# "Classical music" came to an end 60 years ago



## Nereffid

Yeah, a click-bait sort of thread title, but please note the use of quotation marks. Although I mischievously said on another thread recently that classical music has been dead for 60 years, that's not something I believe (or want!) to be true.

I've been following the Classic FM Hall of Fame, which if you don't know it is the annual poll of the UK radio station's listeners' favourite classical works. It's been going for over 20 years now, and I've been somewhat obsessively collating all the results.

Here, by my reckoning, are the 10 most popular works among Classic FM listeners composed in the 50 years from 1910 to 1959:
Vaughan Williams: The Lark Ascending
Elgar: Cello Concerto
Vaughan Williams: Fantasia on a Theme by Thomas Tallis
Barber: Adagio for Strings
Holst: The Planets
Rodrigo: Concerto de Aranjuez
Rachmaninov: Rhapsody on a theme by Paganini
Shostakovich: Piano Concerto no. 2
Gershwin: Rhapsody in Blue
Prokofiev: Romeo and Juliet

This probably doesn't correspond to the top 10 of any "serious" classical listener such as us, uh, discerning sophisticates on TC - obviously it leans heavily towards the "popular classics". But it's about what you'd expect from the general public and unless you're a real snob it's a fairly decent list; most of the works have featured quite high on some TC poll or other over the years.

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)

Wait, _what?_ With the exception of the Górecki and Pärt, many of us here wouldn't necessarily consider this to even be classical music. I could list many other works, but the general gist is that it's film music, short pieces for choir (composers such as Whitacre and Rutter), "light" or crossover works, and even video game music.

So this is what I mean when I say "classical music" appears to have come to an end 60 years ago. The 1950s represents the last decade in which there's any significant overlap between what's popular with the general public and what's popular with serious classical listeners. Or, more significantly, between _what's called classical music_ by the public and the specialist.

So, why did this divergence occur? Though I don't want this thread to just become another place for people to moan about modern music, the nature of modern music is undoubtedly an important aspect. But what about how the audience changed? And what other factors were involved?


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## Kivimees

Since my cognitive bias doesn't want to believe "classical music" came to an end 60 years ago, I will offer a rationalization:

The 1910 to 1959 list is established now, not in 1959. Who knows what the list would have looked like in 1959? Time has sieved through that music over 60 years with to give this result. Perhaps, given 60 years, time will sieve through the music since 1960 and offer more "classical music" than the Górecki and Pärt works listed.


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## Jacck

In my opinion the classical music took the wrong turn when it decided to get rid of melody. The whole 19th century produced so much beautiful melodic music - Schubert, Schumann, Brahms, Liszt, Chopin and countless others. The 1900-1950 was a transitional period where musicians explored new venues, but still retained some melody, think of Shostakovich, Prokofiev, Hindemith etc. After 1950 the classical music became "l´art pour l´art" and most melodic talents fled to movie music. And classical music instead of embracing the film composers and supporting them into converting their most memorable scores into suites and symphonies, distances itself in its ivory tower. Listen to Rozsa's violin concerto which was composed from a movie score 




or Williams music to Schindlers List or Star Wars. This music will survive into the future.
Of course there is plenty of modern classical I like - Ligeti, Schnittke, Baczewicz. But you cannot listen to these harrowing pieces all the time. People need also someting melodic, emotional, beautiful.


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## Woodduck

If this is a survey of radio listeners, might not the difference between the lists be more reflective of what gets played on the air than of listeners' general tastes in music?


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## DavidA

With Classic FM it's generally excerpts from the music so it might be a movement of a concerto or an aria for an opera. It leans very heavily and deliberately to popular taste, it is none the worse for that as it is great to listen to in the car on a journey. However, it would not generally fit a serious evenings listen to music. But let's face it all the music listed in the OP are generally masterpieces.


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## Gordontrek

Reservations about Classic FM's programming aside, it can still be seen as an experiment of sorts in that it mixes a bit of popular and film music in with the classical canon, and I still believe that the results are telling. I have to agree with Jacck. If there is a point of divergence here, it was whenever the overlords of the classical "mainstream" decided that mediums like film music weren't worth embracing as legitimate mediums of art music, unless of course names like Prokofiev or Copland are involved. Since it still usually retains harmony, melody and form, it's just not avant-garde enough. There are other "points of divergence" as well- I believe that jazz-infused classical music largely died with Gershwin, so that medium really isn't near as potent as it once was.
I'm not trying to argue that modern classical music isn't good or popular because it isn't like film music or jazz, but I believe it suffers from a lack of variety, which embracing such forms would offer.


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## PlaySalieri

Woodduck said:


> If this is a survey of radio listeners, might not the difference between the lists be more reflective of what gets played on the air than of listeners' general tastes in music?


Spot on.

I recall when Gorecki sy 3 appeared - Classic FM was playing it all the time. and I've lost count of how often those top 10 from 1910 to 1959 are played.

Classic FM listeners are casual classical music fans though, on the whole - a notch or two down from R3 listeners.


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## mbhaub

I don't think it died, but sure has gone dark. How many works written in the last 60 years have been accepted into the standard repertoire? A couple of Shostakovich symphonies. Short Ride in a Fast Machine by Adams. Spartacus by Khachaturian. What else? Not much. And before people attack that it's been this way, that many once neglected composers made it into the canon, I am aware this happened to a degree, but by and large the hallowed works in the repertoire were adopted quite soon after being brought into the world. Even Mahler was widely performed long before Bernstein took it up. In many ways this started close to 100 years ago. If you look back and concert programs from the Gilded Age and up through the Roaring Twenties, one thing that is striking is the fact that much of the music performed was relatively new. As the 20th c unfolded and the cult of the conductor took hold, and radio came in, the repertoire seemed to close up and be reluctant to add anything new.

But this is not unique to the classical world. There's this unofficial collection, The Great American Songbook with great songs by Kern, Berlin, Gershwin, Porter and many others. What's the last tune added to that collection? What is the last song written that everyone seems to know? Send in the Clowns? I don't know - but since the explosion of media outlets and the disuniting of radio and the demise of Top-40, those days are over, too.


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## Nereffid

Woodduck said:


> If this is a survey of radio listeners, might not the difference between the lists be more reflective of what gets played on the air than of listeners' general tastes in music?


Yes and no... The classic example is the Górecki, which became popular because the station promoted it. But on the other hand, what gets played on the air is greatly affected by what the station knows its listeners want to hear; notably, video game music has been getting playing because of audience demand. So I suppose the relationship is somewhat circular.


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## Art Rock

mbhaub said:


> There's this unofficial collection, The Great American Songbook with great songs by Kern, Berlin, Gershwin, Porter and many others. What's the last tune added to that collection? What is the last song written that everyone seems to know? Send in the Clowns?


Probably Leonard Cohen's _Hallelujah_ (1984), available in far too many covers.


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## eugeneonagain

Nereffid said:


> Yes and no... The classic example is the Górecki, which became popular because the station promoted it. But on the other hand, what gets played on the air is greatly affected by what the station knows its listeners want to hear; notably, video game music has been getting playing because of audience demand. So I suppose the relationship is somewhat circular.


In that sense then it _is_ a result of what people are hearing. People actually play video games without being forced to enter into a murky world like classical listening, with its traditions and taste-overlords and booby-traps. Same for films and there are some rather discerning music editors for films who choose classical pieces that end up developing a whole new life and audience.

Barber's Adagio is popular mainly because of its use within other media; same for Mahler's 5th symphony Adagietto.

Have people - the general audience, which probably doesn't exist nowadays - had enough exposure to classical music to develop a taste for it and a relationship to it? I was listening to bands in the park bandstand on Sundays belting out things like Willem Tell overture, that's part of why I like it.

Classical music has been displaced in popular culture, but not entirely. There is so much 'culture' now, people can't specialise in everything; especially the casual listener.


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## janxharris

Perhaps it's telling that Stravinsky's Rite of Spring makes it into the Hall of Fame at number 225 (246 last year) and yet I have never heard it played on the station *except* when they were forced to play it whilst broadcasting the chart itself (I do remember listeners being warned about the modernness of the piece beforehand). Of course they may have played it off peak. Perhaps they are frightened of scaring off advertisers.


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## janxharris

It ('The Rite of Spring') is way above, for example, 'Game of Thrones' on the chart - but that screen music is played quite often.

What chance of becoming more accepted?


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## eugeneonagain

Jacck said:


> ...the cretins listen to disco and rap, the average ones to pop rock, the intelligent ones to prog rock, and the geniuses to classical


Oh dear... I don't know whether to classify myself as a genius or a cretin; or a cretinous genius; or a genial cretin; or a genital something-or-other.

Btw, I'm listening to Arthur Honegger's 3rd string quartet as I type; yesterday it was France Gall. Tomorrow could even be Kendrick Lamar (or whatever his name was).


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## Jacck

eugeneonagain said:


> Oh dear... I don't know whether to classify myself as a genius or a cretin; or a cretinous genius; or a genial cretin; or a genital something-or-other. Btw, I'm listening to Arthur Honegger's 3rd string quartet as I type; yesterday it was France Gall. Tomorrow could even be Kendrick Lamar (or whatever his name was).


you can classify yourself as you please. I am of course exaggerating and using deliberately stronger language. But I still believe there is something to what I wrote, ie people who regularly listen to for example Beyonce will never be able to enjoy the Rite of Spring. And the radio stations know that. The average listeners can maybe digest Tchaikovsky PC1, Rach PC2, some Beethoven etc. It is about the ability of the brain to enjoy more complex, more chaotic, more disonant music. Beyonce is 3 chords and some silly singing about silly things.


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## distantprommer

Does my love for classical music tell me that I am a genius? 

In one of my earliest job interviews, a long time ago, I had to sit through an intelligence test. It lasted more than a full day. When it was over I was hired on the spot. Does that mean I was way up in the IQ numbers? I never did get the results, but I did accept the job offer. That was the last time I ever thought about this.

There are many people who come to classical music later in life after traversing pop, rock and other such music. Did these people become more intelligent with age?


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## janxharris

Jacck said:


> Beyonce is 3 chords and some silly singing about silly things.


This did make me chuckle.

I'm sure she is more talented than that.


