Knew Too Much.

In terms of musical quality, 1900. There were many composers around that time who, sensing the coming changes, bemoaned the "end of real music". Some people thought that nothing after Wagner really mattered; it was all downhill from there.

If the number of performances is the hallmark of a peak, it's now. There has never been a time when there were so many orchestras, chamber ensembles, bands, etc. Some of extraordinary quality, some not so good.

I suspect that in someways we're living in a really good time for classical music despite the problems. But thanks to streaming you can watch or listen to anything you want instantly anywhere in the world. The number of really great orchestras increases year by year. The quality of recorded sound is amazing. The two things holding it all back from a really exciting peak: where's the audience going to come from and the dull music being written.


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## progmatist (Apr 3, 2021)

Contemporary music peaked in the 1970s. Up to that point, most of the classical audience didn't really want to hear anything more than 20 years old. After that until now, most only want to hear Beethoven and Brahms.


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## BrahmsWasAGreatMelodist (Jan 13, 2019)

Definitely before the lame homogeneity of tonality & CPT


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## dko22 (Jun 22, 2021)

very likely around 1904.A high point of of late romanticism saw the completion of Jenufa, start of Asrael, Rachmaninov's 2nd and Mahler around his peak just for starters.


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## EvaBaron (Jan 3, 2022)

I’d say when Mozart, Haydn, Beethoven and Schubert were composing. So from 1780-1830. I don’t think there is another period of 50 years where so many high regarded composers composed music.


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## larold (Jul 20, 2017)

I voted 1950 -- the year I was born -- but can tell you the peak of classical music in my lifetime occurred after that probably between 1965-90. I chose the end date because that's the year Bernstein died, a year after Karajan died. When those two were alive the world of classical music was much different than today. The biggest difference is it was far more represented on TV and in popular culture than today. I saw Karajan conduct opera on Public Broadcasting, PBS also once broadcast an entire Ring cycle on American TV on four consecutive nights, and Bernstein famously led the Young People's Concerts on American TV. In the early days of cable TV through 1990 channels like A&E and Ovation regularly scheduled classical music programming.

Today, in the Internet dominated world of the 21st century, this is all gone. PBS may program a little classical music but virtually no other TV channel does so. I know the world has gone to streaming and perhaps there are streamed outlets people turn to. But if so people do not turn to them in large numbers.

I think Bernstein and Karajan were the last "name brands" you might say that existed for classical music. The only things of consequence that have arrived since them was the period performance practice movement -- which the average listener doesn't give a hoot about -- and the The Three Tenors, a big hit in the early 1990s. The only worldwide musical hits since then have been Gorecki's Symphony of Sorrowful Songs, Adams' Doctor Atomic opera, and ... what else? It's hard for me to name a single person active in classical music a person that likes music might know. Just about everyone knew James Galway in his heyday.

I think the irony of today's reality is so great because, as classical music has declined from what might be called public view, there is more of it around the world, played better, and millions more classical music lovers. Today even a local orchestra made up of students and retirees who pay to play are good enough to schedule a Mozart or Mendelssohn symphony. I read in a classical music journal yesterday a review of a Mahler recording by the Grand Rapids (Mich.) Symphony Orchestra so good the reviewer favorably compared it to historic recordings by big name European orchestras.

We live in a world where standards and practices are better than ever before everywhere but ironically in a world when the art form itself has disappeared from public view, in my opinion because there are no longer living composers whose work is so great it creates new fans overnight. Today, if you're not a fan of classical music and don't seek it out, it's not coming to find you. That is a big difference in the world in 2022 compared to the world I knew decades ago.


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## Fabulin (Jun 10, 2019)

Aries said:


> (...) Bruckner and Tchaikovsky for example. The music of the latter is like the highest amount of expression with everything still in order.


 Agreed.


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

I would choose a period from c.1920-1935. Anything seemed possible - _zeitoper _and the incorporation of jazz/popular dance rhythms, 'machine' music, _Les Six_ puckishness, neoclassicsm, serialism etc. - but enough of the old guard were still around to keep the Romantic flame burning. Some of the more iconoclastic composers wanted the blow the past away but as a mere listener I just treat any new directions that are taken as extra layers to the cake.