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## Guest

Jacck said:


> people who regularly listen to for example Beyonce will never be able to enjoy the Rite of Spring.


That's an improbable extrapolation from the Griffith study that said Beyonce was listened to by stupid people.

https://consequenceofsound.net/2014...ple-listen-to-beyonce-according-to-new-study/


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## Jacck

distantprommer said:


> Does my love for classical music tell me that I am a genius?
> 
> In one of my earliest job interviews, a long time ago, I had to sit through an intelligence test. It lasted more than a full day. When it was over I was hired on the spot. Does that mean I was way up in the IQ numbers? I never did get the results, but I did accept the job offer. That was the last time I ever thought about this.
> 
> There are many people who come to classical music later in life after traversing pop, rock and other such music. Did these people become more intelligent with age?


it depends of what we mean by IQ. Intelligence is notoriously difficult to define and standard IQ tests measure primarily the ability to be successful at the test. The truth is more complex, there are various types of intelligences. You may have a high intelligence for mathematics, yet be half-autistic and socially inept. Or you have a great practical intelligence or manual intelligence, yet very bad verbal intelligence etc. So in the same sense I defined "musical intelligence" as the intelligence to enjoy music. That does not have to necessarily correlate with the standard IQ, although if I had to guess, I would say there is some correlation between classical IQ meausured by IQ tests and music preference, but the correlation coefficient is not 1, but for example 0.3. And the music IQ can be trained, ie by listening to more and more music, your taste gets refined as your ability to enjoy music.


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## eugeneonagain

Quaaaack, quack, quack, quack, quack, quack!


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## DaveM

Jacck said:


> In my opinion the classical music took the wrong turn when it decided to get rid of melody. The whole 19th century produced so much beautiful melodic music - Schubert, Schumann, Brahms, Liszt, Chopin and countless others. The 1900-1950 was a transitional period where musicians explored new venues, but still retained some melody, think of Shostakovich, Prokofiev, Hindemith etc. After 1950 the classical music became "l´art pour l´art" and most melodic talents fled to movie music. And classical music instead of embracing the film composers and supporting them into converting their most memorable scores into suites and symphonies, distances itself in its ivory tower. Listen to Rozsa's violin concerto which was composed from a movie score
> 
> 
> 
> 
> or Williams music to Schindlers List or Star Wars. This music will survive into the future.
> Of course there is plenty of modern classical I like - Ligeti, Schnittke, Baczewicz. But you cannot listen to these harrowing pieces all the time. People need also someting melodic, emotional, beautiful.


For the most part you've hit the nail on the head. The loss of accessible melody which results in beautiful classical music (ultimate example: Beethoven Symphony 6) that doesn't take a music scholar to understand or music that is engaging because of the way it develops a theme or uses a motif.

The change in classical music that occurred as the 20th century progressed is perfectly obvious to those of us who have listened classical music for years. It's even a fact that composers who tried to compose 'traditionally' in the early 1900s were criticized for doing so. These changes were not asked for by the listening public. Now we are told that we need to educate ourselves, put in the time, listen repeatedly to learn to like contemporary music.

A forum such as this draws people who have all sorts of tastes and a good number like some of the most discordant, dissonant atonal contemporary music. Good for them and the more power to them, but they don't represent the typical cross-section of classical music listeners outside the forum. The loss of melody as I have always understood the term in classical music has resulted in a mish-mash of contemporary/modern music that has little consistency that was typical during the baroque, classical and romantic periods. The Los Angeles Phil has been commissioning a lot of new works. Some of them are nothing short of bizarre and you will never hear of them again.

End of rant.


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## eugeneonagain

DaveM said:


> These changes were not asked for by the listening public. Now we are told that we need to educate ourselves, put in the time, listen repeatedly to learn to like contemporary music.


Honestly though, did the listening public ever 'ask' for any development in music? Did they ask Liszt to push technical piano performance into the stratosphere? Did they ask for Wagner's innovations? Did they beg Debussy to blur tonality so that his works could get the huge airplay they do nowadays?

I know contemporary music is often criticised for 'ignoring the audience', but tell me a great artist who was actually, actively soliciting the opinions of the public?


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## MarkW

There is so much CM nowadays, and so much of it has been recorded, and there is relatively so little air time, that many things that might make it onto the list don't get played enough for people to become familiar with them. To name one, the Tippett Piano Concerto, for instance.


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## DaveM

eugeneonagain said:


> Honestly though, did the listening public ever 'ask' for any development in music? Did they ask Liszt to push technical piano performance into the stratosphere? Did they ask for Wagner's innovations? Did they beg Debussy to blur tonality so that his works could get the huge airplay they do nowadays?
> 
> I know contemporary music is often criticised for 'ignoring the audience', but tell me a great artist who was actually, actively soliciting the opinions of the public?


Tell me a great artist in those days that didn't have to have his music accepted by the church, the court or those buying the music. In the end, what ended up being those hiring, those buying or those listening had to accept the music or the composer didn't survive. Established composers could get away with some innovation, but most had to stay within certain constraints.

Liszt's was able to push technical performance to some extremes because he became a rock star playing traditional music, but even he reached limits of acceptance. The b minor sonata in particular was trashed by some critics and it didn't become part of the repertoire until the early 20th century when almost everything was becoming the 'new music'.


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## science

There is plenty of music written today with "accessible melody." It's just that we usually don't define it as classical music. 

The implicit definition of classical music in many people's minds seems to require that it is written in an older style with older techniques. It disqualifies (1) anything that emphasizes improvisation rather than attempting to channel something like the composer's original intent; (2) the electronic manipulation of sound, including even amplification; and (3) persistent, powerful beats. Those things hit the cultural elite, who generally chose to exclude them from the label "classical music," in the early- and mid-20th century. 

Among fans of composers like Stockhausen or Reich, those distinctions have been gone forever, but even among the broader public they seem to be being reconsidered. If they're thrown out, the term "classical music" is either going to get thrown out along with them in favor of some new term like "art music," or a lot of stuff (i.e. some of the stuff that is currently labeled Broadway musicals, soundtracks, video game music, electronica, New Age Music, world music) is going to get retroactively re-classified. 

Personally, I would very, very, very happily say "classical music" died sometime between 1945 and 1968, and reclassify all the "classical music" since then as "art music." I would be ecstatic if more people who aspire to an intellectual approach to "classical" music recognized innovation in electronic instrumentation as having been a valid intellectual pursuit. 

Anyway, whether "we" accept these things or not, the wider world - including a lot of influential musicians from Yo-Yo Ma to Kronos Quartet to Gidon Kremer to (names less familiar here) Stephen Micus or Eleni Karaindrou or Meredith Monk - already has.


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## PlaySalieri

DavidA said:


> With Classic FM it's generally excerpts from the music so it might be a movement of a concerto or an aria for an opera. It leans very heavily and deliberately to popular taste, it is none the worse for that as it is great to listen to in the car on a journey. However, it would not generally fit a serious evenings listen to music. But let's face it all the music listed in the OP are generally masterpieces.


Classic FM is a station which relies on advertising

playing the most popular pieces time and again makes sense as they need listeners - what they dont need is people reaching for the tuning knob when they play a "naff" piece.

radio 3 have that luxury, courtesy of the UK license fee payers hence all the obscure choral works they play in full


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## KenOC

stomanek said:


> ...radio 3 have that luxury, courtesy of the UK license fee payers hence all the obscure choral works they play in full


Meaning: They play music for the very few paid for by the very many who don't care for it. I suppose that's one approach to public policy, but I hope they don't try it in my country.


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## TurnaboutVox

KenOC said:


> Meaning: They play music for the very few paid for by the very many who don't care for it. I suppose that's one approach to public policy, but I hope they don't try it in my country.


Ken, the BBC funds several specialist musical radio stations, nationally and regionally, covering all kinds of music. Radio 3 covers traditional, modernist, contemporary and experimental art music as well as jazz, as well as the discussion of other arts.

I'm very glad they do, and personally I think promoting the musical arts is an excellent and creative use of taxpayers' money.


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## ST4

Contrary to the title of the thread, Classical Music is more alive than ever, it's just not on the common radio.


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## janxharris

Below is a selection of pieces that are often playing during the day on Classic FM but which are *below* 'The Rite Of Spring' on their Hall of Fame. As I said previously, Igor's piece does not get played during the day.

Do their programmers not trust their own chart?

300 PIANO CONCERTO IN G MAJOR - Maurice Ravel
298 TURANDOT (INCLUDES NESSUN DORMA) - Giacomo Puccini
296 GAME OF THRONES - Ramin Djawadi
293 THE FIREBIRD - Igor Stravinsky
291 PRELUDE A L'APRES-MIDI D'UN FAUNE - Claude Debussy
287 PIANO CONCERTO NO.1 IN D MINOR OP.15 - Johannes Brahms
286 THE DAM BUSTERS (INCLUDES THE DAM BUSTERS MARCH) - Eric Coates
285 NOCTURNE NO.1 IN B FLAT MINOR OP.9 - Frederic Chopin
284 BRAVEHEART - James Horner
283 PAVANE POUR UNE INFANTE DEFUNTE - Maurice Ravel
280 HORN CONCERTO NO.1 IN D MAJOR K412 - Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart
279 ARABESQUE NO.1 - Claude Debussy
278 STRING QUARTET NO.2 IN D MAJOR - Alexander Borodin
277 COPPELIA - Leo Delibes
274 A NIGHT ON THE BARE MOUNTAIN (BALD MOUNTAIN) - Modest Mussorgsky
273 PIANO CONCERTO IN A MINOR OP.54 - Robert Schumann
272 FANTAISIE-IMPROMPTU IN C SHARP MINOR - Frederic Chopin
271 CROWN IMPERIAL - William Walton
270 SALUT D'AMOUR OP.12 - Edward Elgar
269 HUNGARIAN DANCES - Johannes Brahms
265 FLORIDA SUITE - Frederick Delius
263 VIOLIN CONCERTO - Philip Glass
260 JERUSALEM - Hubert Parry
255 SYMPHONY NO.41 IN C MAJOR K551 ('JUPITER') -Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart
253 THE WASPS (INCLUDES OVERTURE) - Ralph Vaughan Williams
252 LEMMINKAINEN SUITE (INCLUDES THE SWAN OF TUONELA) - Jean Sibelius
250 SYMPHONY NO.3 IN F MAJOR OP.90 - Johannes Brahms
249 ORCHESTRAL SUITE NO.3 IN D MAJOR BWV 1068 (INCLUDES AIR ON THE G STRING) - Johann Sebastian Bach
248 THE MASTERSINGERS OF NUREMBURG - Richard Wagner
247 INTRODUCTION AND ALLEGRO FOR STRINGS - Edward Elgar
246 GNOSSIENNES - Erik Satie
245 SYMPHONY NO.4 IN A MAJOR OP.90 ('ITALIAN') - Felix Mendelssohn
244 GLORIA IN D MAJOR RV589 (INCLUDES LAUDAMUS TE) - Antonio Vivaldi
243 SYMPHONY NO.9 IN C MAJOR D.944 ('GREAT') - Franz Schubert
242 SYMPHONY NO.1 IN C MINOR OP.68 - Johannes Brahms
237 SYMPHONY NO.1 IN D MAJOR ('TITAN') - Gustav Mahler
236 THE MERRY WIDOW (INCLUDES VILJA SONG) - Franz Lehar
233 LOHENGRIN - Richard Wagner
232 CANTATA BWV 208 'WAS MIR BEHAGT' (INCLUDES 'SHEEP MAY SAFELY GRAZE') - J.S. Bach
230 A MIDSUMMER NIGHT'S DREAM - Felix Mendelssohn
*225 THE RITE OF SPRING (LE SACRE DU PRINTEMPS) - Igor Stravinsky*


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## KenOC

TurnaboutVox said:


> Ken, the BBC funds several specialist musical radio stations, nationally and regionally, covering all kinds of music. Radio 3 covers traditional, modernist, contemporary and experimental art music as well as jazz, as well as the discussion of other arts.
> 
> I'm very glad they do, and personally I think promoting the musical arts is an excellent and creative use of taxpayers' money.


Yes, I'm aware of that and welcome GB to implement whatever public policies it sees fit.


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## TurnaboutVox

KenOC said:


> Yes, I'm aware of that and welcome GB to implement whatever public policies it sees fit.


How kind! I'll pass on the good news to the Minister for Digital, Culture, Media & Sport.


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## KenOC

TurnaboutVox said:


> How kind! I'll pass on the good news to the Minister for Digital, Culture, Media & Sport.


Please do. And include my compliments and hopes they can continue to improve the tastes of the common herd.


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## janxharris

KenOC said:


> Meaning: They play music for the very few paid for by the very many who don't care for it. I suppose that's one approach to public policy, but I hope they don't try it in my country.


At least everyone has a chance to hear it now - here's Robert Kahn regarding premier of Beethoven's 5th and 6th symphonies (etc):



> Even a grand public concert could draw only from the aristocracy and the city's small middle class, [estimated at] no more than 2.5 percent of Vienna's 200,000 to 250,000 residents. The standard price for a concert ticket was two gulden ... which was more than a week's salary for a labourer. Musicians could not give academies in the summer, when the nobility fled the dust and heat of Vienna to their country estates, and during the fall and winter the theatres were given over to rehearsals and performances of operas, the high status form of musical production. The only time available for academies was during Advent and Lent, when operas were forbidden. During these six weeks, competition for halls was fierce, and theatre managers could and did refuse nights to Beethoven in favour of mediocrities.


(Wikipedia)


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## KenOC

janxharris said:


> At least everyone has a chance to hear it now - here's Robert Kahn regarding premier of Beethoven's 5th and 6th symphonies (etc):
> 
> (Wikipedia)


And how many "Beethovens" have been heard on GB's subsidized channels that people, for lack of funds, would never otherwise have heard? Even a short list -- very short! -- would be welcome.


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## Nereffid

TurnaboutVox said:


> Ken, the BBC funds several specialist musical radio stations, nationally and regionally, covering all kinds of music. Radio 3 covers traditional, modernist, contemporary and experimental art music as well as jazz, as well as the discussion of other arts.
> 
> I'm very glad they do, and personally I think promoting the musical arts is an excellent and creative use of taxpayers' money.


And in fact all the BBC stations combined account for over half of the radio audience in the UK.


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## janxharris

KenOC said:


> And how many "Beethovens" have been heard on GB's subsidized channels that people, for lack of funds, would never otherwise have heard? Even a short list -- very short! -- would be welcome.


I guess Beethoven was considered great by only a handful of aristocrats in the 18th century.

Stravinsky and Sibelius might be cited...my bias. Currently, I am not a great lover of modern pieces but have recently enjoyed Webern's Symphony and Stockhausen's Gruppen. I don't know enough of their work so can't comment on whether they might be considered on a level with Beethoven.


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## janxharris

Nereffid said:


> And in fact all the BBC stations combined account for over half of the radio audience in the UK.


BBC Radio 3 has three-year high for listeners (2015)


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## KenOC

janxharris said:


> I guess Beethoven was considered great by only a handful of aristocrats in the 18th century.


In fact, Beethoven was generally considered the best composer in Vienna (and by inference the world) from 1802-1803 on. 20,000 Viennese citizens attended his funeral in 1827.


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## janxharris

KenOC said:


> In fact, Beethoven was generally considered the best composer in Vienna (and by inference the world) from 1802-1803 on. 20,000 Viennese citizens attended his funeral in 1827.


Indeed. I believe his Wellington's Victory was much loved.


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## janxharris

To be fair - so was the slow mvmt from 7th sy.


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## Larkenfield

It's completely false that CM has died. _Only if it were no longer available anywhere, it would be dead_. On the contrary, through the latest in technology, it's never been more available in the history of the world. Whether people want to financially support or pay for it is another matter, but it's being heard by millions.

What composers have some of you not been able to hear somewhere? What work? What artist? What orchestra? What soloist? What violinist living or dead have you not been able to find because the music as a whole has "died"?

The only thing that's changed is the context of the world in which it's being heard. But there's so much of it online for FREE that it's practically impossible to avoid. You can virtually hear the entire history of classical music without it costing you a dime.

The main problem is that it's no longer supporting live musicians and orchestras to the degree as it has before, as there are fewer of them. But great classical musicians continue to be born, the equal of any in the past IMO, and that keeps the music alive just like with previous generations, though it has more competition from other sources of entertainment, and the audience appears diluted except for the availability of recorded music.

One example of it's not coming to an end is that _The Best of Bach_ on YT has 35,000,000 views. That's more than the people who heard him in his entire lifetime. The Best of Mozart has 148,000,000 views, ditto, and so on and so forth, similar to Chopin, who has 58,000,000 views. How about an audience of 800,000 for a contemporary work by Mason Bates?

_Nothing_ came to an end 60 years ago, and music with melodies can still be heard in abundance, including with contemporary music, if one searches it out, and it's never been easier to search it out.

The notion that it has died is a complete fiction because some listeners are disappointed with a number of modern and contemporary composers. But what's actually happening is that it's being accessed through different means, and people are listening without the music being talked to death or in the concert halls.


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## janxharris

Larkenfield said:


> _Nothing_ came to an end 60 years ago, and *music with melodies can still be heard* in abundance, including with contemporary music, if one searches it out, and it's never been easier to search it out.


Mason Bates - violin concerto.


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## janxharris

It's not something I adore but:

'Mothership' - Mason Bates

is heading towards a million views.


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## janxharris

Rock music is apparently dead.


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## eugeneonagain

DaveM said:


> Tell me a great artist in those days that didn't have to have his music accepted by the church, the court or those buying the music. In the end, what ended up being those hiring, those buying or those listening had to accept the music or the composer didn't survive. Established composers could get away with some innovation, but most had to stay within certain constraints.


A great deal of what we now value of e.g. Bach, was unpublished work. Work he didn't write for the weekly church services; a lot of it likely wouldn't have pleased some people. What you speak about above is not the 'listening public's' taste requirements, but the requirements of church officials, an autocrat or two. That a composer has had to alter his vision to sell his music to those looking for a fix of what they know, is hardly an argument for art or the artist. It's an argument for 'market forces'.



DaveM said:


> Liszt's was able to push technical performance to some extremes because he became a rock star playing traditional music, but even he reached limits of acceptance. The b minor sonata in particular was trashed by some critics and it didn't become part of the repertoire until the early 20th century when almost everything was becoming the 'new music'.


This trajectory of Liszt's was not driven by 'public request'. That is the important point. I doubt that he sat at his desk thinking: 'Ah, better not do what I'm doing in this piece _Unstern_ lest the public reject me!' He decided what he wrote and how he played and the public learned to appreciate good art.

The opposite is no better than some amateur cellist autocrat telling a composer what is best. There is a reason he is the amateur cellist autocrat and not the composer he so wishes to direct.


----------



## Enthusiast

DaveM said:


> For the most part you've hit the nail on the head. The loss of accessible melody which results in beautiful classical music (ultimate example: Beethoven Symphony 6) that doesn't take a music scholar to understand or music that is engaging because of the way it develops a theme or uses a motif.
> 
> The change in classical music that occurred as the 20th century progressed is perfectly obvious to those of us who have listened classical music for years. It's even a fact that composers who tried to compose 'traditionally' in the early 1900s were criticized for doing so. These changes were not asked for by the listening public. Now we are told that we need to educate ourselves, put in the time, listen repeatedly to learn to like contemporary music.
> 
> A forum such as this draws people who have all sorts of tastes and a good number like some of the most discordant, dissonant atonal contemporary music. Good for them and the more power to them, but they don't represent the typical cross-section of classical music listeners outside the forum. The loss of melody as I have always understood the term in classical music has resulted in a mish-mash of contemporary/modern music that has little consistency that was typical during the baroque, classical and romantic periods. The Los Angeles Phil has been commissioning a lot of new works. Some of them are nothing short of bizarre and you will never hear of them again.
> 
> End of rant.


If you want music with hummable melody then there is a lot for you. It is one of the things I like in music and I spend a lot of my listening time with music that includes this within its appeal. But even then it is usually what it does with the melody that is important to me. But there is plenty also to get out of the unmelodious music that perhaps dominates much modern and contemporary music. It just isn't melody. And this unmelodious music may not have mass appeal but it is still a lot more popular than it was 25 years ago.