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## AlexD (Nov 6, 2011)

It hasn't peaked. 

Today, thanks to recording technology more people are probably listening to Beethoven's 5th at home, than could possibly listen to it in a concert hall.

Radio/recording/CD has made classical music more accessible - and a lot of the artists from across the centuries are still with is. 

I'm sitting feet from a shelf with more classical music on it, than someone had 100 years ago - with different versions, interpretations and orchestras.


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## Eva Yojimbo (Jan 30, 2016)

I personally don't believe in such silly things as any genre "peaking." I think all eras of classical music focus on certain things that appeal to certain people. People with broad tastes like myself, who don't feel the need to rank one set of standards against another, but rather just love them for what they can do and what their potential is (especially in the hands of the great composers), are comfortable picking favorites from each era/style and not really trying to rank them against them. However, if forced to pick, I guess since Mozart was my favorite composer I'd go with the era of his mature works.


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## Agamenon (Apr 22, 2019)

Renaissance period!. After this years, few new things were added.
Water was not created in 1800's.


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## dko22 (Jun 22, 2021)

elgar's ghost said:


> I would choose a period from c.1920-1935. Anything seemed possible - _zeitoper _and the incorporation of jazz/popular dance rhythms, 'machine' music, _Les Six_ puckishness, neoclassicsm, serialism etc. - but enough of the old guard were still around to keep the Romantic flame burning. Some of the more iconoclastic composers wanted the blow the past away but as a mere listener I just treat any new directions that are taken as extra layers to the cake.


I was going to add something more or less exactly along these lines. This was a time when musical diversity probably reached its height -- although some late romantics like Schmidt or Braunfels to name just two, were increasingly already regarded as somewhat old-fashioned, the music was still played. The 1920's was a period of great experimentation not only in Paris and Berlin but also the Soviet Union and I'm not not sure if any other can really match it. But it was not just diversity, it was also quality -- the last symphonies of Sibelius and Nielsen, the operas of Janacek, the late chamber and piano music of Fauré to give just one or two examples from among my favourites.

To me, it was a great shame that this period was so short, relatively speaking. The arrival of Hitler and Stalin meant that innovation was forced away from their respective countries and of course after the war, nothing was ever the same again. Curiously, if I were allowed just a five year span in both the 19th and 20th centuries, it would likely be the same years -- around 23-28! In the 19th century, we're obviously looking at a high proportion of the greatest works by Beethoven and Schubert.


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## AlexD (Nov 6, 2011)

Agamenon said:


> Renaissance period!. After this years, few new things were added.
> Water was not created in 1800's.


But cocktails were!


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## fbjim (Mar 8, 2021)

dko22 said:


> I was going to add something more or less exactly along these lines. This was a time when musical diversity probably reached its height -- although some late romantics like Schmidt or Braunfels to name just two, were increasingly already regarded as somewhat old-fashioned, the music was still played. The 1920's was a period of great experimentation not only in Paris and Berlin but also the Soviet Union and I'm not not sure if any other can really match it. But it was not just diversity, it was also quality -- the last symphonies of Sibelius and Nielsen, the operas of Janacek, the late chamber and piano music of Fauré to give just one or two examples from among my favourites.
> 
> To me, it was a great shame that this period was so short, relatively speaking. The arrival of Hitler and Stalin meant that innovation was forced away from their respective countries and of course after the war, nothing was ever the same again. Curiously, if I were allowed just a five year span in both the 19th and 20th centuries, it would likely be the same years -- around 23-28! In the 19th century, we're obviously looking at a high proportion of the greatest works by Beethoven and Schubert.


To an extent I feel the same way about the late 1960s-early 1970s or so - it seems like there was another furious inflection point where serialism had just about exhausted itself, you had the first major wave of minimalist masterpieces, electronic experiments were starting to graduate beyond the "experiment" phase and well- it's just surprising how much of my favorite modern/post-modern rep comes from that period.


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## dko22 (Jun 22, 2021)

fbjim said:


> To an extent I feel the same way about the late 1960s-early 1970s or so - it seems like there was another furious inflection point where serialism had just about exhausted itself, you had the first major wave of minimalist masterpieces, electronic experiments were starting to graduate beyond the "experiment" phase and well- it's just surprising how much of my favorite modern/post-modern rep comes from that period.


I agree, although possibly for different reasons. This seems to me the high point of pop/rock music and at the same time, there was a lot of fine music coming from the Soviet Union in particular. There were also maverick composers like Allan Pettersson in Sweden who were at the height of their fame during this period. By the 1990's the musical scene was rapidly declining into a desert from which it has yet to recover - purely in my opinion, obviously.


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## Rosalind Ellicott (May 21, 2020)

In terms of popularity, I'd guess about 1920 - just before jazz, popular music and the gramophone began the decline.


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## larold (Jul 20, 2017)

I already voted once ... but my local orchestra just announced its first concert this weekend since the pandemic ... so classical music hasn't yet peaked for me! I'm glad to have it back.


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## Westindieman (Nov 8, 2018)

Eva Yojimbo said:


> I personally don't believe in such silly things as any genre "peaking." I think all eras of classical music focus on certain things that appeal to certain people. People with broad tastes like myself, who don't feel the need to rank one set of standards against another, but rather just love them for what they can do and what their potential is (especially in the hands of the great composers), are comfortable picking favorites from each era/style and not really trying to rank them against them.


Thank you for saying what I believe, apart from I can't say 'if I was forced to I would pick...'. I would say, go ahead just shoot me.


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## Krummhorn (Feb 18, 2007)

Imho we have yet to see any "peak". I'll wager to even say there will never be a peak in Classical Music. The new and upcoming composers, one in particular that is a wonderful friend of mine, are creating new ideas in the world of classical music. That is to say there is nothing wrong with the old ideas, rather the mix, as a whole, is creating a new interest for classical music. There will never be any peak ... we will continue to grow trying to achieve that peak ... the peak that never comes, and that, again imho, is most important when it comes to classical music. We have seen many "peaks" in other genres ... it'll never happen to classical music.


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## hoodjem (Feb 23, 2019)

1827.


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## John O (Jan 16, 2021)

progmatist said:


> Contemporary music peaked in the 1970s. Up to that point, most of the classical audience didn't really want to hear anything more than 20 years old. After that until now, most only want to hear Beethoven and Brahms.


I would dispute this. In 1970 Mahler was coming into fashion. Most audiences in 1970 wanted Beethoven and Brahms not Stockhausen or Berio and if they wanted Stravinsky it was for Firebird or the Rite of Spring not the late serial works. I would agree that there was in 1970 more awareness then of avante garde music amongst the general classical audience than today.
Also what you say would be true of Rock Music in 1970.


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## John O (Jan 16, 2021)

AlexD said:


> It hasn't peaked.
> 
> Today, thanks to recording technology more people are probably listening to Beethoven's 5th at home, than could possibly listen to it in a concert hall.
> 
> ...


But a smaller percentage of the public actual listen to any Classical Music than 25 or 50 years ago even though the opportunities to do so with streaming today are almost limitless. 
50 years ago programmes about Classical Music appeared on major TV channels. Classical Music was used on lots of TV advertisements. Film music was usually in a Classical Style. Stravinsky was a household name amongst the middle classes in the 1960s: up there with Picasso. Nowadays the average member of the middle class would struggle to name any twentieth century composers let alone a living one.


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## rcopeland (8 mo ago)

Couchie said:


> When did Classical music peak?


IMHO it peaked ~1952 with Shostakovich's 10th, the last great classical symphony. Some might stretch that to .ca 1990, not because of any great new production, but more on the basis of performances and popular interest. Some of our greatest conductors and musicians were from the 2nd half of the 20th.


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## Laraine Anne Barker (8 mo ago)

larold said:


> We live in a world where standards and practices are better than ever before everywhere but ironically in a world when the art form itself has disappeared from public view, in my opinion because there are no longer living composers whose work is so great it creates new fans overnight. Today, if you're not a fan of classical music and don't seek it out, it's not coming to find you. That is a big difference in the world in 2022 compared to the world I knew decades ago.