Reading through this thread I often felt like recommending some piece or other of Gubaidulina. I'm not sure why - I could have chosen a different composer - but it is what I felt. It is hardly melodious but it is powerful in a fairly "traditional" way.


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## Enthusiast

KenOC said:


> Meaning: They play music for the very few paid for by the very many who don't care for it. I suppose that's one approach to public policy, but I hope they don't try it in my country.


Fair enough, I suppose. But so many unforgettable things have come out of the publicly-funded BBC and much of this would just not have happened were it not for the BBC. It is not just Radio 3. There are things for lots of different people. I know that commercial stations have also produced a lot of good things as well, usually good in a different way (or influenced by something that the BBC pioneered). But we would all (I mean in Britain!) be the poorer if it were not for the BBC. It is far from perfect and one of the many reasons for this is the constant pressure on it to satisfy the majority. But when it tries it then gets asked "why are you doing something that a commercial station could do?"

I believe - and I think there is evidence for this - that countries with vibrant cultural lives are happier and more successful. But another thing is needed, I think: quite a lot of CM survives these days by selling over priced tickets to commercial corporate entities and this can price ordinary people out of the market.

Oh dear. I suspect some people will be thinking I'm a "damned Marxist", now!


----------



## Guest

Jacck said:


> But I still believe there is something to what I wrote, ie people who regularly listen to for example Beyonce will never be able to enjoy the Rite of Spring. And the radio stations know that. The average listeners can maybe digest Tchaikovsky PC1, Rach PC2, some Beethoven etc. It is about the ability of the brain to enjoy more complex, more chaotic, more disonant music. Beyonce is 3 chords and some silly singing about silly things.


I enjoy "3 chords with silly singing about silly things" music but also enjoy "complex, chaotic, dissonant" music. I can't be alone in that. "Never" is a long word.


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## Guest

MacLeod said:


> That's an improbable extrapolation from the Griffith study that said Beyonce was listened to by stupid people.
> 
> https://consequenceofsound.net/2014...ple-listen-to-beyonce-according-to-new-study/


Uh, yeah, Counting Crows...


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## Larkenfield

TurnaboutVox said:


> Ken, the BBC funds several specialist musical radio stations, nationally and regionally, covering all kinds of music. Radio 3 covers traditional, modernist, contemporary and experimental art music as well as jazz, as well as the discussion of other arts.
> 
> I'm very glad they do, and personally, I think promoting the musical arts is an excellent and creative use of taxpayers' money.


I'm glad too. I have enjoyed countless hours of entertainment through the generosity of the public-funded BBC. There's a BBC app that can be installed on any mobile device and the programming can be heard anywhere.

The commercial-free drama and music presentations are worth their weight in gold, from classical works to contemporary, that get the word out about new musicians, writers, composers, and artists. It's constructive and positive. _It's worth whatever it costs._

Because of the constant, never-ending commercial climate in the US, it's no wonder so many people are living to work rather than working to live, as is more prevalent in Europe. At least with the BBC, the US can live long-distance off their dime and of course never have any comparable radio programming of its own that sets a new cultural climate in the country that can be promoted and actually has some cultural value beyond the selling of soaps, detergents, pet food, and military gear.


----------



## Guest

stomanek said:


> Classic FM is a station which relies on advertising
> 
> playing the most popular pieces time and again makes sense as they need listeners - what they dont need is people reaching for the tuning knob when they play a "naff" piece.


...which explains why their programmes are an endless loop of the same music, captured for eternity in amber. Nostalgia, creative death.....pandering to the LCD...


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## Guest

janxharris said:


> Rock music is apparently dead.


Keep up. I also read here recently that jazz is dead. I'm beginning to suspect that everything is dead, with the possible exception of white, dead men in wigs.


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## Enthusiast

MacLeod said:


> That's an improbable extrapolation from the Griffith study that said Beyonce was listened to by stupid people.
> 
> https://consequenceofsound.net/2014...ple-listen-to-beyonce-according-to-new-study/


It is easy enough to imagine the different factors that led to that "research" result. But it seemed to lack much rap/hip hop. I wonder where different rap artists would have come? I ask because it seems to me that rap is the one popular music form that is genuinely still moving forward (= is alive). The rest - much of which I like well enough - is not doing a lot more than recycling old ideas. Sometimes it does this in new ways and with new sounds (and with new but very real talents) but essentially, it seems to me, it has all been done before.


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## Enthusiast

Larkenfield said:


> .... it's no wonder so many people live to work here rather than working to live, as is more prevalent in Europe.


That's an interesting and arresting statement. I _think _I like it and agree. Could you expand it a bit?


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## Enthusiast

dogen said:


> Keep up. I also read here recently that jazz is dead. I'm beginning to suspect that everything is dead, with the possible exception of white, dead men in wigs.


I'm not sure I like much of it but hip hop still lives!


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## Strange Magic

dogen said:


> Keep up. I also read here recently that jazz is dead. I'm beginning to suspect that everything is dead, with the possible exception of white, dead men in wigs.


The white, dead men in wigs are dead also, in the sense that their share, like everybody's share, of the constantly expanding pie is getting always smaller. The consolation is that nobody's share is ever lost. It's the New Stasis, and it will be with us until......


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## Thomyum2

I'm late to join this discussion thread, but the idea that classical came to an 'end' is something I've thought about for many years. I actually attribute it to one thing: the invention of the recording. I've always felt that it was not a complete coincidence that the invention of the recording device coincided with the arrival of atonality. If you think about it, this invention changed the whole economics of music (which is a whole topic in and of itself) but the effect was to both make music more accessible while at the same time 'cheapening' it and turning it into a disposable commodity. In modern times, recorded music is so widespread that while we still enjoy it, we don't really _value_ it as much any more. After all, we now largely just use it as background sound for whatever else we're doing. So for composers who really want to say something new and communicate an idea to their listener, and not just provide entertainment or background sound, it's inevitable that they would use sounds that challenge the ear. And also inevitable that people who are accustomed to see music purely as a form of entertainment aren't going to be accepting of that. So the fact that many people don't want to be challenged by classical music doesn't mean it has come to an end.

Schoenberg once said of his 12-tone work that someday the milkman would be humming his tunes. We're not there yet, but I think he had an important point.


----------



## PlaySalieri

Thomyum2 said:


> I'm late to join this discussion thread, but the idea that classical came to an 'end' is something I've thought about for many years. I actually attribute it to one thing: the invention of the recording. I've always felt that it was not a complete coincidence that the invention of the recording device coincided with the arrival of atonality. If you think about it, this invention changed the whole economics of music (which is a whole topic in and of itself) but the effect was to both make music more accessible while at the same time 'cheapening' it and turning it into a disposable commodity. In modern times, recorded music is so widespread that while we still enjoy it, we don't really _value_ it as much any more. After all, we now largely just use it as background sound for whatever else we're doing. *So for composers who really want to say something new and communicate an idea to their listener, and not just provide entertainment or background sound, it's inevitable that they would use sounds that challenge the ear.* And also inevitable that people who are accustomed to see music purely as a form of entertainment aren't going to be accepting of that. So the fact that many people don't want to be challenged by classical music doesn't mean it has come to an end.
> 
> Schoenberg once said of his 12-tone work that someday the milkman would be humming his tunes. We're not there yet, but I think he had an important point.


I look forward to seeing some responses to this idea that composers in the era of rec sound with something to say compose music that is inaccessible and unpleasant to the vast majority of listeners in order to get their message across.

I cant wait.


----------



## Thomyum2

stomanek said:


> I look forward to seeing some responses to this idea that composers in the era of rec sound with something to say compose music that is inaccessible and unpleasant to the vast majority of listeners in order to get their message across.
> 
> I cant wait.


Ah, I think you've misunderstood - I did not say inaccessible and unpleasant, I said 'challenging'. Very different! By 'challenging', I mean something that's new and different, and something that's not what we're expecting or are accustomed to, and something that maybe doesn't necessarily appeal to us right away. But you have a good point and I'd note that there certainly are composers who do use accessible sounds as a medium to say something new as well - Philip Glass comes to mind? Of course, all of these are subjective terms, so what's accessible or challenging to one person may not be so to another.


----------



## Nereffid

Thomyum2 said:


> I'm late to join this discussion thread, but the idea that classical came to an 'end' is something I've thought about for many years. I actually attribute it to one thing: the invention of the recording. I've always felt that it was not a complete coincidence that the invention of the recording device coincided with the arrival of atonality. If you think about it, this invention changed the whole economics of music (which is a whole topic in and of itself) but the effect was to both make music more accessible while at the same time 'cheapening' it and turning it into a disposable commodity. In modern times, recorded music is so widespread that while we still enjoy it, we don't really _value_ it as much any more. After all, we now largely just use it as background sound for whatever else we're doing. So for composers who really want to say something new and communicate an idea to their listener, and not just provide entertainment or background sound, it's inevitable that they would use sounds that challenge the ear. And also inevitable that people who are accustomed to see music purely as a form of entertainment aren't going to be accepting of that. So the fact that many people don't want to be challenged by classical music doesn't mean it has come to an end.


I think the role of recording was significant, but not necessarily in the way you suggest. The existence of recordings made it increasingly easy for people who didn't want to hear new music, to instead re-listen to the older music that they preferred. In that sense it was continuing a process started by the rise of sheet music for household use. Music moved on as it always did, but the audience didn't need to keep up with it. And then we come to the "end" of a particular notion of classical music in the 1950s - again, an intriguing coincidence with the rise of the LP not to mention rock 'n' roll and the various social changes of the time.


----------



## Nereffid

Jacck said:


> In my opinion the classical music took the wrong turn when it decided to get rid of melody. The whole 19th century produced so much beautiful melodic music - Schubert, Schumann, Brahms, Liszt, Chopin and countless others. The 1900-1950 was a transitional period where musicians explored new venues, but still retained some melody, think of Shostakovich, Prokofiev, Hindemith etc. After 1950 the classical music became "l´art pour l´art" and most melodic talents fled to movie music. And classical music instead of embracing the film composers and supporting them into converting their most memorable scores into suites and symphonies, distances itself in its ivory tower. Listen to Rozsa's violin concerto which was composed from a movie score
> 
> 
> 
> 
> or Williams music to Schindlers List or Star Wars. This music will survive into the future.
> Of course there is plenty of modern classical I like - Ligeti, Schnittke, Baczewicz. But you cannot listen to these harrowing pieces all the time. People need also someting melodic, emotional, beautiful.


I wouldn't use the phrase "wrong turn", but I agree that melody is a significant part of the puzzle. Or rather, a particular kind of melody: the "good tune". The general public wants a good tune in its classical music. This is a characteristic of the Classic FM Hall of Fame, not to mention LP/CD series of yore - some of us will remember "Best-Loved Classics" or "Your Hundred Best Tunes". Shostakovich is on the Classic FM list for _The Gadfly_ and his Jazz Suites, not for his string quartets; Verdi's most popular work is _Nabucco_ (i.e., "Va, pensiero") and _Otello_ is nowhere to be found; Beethoven's got _Für Elise_ but not the _Hammerklavier_.
So I'd say the absence of a "good tune" has long been a feature of classical music, and the public has been less interested in that music. But yeah, fair to say that "good tunes" have become rather more absent in recent decades. But science makes a very good point:



science said:


> There is plenty of music written today with "accessible melody." It's just that we usually don't define it as classical music.
> 
> The implicit definition of classical music in many people's minds seems to require that it is written in an older style with older techniques. It disqualifies (1) anything that emphasizes improvisation rather than attempting to channel something like the composer's original intent; (2) the electronic manipulation of sound, including even amplification; and (3) persistent, powerful beats. Those things hit the cultural elite, who generally chose to exclude them from the label "classical music," in the early- and mid-20th century.
> 
> Among fans of composers like Stockhausen or Reich, those distinctions have been gone forever, but even among the broader public they seem to be being reconsidered. If they're thrown out, the term "classical music" is either going to get thrown out along with them in favor of some new term like "art music," or a lot of stuff (i.e. some of the stuff that is currently labeled Broadway musicals, soundtracks, video game music, electronica, New Age Music, world music) is going to get retroactively re-classified.


I guess the point I was making in the first post is that some of this reclassification is already happening. Mentioning "Va, pensiero" above reminds me of my grandfather. He had little to no interest in classical music but he loved that piece. I suppose today's equivalent would be something like the "Agnus Dei" from Karl Jenkins's _The Armed Man_. The more serious listener may turn up their nose, but as far as the public is concerned (or at least the public in the form of Classic FM listeners), that isn't just proper classical music, it's _very good_ classical music.


----------



## stejo

As you say 1959 I´m glad to count shostakovich as a classic composer, his my big favourite!


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## Kivimees

KenOC said:


> Please do. And include my compliments and hopes they can continue to improve the tastes of the common herd.


If I am asked to provide an example of the word "irony", I'll have to keep this in mind.


----------



## DaveM

eugeneonagain said:


> A great deal of what we now value of e.g. Bach, was unpublished work. Work he didn't write for the weekly church services; a lot of it likely wouldn't have pleased some people. What you speak about above is not the 'listening public's' taste requirements, but the requirements of church officials, an autocrat or two. That a composer has had to alter his vision to sell his music to those looking for a fix of what they know, is hardly an argument for art or the artist. It's an argument for 'market forces'.
> 
> This trajectory of Liszt's was not driven by 'public request'. That is the important point. I doubt that he sat at his desk thinking: 'Ah, better not do what I'm doing in this piece _Unstern_ lest the public reject me!' He decided what he wrote and how he played and the public learned to appreciate good art.
> 
> The opposite is no better than some amateur cellist autocrat telling a composer what is best. There is a reason he is the amateur cellist autocrat and not the composer he so wishes to direct.


I'm surprised that you believe that composers of those prior eras did not have to please, in some combination, their employers, the publishers, the players, listeners and in some periods, their peers and could compose in the free form way that composers do today and get away with it.


----------



## eugeneonagain

DaveM said:


> I'm surprised that you believe that composers of those prior eras did not have to please, in some combination, their employers, the publishers, the players, listeners and in some periods, their peers and could compose in the free form way that composers do today and get away with it.


I'm more surprised that you think _I_ think that. Even more surprised as to how it could be concluded from anything I've written in a reply to you.
Clearly that situation had and has been dominant in various measures, but that's hardly a good thing is it? "Write yet another standard, pretty flute sonata for us or we will bankrupt you". Hardly the engine for artistic development.

I think we all know that e.g. Beethoven's finest works were written according to his artistic sensibilities rather than any listeners' whims. This runs the same throughout art. Turner's private paintings as compared to the standard fare he painted to be able to get exhibited by the RA and being called everything including 'mad' for his later impressionistic approach. We wouldn't have those great works if Turner had been the sort of man to stick to 'what the market wants'. Rather his attitude is summed up with this quote about marriage and men who are married:



> "they never make any sacrifice to the arts but are always thinking of their duty to their wives and their families, or some rubbish of that sort."


----------



## DaveM

eugeneonagain said:


> I'm more surprised that you think _I_ think that. Even more surprised as to how it could be concluded from anything I've written in a reply to you.
> Clearly that situation had and has been dominant in various measures, but that's hardly a good thing is it? "Write yet another standard, pretty flute sonata for us or we will bankrupt you". Hardly the engine for artistic development.
> 
> I think we all know that e.g. Beethoven's finest works were written according to his artistic sensibilities rather than any listeners' whims. This runs the same throughout art. Turner's private paintings as compared to the standard fare he painted to be able to get exhibited by the RA and being called everything including 'mad' for his later impressionistic approach. We wouldn't have those great works if Turner had been the sort of man to stick to 'what the market wants'. Rather his attitude is summed up with this quote about marriage and men who are married:


So you're re admitting that there were constraints and limits to how far afield a composer could go back then compared to today.

I think we all know that as an established composer, Beethoven had some leeway to innovate. His earlier compositions were very 'traditional' which helped establish him. Now he could move on to works such as the Eroica, but he still had to stay within some limits of symphonic structure, melodic content etc. In the end, he had to please a target audience which particularly meant publishers and indirectly the buyers of his published music. Even as he composed some of his most original works, he was able to sell them to publishers.


----------



## eugeneonagain

I don't think I can say the same thing again any other way. Or if I want to. In short, Beethoven's great works were not composed because of what 'listeners' wanted, but despite them. The argument made was:



DaveM said:


> These changes were not asked for by the listening public. Now we are told that we need to educate ourselves, put in the time, listen repeatedly to learn to like contemporary music.


The point I am making is that the history of great music is not the product of public request. That composers have had to placate and please the public, patrons and the like, is another thing entirely. A hindrance to be overcome.A great deal of what is now considered classic and part of the listening canon was treated with the same scorn.

Yes, you do have to put in the time and effort to appreciate good art sometimes. That is not a prescription for your tastes since you can decide for yourself whether you like something or not, but the public shouldn't ever delude themselves that an artist is always trying to please it.


----------



## Gordontrek

eugeneonagain said:


> The point I am making is that the history of great music is not the product of public request. That composers have had to placate and please the public, patrons and the like, is another thing entirely. A hindrance to be overcome.A great deal of what is now considered classic and part of the listening canon was treated with the same scorn.
> 
> Yes, you do have to put in the time and effort to appreciate good art sometimes. That is not a prescription for your tastes since you can decide for yourself whether you like something or not, but the public shouldn't ever delude themselves that an artist is always trying to please it.


How long did it take for Beethoven's initially-scorned work to reach its current status of basically holy writ, among both casual listeners and serious musicians? A decade, maybe, after his death? Contemporary music has had more than half a century to become "holy writ." Why hasn't it, except mostly among ivory tower academics who try in vain to explain it to the public and get them to appreciate it?

Maybe what killed classical music (if indeed it died) was not that the artists didn't try to please the public or explain their art to them; but rather, the art could not stand on its own _without_ lengthy explanation, at least not to the degree that Beethoven's music could.


----------



## PlaySalieri

Nereffid said:


> I think the role of recording was significant, but not necessarily in the way you suggest. The existence of recordings made it increasingly easy for people who didn't want to hear new music, to instead re-listen to the older music that they preferred. In that sense it was continuing a process started by the rise of sheet music for household use. Music moved on as it always did, but the audience didn't need to keep up with it. And then we come to the "end" of a particular notion of classical music in the 1950s - again, an intriguing coincidence with the rise of the LP not to mention rock 'n' roll and the various social changes of the time.


Yes but concerts were dominated by the much same music in the early 20thC up to mid 20th C as they are now - Beet Moz Brahms etc

so there would have been no issue about listeners having to buy LPs to avoid new modern music as it was and has always been a minor player in the concert hall and indeed recorded music.


----------



## eugeneonagain

Gordontrek said:


> How long did it take for Beethoven's initially-scorned work to reach its current status of basically holy writ, among both casual listeners and serious musicians? A decade, maybe, after his death? Contemporary music has had more than half a century to become "holy writ." Why hasn't it, except mostly among ivory tower academics who try in vain to explain it to the public and get them to appreciate it?


Much more than a decade. The now great works of so many composers have lain unpublished and unperformed because they didn't fit the tastes or the works the composer was expected to provide.
However why must contemporary music have to become 'holy writ'? Times are different, the idea of the 'great man' of art, of science has largely passed away and is likely responsible for so many people wondering where 'all the 'heroes have all gone'. There is always going to be something that manages to appeal to a broader taste and these then become the new hero, for a while...



Gordontrek said:


> Maybe what killed classical music (if indeed it died) was not that the artists didn't try to please the public or explain their art to them; but rather, the art could not stand on its own _without_ lengthy explanation, at least not to the degree that Beethoven's music could.


That's a fair comment. I've been to my fair share of performance (been in some) where the 'composer's notes' are longer than the actual score. It seemed the person wasn't sure if they wanted to compose music or write a philosophical thesis. I admit that this can be a problem. The music, like any art, should be able to stand alone.


----------



## mbhaub

If you would read Henry Pleasant's 60-year-old book, The Agony of Modern Music, he destroys the myth that our now-great composers were unrecognized, unloved, and ignored in their own time. Quite the opposite, in fact. Then he lays out quite convincingly what "went wrong" and the bad turns that modern music took. I don't agree with his deduction that jazz is the way of the future. If anything, jazz is less popular than classical. But anyone interested in this topic should read this old book. It still has a lot to say about where music is and why.