How very true. I had to go looking for it, even in the early sixties. And the nearest thing to help available to me was WRC, which at least allowed me to buy LPs at a reasonable price—shorthand-typists being so badly paid I never had a male colleague until I took a job as a Mac operator for a newspaper. I managed to collect only about 800 discs, however. The club had a monthly newsletter, but it existed more to sell (obviously!) than to advise what I should buy. Consequently I made some terrible blunders: Bach toccatas and fugues are hardly suitable for a beginner, never mind when played on that clangorous monstrosity Landowska fondly called a harpsichord. Neither is The Musical Offering suitable. I'm surprised I didn't land up hating Bach! My middle sister joined me in my quest and it was surprising how different our tastes landed up. My passion is chamber and solo music and, despite the fact we both started from the same LP (Barbirolli with his Halle Orchestra playing Swan Lake suite on one side and one of the L'Arlésienne suites on the other) my sister stayed with the big orchestral sound of the 19th century while I discovered I'm not all that fond of that century and can't stand the 20th and 21st. After my sister's untimely death at 58 I didn't find one Bach CD among her small collection. I don't know what she had in the way of LPs because her daughter sold them and the buyer had to take everything. I was determined my LPs wouldn't land up at the dump, but I managed to get an average of only 50c each overall, the price for living in a VERY small philistine country. I'd have got a lot more if I could have sold on eBay.

I have to say I feel very sorry for everyone who hasn't discovered Classical music. It was the best present I've ever given myself. Or, rather, the best present my mother gave me because, after all, it was her whim to buy that 10-inch LP. I suspect she was just grabbing every LP she could find in the sales to play on her new (mono) radiogram.

Lately I have been going for renaissance and baroque CDs. At the moment I am acquainting myself with The Great Weiss. Until recently I had only one CD of his music. I find myself wondering over and over how he managed to write so much without any lowering of quality. A member of the Bach family who was serving as Bach's secretary wrote that when Weiss was staying at the Bach home for a few months the house resounded with very special music. I leave him with the last word.


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## ORigel (May 7, 2020)

rcopeland said:


> IMHO it peaked ~1952 with Shostakovich's 10th, the last great classical symphony. Some might stretch that to .ca 1990, not because of any great new production, but more on the basis of performances and popular interest. Some of our greatest conductors and musicians were from the 2nd half of the 20th.


Pettersson, Schnittke, and Shostakovich himself composed great synphonies after 1952. Rorem's Symphony no. 3 (1959) is one of the great accessible symphonies.


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## progmatist (Apr 3, 2021)

John O said:


> I would dispute this. In 1970 Mahler was coming into fashion. Most audiences in 1970 wanted Beethoven and Brahms not Stockhausen or Berio and if they wanted Stravinsky it was for Firebird or the Rite of Spring not the late serial works. I would agree that there was in 1970 more awareness then of avante garde music amongst the general classical audience than today.
> Also what you say would be true of Rock Music in 1970.


Not so long ago, people went to see a band wanting to hear songs from the new album. And never the same way twice. Now they only want to hear the hits, played note for note the way they are on the album.


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## marlow (11 mo ago)

larold said:


> I voted 1950 -- the year I was born -- but can tell you the peak of classical music in my lifetime occurred after that probably between 1965-90. I chose the end date because that's the year Bernstein died, a year after Karajan died. When those two were alive the world of classical music was much different than today. The biggest difference is it was far more represented on TV and in popular culture than today. I saw Karajan conduct opera on Public Broadcasting, PBS also once broadcast an entire Ring cycle on American TV on four consecutive nights, and Bernstein famously led the Young People's Concerts on American TV. In the early days of cable TV through 1990 channels like A&E and Ovation regularly scheduled classical music programming.
> 
> Today, in the Internet dominated world of the 21st century, this is all gone. PBS may program a little classical music but virtually no other TV channel does so. I know the world has gone to streaming and perhaps there are streamed outlets people turn to. But if so people do not turn to them in large numbers.
> 
> ...