Last week I had the distinct displeasure of rehearsing and recording the new, first symphony of a DMA student in composition. It was a wretched thing. Not a tune in sight. Just bleeps, bloops, ugly sounds like multiphonics, fluttertounging, random notes, some impossible to play by human rhythms...every trick in the modern composer's toolkit. After it was all over, a fellow performer said "it's thrilling to think that we played the first performance of this symphony". I blurted out, "yes, and hopefully its last!" Unknown to me, she was the composer's girl friend. Oops! But honest!


----------



## janxharris

mbhaub said:


> If you would read Henry Pleasant's 60-year-old book, The Agony of Modern Music, he destroys the myth that our now-great composers were unrecognized, unloved, and ignored in their own time. Quite the opposite, in fact. Then he lays out quite convincingly what "went wrong" and the bad turns that modern music took. I don't agree with his deduction that jazz is the way of the future. If anything, jazz is less popular than classical. But anyone interested in this topic should read this old book. It still has a lot to say about where music is and why.
> 
> Last week I had the distinct displeasure of rehearsing and recording the new, first symphony of a DMA student in composition. It was a wretched thing. Not a tune in sight. Just bleeps, bloops, ugly sounds like multiphonics, fluttertounging, random notes, some impossible to play by human rhythms...every trick in the modern composer's toolkit. After it was all over, a fellow performer said "it's thrilling to think that we played the first performance of this symphony". I blurted out, "yes, and hopefully its last!" Unknown to me, she was the composer's girl friend. Oops! But honest!


Any modern works you have enjoyed? - either as performer or as listener?


----------



## Nereffid

Gordontrek said:


> Maybe what killed classical music (if indeed it died) was not that the artists didn't try to please the public or explain their art to them; but rather, the art could not stand on its own _without_ lengthy explanation, at least not to the degree that Beethoven's music could.


Just to reiterate: I don't think classical music is dead. My first post clearly stated that it was a particular aspect of classical music that had come to an end - the "popular classics" are where the general public and the serious audience have parted ways. As always, *composers have continued to write music that's perfectly accessible to an audience willing to be engaged*; but unlike previously, where the general public gravitated inevitably to the "lighter" end of the classical spectrum, now they've embraced what appears to be a whole other kind of "classical music" - film scores etc.

I think part of the supposed problem of modern music being unable to "stand on its own" is one of timing. Circa World War I was a terrible time to find an audience willing to engage with a new approach to music, and the couple of decades afterwards didn't help either. I don't think the milkmen would ever have whistled Schoenberg's tunes, but perhaps a less disrupted time might have resulted in a wider (if still not widespread) acceptance of the most modern music. If the audience falls several decades behind, however, it becomes increasingly difficult to catch up. So when the post-war avant-garde came along, it never really had a chance with a wider audience, and here we are now, with 100-year-old music still sounding too new!


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## Larkenfield

*Contemporary music (1997) with melody, a classic of new American choral writing: *


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## Jacck

Larkenfield said:


> *Contemporary music with melody:*


I'd say that composers composing beautiful compositions with melody are slowly returning. Not only Lauridsen, but also Ola Gleijlo and Song of the Universal or his Sunrise Mass are some of the most beautiful compositions of the new millenium. Guillaume Connesson and his Cosmic Trilogy is also quite nice.


----------



## Simon Moon

Jacck said:


> In my opinion the classical music took the wrong turn when it decided to get rid of melody. The whole 19th century produced so much beautiful melodic music - Schubert, Schumann, Brahms, Liszt, Chopin and countless others. The 1900-1950 was a transitional period where musicians explored new venues, but still retained some melody, think of Shostakovich, Prokofiev, Hindemith etc. After 1950 the classical music became "l´art pour l´art" and most melodic talents fled to movie music. And classical music instead of embracing the film composers and supporting them into converting their most memorable scores into suites and symphonies, distances itself in its ivory tower. Listen to Rozsa's violin concerto which was composed from a movie score
> 
> 
> 
> 
> or Williams music to Schindlers List or Star Wars. This music will survive into the future.
> Of course there is plenty of modern classical I like - Ligeti, Schnittke, Baczewicz. But you cannot listen to these harrowing pieces all the time. People need also someting melodic, emotional, beautiful.


As one who likes, almost exclusively, the music you are disparaging here, I'd like to make a few comments. I am bored by music from before the early 20th century. I find it kind of naive sounding.

First of all, I hear beauty in much of the music after 1950. Just because it's not the obvious kind of beauty of the 19th century, does not mean there is not beauty there.

And there are plenty of other emotions and musical attributes that this music has going for it, if .

Not to mention, there are plenty of contemporary composers I could list, that are doing new sounding and unique compositions, that are not harrowing or thorny sounding, like the music of the 50's. They still may not be as easy to listen to as the music of the 19th century, but they are also not as difficult as music of the mid century.

So, as far as I am concerned, classical music only started, *for me*, 60 years ago.


----------



## Chronochromie

Jacck said:


> In my opinion the classical music took the wrong turn when it decided to get rid of melody. The whole 19th century produced so much beautiful melodic music - Schubert, Schumann, Brahms, Liszt, Chopin and countless others. The 1900-1950 was a transitional period where musicians explored new venues, but still retained some melody, think of Shostakovich, Prokofiev, Hindemith etc. After 1950 the classical music became "l´art pour l´art" and most melodic talents fled to movie music. And classical music instead of embracing the film composers and supporting them into converting their most memorable scores into suites and symphonies, distances itself in its ivory tower. Listen to Rozsa's violin concerto which was composed from a movie score
> 
> 
> 
> 
> or Williams music to Schindlers List or Star Wars. This music will survive into the future.
> Of course there is plenty of modern classical I like - Ligeti, Schnittke, Baczewicz. But you cannot listen to these harrowing pieces all the time. People need also someting melodic, emotional, beautiful.


Blergh. Late Ligeti has melodies. So does Messiaen, and many other "serious Contemporary composers" like Glass, Reich, Pärt, L. Andriessen, Saariaho, J.C. Adams, etc.

A poor excuse if I've ever heard one.


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## Jacck

Simon Moon said:


> As one who likes, almost exclusively, the music you are disparaging here, I'd like to make a few comments. I am bored by music from before the early 20th century. I find it kind of naive sounding. First of all, I hear beauty in much of the music after 1950. Just because it's not the obvious kind of beauty of the 19th century, does not mean there is not beauty there. And there are plenty of other emotions and musical attributes that this music has going for it, if. Not to mention, there are plenty of contemporary composers I could list, that are doing new sounding and unique compositions, that are not harrowing or thorny sounding, like the music of the 50's. They still may not be as easy to listen to as the music of the 19th century, but they are also not as difficult as music of the mid century. So, as far as I am concerned, classical music only started, *for me*, 60 years ago.


I count myself lucky that I can enjoy almost all music, from medieval, over baroque, classical, romantic to modern. I am not critizing modern music for having a different kind of aesthetic, for portraying different emotions, for evoking unusual soundscapes etc, but it seems to lack variety a little. I personally like best music, that combines the best of both worlds, ie combines melodies with occasional dissonance to create tension etc. (a good example is Hindemith). That is why my most favorite musical period is the breaking of the epochs between late romantism and modernism. After 1950 there are not many memorable composers. There is minimalism, which I am not a big fan of. Not that the music disturbs me, but it starts to bore me quite fast, because it is so repetitive. I like Schnittke, Ligeti, Lutoslawski, Penderecki, Baczewicz but none of them comes close to the giants from the beginning of the century such as Mahler, Bartok, Stravinsky, Prokofiev, Shostakovich, Hindemith, Sibelius, Janáček, Martinů, Medtner, Ravel, Debussy, Scriabin, Elgar, Gershwin etc.
I cannot say that classical is dead but I can say that there are not many living composers that I would enjoy as much as those mentioned above.

btw, this list is quite telling
https://www.ranker.com/list/best-mo...c?ref=collections&l=2305778&collectionId=1433
and kind of demonstrates what I wrote about the movie music compoers.


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## Lisztian

Spending some time on general music forums lately has been quite eye opening. When looking for 'art music,' the people there will generally be listening to Jazz, Ambient, Industrial/Noise, 'intelligent dance music,' Prog rock, etc: there is quite a large audience for this music, and some of it makes Schoenberg and the like seem traditional! The most common opinion regarding classical music seems to be that the music before the 20th century is fairly irrelevant if respectable, and when classical music does appear it's rarely 'traditional' stuff: it's much more common for people to list music by, say, the second Viennese school, Xenakis, and Messiaen as favourites/music of interest: and it'll be listed alongside the stuff mentioned above. I've found the people there to be far more open-minded regarding the more outre 20th century music than most people on this website (but, of course, often quite close-minded when it comes to pre-20th century music).

I think they generally don't know what they're missing out on, of course, but on the other hand I probably don't know what _I'm_ missing out on: there seems to be plenty of 'art music' being written, but it's scattered across many genres. In this day and age limiting oneself to CM seems self-defeating.


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## DaveM

Chronochromie said:


> Blergh. Late Ligeti has melodies. So does Messiaen, and many other "serious Contemporary composers" like Glass, Reich, Pärt, L. Andriessen, Saariaho, J.C. Adams, etc.
> 
> A poor excuse if I've ever heard one.


A poor response if I ever heard one since Jacck indicated that he liked 'plenty of modern music' including Ligeti. Personally, I don't find the composers you mentioned as great examples of composers of melodic music.


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## Chronochromie

DaveM said:


> A poor response if I ever heard one since Jacck indicated that he liked 'plenty of modern music' including Ligeti. Personally, I don't find the composers you mentioned as great examples of composers of melodic music.


A poor response to my response, what Jacck likes or dislikes does not enter into this as I was commenting on his point, plus him saying that Classical music abandoned melody which is just not true as my examples clearly show, melody is right there in the work of many composers, plus other new things that you may or may not find interesting.


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## DaveM

eugeneonagain said:


> I don't think I can say the same thing again any other way. Or if I want to. In short, Beethoven's great works were not composed because of what 'listeners' wanted, but despite them. The argument made was:
> 
> The point I am making is that the history of great music is not the product of public request. That composers have had to placate and please the public, patrons and the like, is another thing entirely. A hindrance to be overcome. A great deal of what is now considered classic and part of the listening canon was treated with the same scorn.


That composers had to please the public, patrons and the like is not another thing entirely. And you missed out on publishers. Many composers depended on publishers and patrons for income. A publisher would not buy music it couldn't sell.

Since you chose to focus on 'listening public', I will explain in more detail something that I thought self-evident: In modern times, with recordings, streaming music, YouTube, and, of course, concerts, the term 'listening public' applies. In the 19th century and before it was the church, the court, nobility, patrons and publishers. (And I might add, critics such as Schumann.) In the latter case, most composers had to produce within certain constraints, at least initially. And a lot of great music was produced within those constraints. But once a record was established, the great ones had more latitude to innovate. In modern times, those rules apparently don't apply, at least to a significant number of composers.

You believe that all great music came from composers creating music from whatever creative whim crossed their mind and that it doesn't and didn't require that it be, in some way, attractive melodically, structurely or otherwise to someone other than themselves. Interesting perspective. Unfortunately, times that resulted in a constructive dynamic have changed.

Over my lifetime, I've enjoyed so much music from early baroque to the beginning of the 20th century. During that time I've heard astounding music, great music, average music and ho-hum music, but never music that was crap. Sorry, but without some constraints that take the listener into account (melody, development of melody, structure, etc.), there's a lot of crap being composed today.



> Yes, you do have to put in the time and effort to appreciate good art sometimes. That is not a prescription for your tastes since you can decide for yourself whether you like something or not, but the public shouldn't ever delude themselves that an artist is always trying to please it.


Who said anything about 'always trying to please'.


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## EddieRUKiddingVarese

Simon Moon said:


> As one who likes, almost exclusively, the music you are disparaging here, I'd like to make a few comments. I am bored by music from before the early 20th century. I find it kind of naive sounding.
> 
> First of all, I hear beauty in much of the music after 1950. Just because it's not the obvious kind of beauty of the 19th century, does not mean there is not beauty there.
> 
> And there are plenty of other emotions and musical attributes that this music has going for it, if .
> 
> Not to mention, there are plenty of contemporary composers I could list, that are doing new sounding and unique compositions, that are not harrowing or thorny sounding, like the music of the 50's. They still may not be as easy to listen to as the music of the 19th century, but they are also not as difficult as music of the mid century.
> 
> So, as far as I am concerned, classical music only started, *for me*, 60 years ago.


Count me with Simon on this one, plus the works of Varese  and I'll be happy


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## janxharris

Simon Moon said:


> As one who likes, almost exclusively, the music you are disparaging here, I'd like to make a few comments. I am bored by music from before the early 20th century. I find it kind of naive sounding.
> 
> First of all, I hear beauty in much of the music after 1950. Just because it's not the obvious kind of beauty of the 19th century, does not mean there is not beauty there.
> 
> And there are plenty of other emotions and musical attributes that this music has going for it, if .
> 
> Not to mention, there are plenty of contemporary composers I could list, that are doing new sounding and unique compositions, that are not harrowing or thorny sounding, like the music of the 50's. They still may not be as easy to listen to as the music of the 19th century, but they are also not as difficult as music of the mid century.
> 
> So, as far as I am concerned, classical music only started, *for me*, 60 years ago.


Maybe posts like this make any supposed objective aesthetic value in music extremely questionable. It does seem that some of us are, to a greater or lesser extent, a little jaded by the common practice period with its (for some) repeated chord progressions and cadences. Certainly I find this for many pieces prior to ca. 20th century. Others don't feel this way at all.


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## BabyGiraffe

janxharris said:


> Maybe posts like this make any supposed objective aesthetic value in music extremely questionable. It does seem that some of us are, to a greater or lesser extent, a little jaded by the common practice period with its (for some) repeated chord progressions and cadences. Certainly I find this for many pieces prior to ca. 20th century. Others don't feel this way at all.


Intelligible music can be enjoyed by anyone. I hope you understand how important is repetition for creating structures and memories.

As long as composers of "serious" music ignore singable melodies and "groovy" rhythms, there is no hope for popularisation of the modern orchestral music.

It is very funny that old composers were using modernisttechniques only to depict unpleasant feelings, curses, hell etc (A. Scarlatti) or parodying bad musicianship (Mozart).


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## janxharris

BabyGiraffe said:


> Intelligible music can be enjoyed by anyone. I hope you understand how important is repetition for creating structures and memories.


?



> As long as composers of "serious" music ignore singable melodies and "groovy" rhythms, there is no hope for popularisation of the modern orchestral music.


I'm not necessarily disagreeing. I wasn't actually taking sides.

It is curious that The Rite of Spring fits your 'singable melodies and "groovy" rhythms' description and yet Classic FM wont play it in the daytime unless forced to. I find that quite incredible. It's no. 225 in their chart.

It's film music after all... 



> It is very funny that old composers were using modernisttechniques only to depict unpleasant feelings, curses, hell etc (A. Scarlatti) or parodying bad musicianship (Mozart).


Ok.


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## janxharris

I have sent PM on facebook asking Classic FM why they wont play The Rite.


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## Enthusiast

Simon Moon said:


> As one who likes, almost exclusively, the music you are disparaging here, I'd like to make a few comments. I am bored by music from before the early 20th century. I find it kind of naive sounding.
> 
> First of all, I hear beauty in much of the music after 1950. Just because it's not the obvious kind of beauty of the 19th century, does not mean there is not beauty there.
> 
> And there are plenty of other emotions and musical attributes that this music has going for it, if .
> 
> Not to mention, there are plenty of contemporary composers I could list, that are doing new sounding and unique compositions, that are not harrowing or thorny sounding, like the music of the 50's. They still may not be as easy to listen to as the music of the 19th century, but they are also not as difficult as music of the mid century.
> 
> So, as far as I am concerned, classical music only started, *for me*, 60 years ago.


It takes all sorts, it seems. I heartily agree with what you say about contemporary music but feel sorry that you miss so much of what came before it. I am not sure I can imagine listening to, I don't know, Birtwistle or Boulez or Benjamin if I didn't know Bach and Mozart and Beethoven and Brahms and Stravinsky and Prokofiev and ...


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## Enthusiast

janxharris said:


> Maybe posts like this make any supposed objective aesthetic value in music extremely questionable. It does seem that some of us are, to a greater or lesser extent, a little jaded by the common practice period with its (for some) repeated chord progressions and cadences. Certainly I find this for many pieces prior to ca. 20th century. Others don't feel this way at all.


Why? There is nothing in any supposed objective aesthetic that denies (subjective) taste.


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## janxharris

Enthusiast said:


> Why? There is nothing in any supposed objective aesthetic that denies (subjective) taste.


Well that's confused me. Could you explain please?


----------



## science

Nereffid said:


> I guess the point I was making in the first post is that some of this reclassification is already happening. Mentioning "Va, pensiero" above reminds me of my grandfather. He had little to no interest in classical music but he loved that piece. I suppose today's equivalent would be something like the "Agnus Dei" from Karl Jenkins's _The Armed Man_. The more serious listener may turn up their nose, but as far as the public is concerned (or at least the public in the form of Classic FM listeners), that isn't just proper classical music, it's _very good_ classical music.


If you want more ammo for that line of thought, it's fair to notice that EMI has released a few old recordings of Broadway shows (at least Showboat and probably others) in their GROC series.

If it all gets redefined as classical music, that would surprise me. But I think many of the most creative musicians of our time operate to some degree "beyond genre," eagerly assimilating not only the classical tradition - the entire thing from the Middle Ages to now, definitely including the likes of Schoenberg and Cage - but also jazz, any of the various pop genres, and any of the world's other folk and classical traditions.

Any time cultures are in contact, there'll be some degree of syncretism, both intentional and unintentional, so that has been going on forever ("nothing is pure"). But IMO since about 1968, and especially since about 1991, syncretism has become a value pursued even for its own sake, the way innovation used to be. As I've argued elsewhere, I believe it's the defining feature of the culture of our time.


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## Strange Magic

Enthusiast said:


> Why? There is nothing in any supposed objective aesthetic that denies (subjective) taste.


I may be denounced as an absolutist, but any "objective" aesthetic worth its salt should be proud of its rigor, and thus denounce personal taste where it differs from the certainties of the objective hierarchy. A rigorous aesthetic will not deny that personal taste exists, like body odor or coarse language, but will condemn it anywhere and everywhere. A rigorous objective aesthetic, if it finds that Beethoven is a superior composer to Bach, Brahms, Bartók, Boulez, or Babbitt, will ask the rhetorical question: Why are you not listening to Beethoven? Why are you listening to Rachmaninoff, Ravel, Respighi, Rautavaara when I, the theory, tell you clearly that Beethoven is The Best?

While we're at it, a self-assured aesthetic will determine which piece by Beethoven is the best, and will demand that it be listened to in lieu of all others. To, on a whim, choose to listen to something else is to override the aesthetic, to go slumming, to poke a stick in its eye, to thumb one's nose.....

As an all-in or all-out sort, I abandoned "objective" aesthetics long ago in the arts and other areas of human entertainment that are inherently merely votes or popularity contests (best flavor of ice cream, best wine, finest dress) and stuck with personal taste as one's best "explanation" for liking or disliking this or that. Michelangelo's _David_ may be declared the "best David ever" by whomever, but I may prefer Bernini's or Donatello's (more fierce energy; more youthful innocence).


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## janxharris

objective - (of a person or their judgement) not influenced by personal feelings or opinions in considering and representing facts.


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## Thomyum2

BabyGiraffe said:


> Intelligible music can be enjoyed by anyone. I hope you understand how important is repetition for creating structures and memories.


I think this is so true! Familiarity, which is gained through repetition, is a big part of how one connects to music. I point out too that a lot of contemporary classical music has gained an audience through familiarity because of its use in movies - people have become familiar with sounds that they wouldn't normally want to hear in a concert hall because they are used effectively to capture or enhance emotion in the course of a film. Consider that _The Rite of Spring_, that created a riot in its original performance is now often associated with an animated Disney movie, or that Ligeti's _Requiem_ gained popularity from its appearance in _2001: A Space Odyssey_.