I would agree wholeheartedly with this. Certainly when I was younger during the 60s and 70s the record companies were making huge numbers of classical albums the CDs of which we see in charity stores today. But there was also classical music on the television for the general public with things like André Previn‘s music night, at a time when the BBC in Britain were actually interested in promoting culture rather than chasing ratings. They are actually re-broadcasting some of these programs at the moment so there might be a glimmer of light in the darkness that the present bunch in charge are waking up.


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## Dimboukas (Oct 12, 2011)

Under Guillaume de Machaut


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## AlexD (Nov 6, 2011)

John O said:


> But a smaller percentage of the public actual listen to any Classical Music than 25 or 50 years ago even though the opportunities to do so with streaming today are almost limitless.
> 50 years ago programmes about Classical Music appeared on major TV channels. Classical Music was used on lots of TV advertisements. Film music was usually in a Classical Style. Stravinsky was a household name amongst the middle classes in the 1960s: up there with Picasso. Nowadays the average member of the middle class would struggle to name any twentieth century composers let alone a living one.


Totally disagree.

35% of the (adult) population listens to classical music.

The proms get more coverage on the BBC Tv & radio than before. I was able to watch La Boheme over breakfast whilst watching Sky Arts. 

I've just returned from the cinema having watched Lucia da Lammamore being broadcast an ocean away from the Met.

My pal in Dundee tells me the cinema where he works is packed out for every opera they show. There is no opera house nearby, so folks are arranging coach trips to see the operas at the cinema. The cinema broadcasts have made opeara more accessible than ever before. 

Films still have classical scores - James Bond, The Green Knight, the recent clutch of Star Wars, the new Harry Potter series and Jurassic Park have classical scores. The "synth scores" of the 80's and 90's seem to have largely fallen away. 

Maybe it depends upon what part of the world you are in, but classical music is in rude health in the UK.


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## Kreisler jr (Apr 21, 2021)

It's not my favorite period but if one wants to entertain Spenglerian "rise and decline" I'd put the peak around 1900.
Spengler would have disagreed and put, I believe, the music peak in the 18th century with Bach and Mozart (they don't overlap temporally, I guess it would have to be a broad peak ca. 1720-90). It's not totally incompatible with the 19th century as "hellenistic" period after the "classical" as "hellenistic" periods are often in some ways as fecund and more diverse/interesting than "classical" ones
I'd also take into account that around 1900 we not only have still important and broadly received and relevant new compositions but the establishment of repertoire, including a canon of older works also only came to pass in the late 19th century. 
Also, if one goes for these kinds of periodization, that there are phases of "archaic" or "decadent" art doesn't mean that the art of these phases is bad or incompentent.


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## 13hm13 (Oct 31, 2016)

Define "peak" first.
E.g., ...
Total number of classical fans (active ,daily listeners, e.g .via radio, steaming CD, LP). It will have been greatest in the past 50 years.
Total number of classical composers (active ,daily composers). Not sure.
Etc.


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## Kreisler jr (Apr 21, 2021)

Neither. Sheer numbers, even percentages don't mean much. Quality and societal impact of classical music, and mostly of new compositions. When Mahler's 8th was premiered in 1910 you have dozens of other musicians and writers (like Th. Mann) attending. It was the cultural and societal sensation of the year. Can you imagine such a situation with the newest piece by Jörg Widmann or Wolfgang Rihm today?
CM was at the center of European culture in the 19th (and 18th and early 20th century). This is obviously not the case anymore, despite more people actually listening to it because of mass media.


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## marlow (11 mo ago)

The point is when we talk about ‘classical music’ we mean the classical music spread over the centuries which Is listened to today, to which there are millions of listeners. If it is just the modern stuff which is produced today then there is a very small percentage of the population listening to it unless you include people like John Williams


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## bagpipers (Jun 29, 2013)

Not that there the greatest composers but I'd say the Brahms/Schumann/Berlioz era, the height of the symphony before music became so grand it was excessive.


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