I've always found it a little sad that people react to new sounds in such a dismissive way, thereby closing themselves off to possibilities. As someone mentioned above, it's not a prescription that you have to like everything, but some things are worth making an investment at least to explore and understand more.


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## Strange Magic

janxharris said:


> objective - (of a person or their judgement) not influenced by personal feelings or opinions in considering and representing facts.


I think perhaps robots would be the most appropriate, pliant receptacles or vehicles for receiving or enacting the tenets of an objective aesthetic, as they will not be influenced by personal feelings or opinions (this side of full AI, anyway). In the future, maybe the robots will decide.....


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## janxharris

Strange Magic said:


> I think perhaps robots would be the most appropriate, pliant receptacles or vehicles for receiving or enacting the tenets of an objective aesthetic, as they will not be influenced by personal feelings or opinions (this side of full AI, anyway). In the future, maybe the robots will decide.....


Unless their programmer slips in some of him or herself in the code. I think you agree that objective aesthetics isn't a reality.


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## Thomyum2

I think 'objective aesthetics' may actually be an oxymoron. That said, it is possible to listen to music objectively. One can listen to a composition, observe and be aware of the innovations in it and understand it's role in the development of music without necessarily reacting to it in a subjective way. You can, for example, appreciate the importance of Beethoven to the works of the composers that followed him independently of whether or not you like his music. Perhaps it's the essential difference between 'appreciating' vs. 'enjoying'. Of course, some may argue, rightfully, that listening in this way still has a subjective element to it.


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## Nereffid

janxharris said:


> It is curious that The Rite of Spring fits your 'singable melodies and "groovy" rhythms' description and yet Classic FM wont play it in the daytime unless forced to. I find that quite incredible.


How much Classic FM have you listened to? Much as I love the _Rite_, it just doesn't strike me as the sort of music they play.

Here's a couple of hours' programming from this morning:
Mendelssohn: Violin concerto - 3rd mvt
Fauré: Pavane
Mozart: Piano concerto no.20 - 2nd mvt
Brahms: Symphony no.4 - 1st mvt
Rodrigo: Concierto de Aranjuez - 1st mvt
Horner: Braveheart excerpt
Albinoni: Oboe concerto op.9 no.2 - 1st mvt
Tchaikovsky: Swan Lake - Waltz
Elgar: Serenade for strings - 1st mvt
Handel: Arrival of the Queen of Sheba
Beethoven: 'Pathetique' sonata, 2nd mvt
Suppé: Morning, Noon and Night in Vienna
Puccini: Tosca - E lucevan le stelle
JC Bach: Symphony op.18 no.4 - 3rd mvt
Rota: Romeo and Juliet - Love Theme
Sarasate: Nocturne-Serenade
Kozeluch: Piano concerto no.1 - 3rd mvt

Anything with a spiky rhythm would seem rather out of place there.


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## Enthusiast

janxharris said:


> Well that's confused me. Could you explain please?


Sure. The existence of an objective view of an artwork's worth - a fact, if you will - like "x is great but y is not so great" does not stop us from having personal preferences like "I like y but I don't really enjoy x".

Many will say "how can there be such an objective truth about an art work?" But they usually support that view with an argument that goes "it is impossible to know ...". This clearly does not demonstrate that there is no objective truth about these things. But, for me, it is wrong even as proof that we cannot know because we can get relatively close. Most scientific "facts" are also only close approximations. I don't suppose any of this matters very much to us!


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## Bulldog

Nereffid said:


> How much Classic FM have you listened to? Much as I love the _Rite_, it just doesn't strike me as the sort of music they play.
> 
> Here's a couple of hours' programming from this morning:
> Mendelssohn: Violin concerto - 3rd mvt
> Fauré: Pavane
> Mozart: Piano concerto no.20 - 2nd mvt
> Brahms: Symphony no.4 - 1st mvt
> Rodrigo: Concierto de Aranjuez - 1st mvt
> Horner: Braveheart excerpt
> Albinoni: Oboe concerto op.9 no.2 - 1st mvt
> Tchaikovsky: Swan Lake - Waltz
> Elgar: Serenade for strings - 1st mvt
> Handel: Arrival of the Queen of Sheba
> Beethoven: 'Pathetique' sonata, 2nd mvt
> Suppé: Morning, Noon and Night in Vienna
> Puccini: Tosca - E lucevan le stelle
> JC Bach: Symphony op.18 no.4 - 3rd mvt
> Rota: Romeo and Juliet - Love Theme
> Sarasate: Nocturne-Serenade
> Kozeluch: Piano concerto no.1 - 3rd mvt
> 
> Anything with a spiky rhythm would seem rather out of place there.


That list is a major turn-off.


----------



## Thomyum2

Bulldog said:


> That list is a major turn-off.


Me too, to an extent. Not that these aren't some good pieces, but not a lot of variety. And I hate it when they play only one movement of a work!! What Classic FM is this? The New York area classical FM stations offer fairly interesting and diverse programming.


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## Enthusiast

Strange Magic said:


> I may be denounced as an absolutist, but any "objective" aesthetic worth its salt should be proud of its rigor, and thus denounce personal taste where it differs from the certainties of the objective hierarchy. A rigorous aesthetic will not deny that personal taste exists, like body odor or coarse language, but will condemn it anywhere and everywhere. A rigorous objective aesthetic, if it finds that Beethoven is a superior composer to Bach, Brahms, Bartók, Boulez, or Babbitt, will ask the rhetorical question: Why are you not listening to Beethoven? Why are you listening to Rachmaninoff, Ravel, Respighi, Rautavaara when I, the theory, tell you clearly that Beethoven is The Best?
> 
> While we're at it, a self-assured aesthetic will determine which piece by Beethoven is the best, and will demand that it be listened to in lieu of all others. To, on a whim, choose to listen to something else is to override the aesthetic, to go slumming, to poke a stick in its eye, to thumb one's nose.....
> 
> As an all-in or all-out sort, I abandoned "objective" aesthetics long ago in the arts and other areas of human entertainment that are inherently merely votes or popularity contests (best flavor of ice cream, best wine, finest dress) and stuck with personal taste as one's best "explanation" for liking or disliking this or that. Michelangelo's _David_ may be declared the "best David ever" by whomever, but I may prefer Bernini's or Donatello's (more fierce energy; more youthful innocence).


All of which may be true but, as we here are listening to music for enjoyment, our taste will tend to rule. Why should we apply such rigour to our enjoyment? We may - objectively - be "missing something" but so what? If, though, we are making music a subject of serious study ... well, then, what you say should _ideally_ hold and it is our work to establish as closely as we can what a piece of music's objective worth is. However, as we will certainly find that we are only able to arrive at rough - as in not precise - judgements, I think even the rigorous students should refrain from pretending a precision that is not attainable. Nor, of course, should they tell people what they _should _do or like: they can only say that there is more to get out of, say, the Eroica than there is out of, say, a Stamitz concerto.


----------



## Nereffid

Thomyum2 said:


> Me too, to an extent. There are some good pieces, but not a lot of variety. And I hate it when they play only one movement of a work!! What Classic FM is this? The New York area classical FM stations have very interesting and diverse programming.


It's the UK's commercial classical station.

Incidentally, in WQXR New York's Classical Countdown for 2017, the 3 newest pieces of music (out of 130 works) were _Appalachian Spring, West Side Story_ and _Candide._ Nothing from the last 60 years.


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## Enthusiast

Thomyum2 said:


> Schoenberg once said of his 12-tone work that someday the milkman would be humming his tunes. We're not there yet, but I think he had an important point.


I would have expected Schoenberg to recognise the likely demise of the milkman. I guess he was fallible.


----------



## Strange Magic

Enthusiast said:


> All of which may be true but, as we here are listening to music for enjoyment, our taste will tend to rule. Why should we apply such rigour to our enjoyment? We may - objectively - be "missing something" but so what? If, though, we are making music a subject of serious study ... well, then, what you say should _ideally_ hold and it is our work to establish as closely as we can what a piece of music's objective worth is. However, as we will certainly find that we are only able to arrive at rough - as in not precise - judgements, I think even the rigorous students should refrain from pretending a precision that is not attainable. Nor, of course, should they tell people what they _should _do or like: they can only say that there is more to get out of, say, the Eroica than there is out of, say, a Stamitz concerto.


I think you are agreeing with me, as a practical matter. And almost (trying to think of exceptions) everyone abandons "objective" explanations of aesthetics when push come to shove and it's time to listen to whatever--it's easy and it's fun to argue for objectivity in aesthetics on classical or any other kind of web forum (best Led Zep song, etc,) but actions (what we hear when alone and no one is watching) reveal the fixity with which beliefs are held.


----------



## Bulldog

Enthusiast said:


> I would have expected Schoenberg to recognise the likely demise of the milkman. I guess he was fallible.


The last time I saw a milkman was in the 1950's; he was being chased by a terrier.


----------



## Enthusiast

Strange Magic said:


> I think you are agreeing with me, as a practical matter. And almost (trying to think of exceptions) everyone abandons "objective" explanations of aesthetics when push come to shove and it's time to listen to whatever--it's easy and it's fun to argue for objectivity in aesthetics on classical or any other kind of web forum (best Led Zep song, etc,) but actions (what we hear when alone and no one is watching) reveal the fixity with which beliefs are held.


Yes - I don't think we disagree. I guess the only difference in our views may be that despite being fairly experienced, where music that is more than, say, 70 years old, I do still allow myself to be guided by the consensus arrived at by the rigorous - which I take to be our best guess at objective truth - for what is worth spending my time with.


----------



## Thomyum2

Nereffid said:


> It's the UK's commercial classical station.
> 
> Incidentally, in WQXR New York's Classical Countdown for 2017, the 3 newest pieces of music (out of 130 works) were _Appalachian Spring, West Side Story_ and _Candide._ Nothing from the last 60 years.


I'm not surprised to hear that, and you're correct that music prior to 1950 certainly does dominate the listening markets. But WQXR does also offer a 'New Sounds' streaming program dedicated just to contemporary music, which is a good sign that there is a following there.

I do believe (and hope) that the essence of classical music is still very much alive. I continue to be pleasantly surprised at audience reactions to new things that are coming out. At the US premiere of Saariaho's _L'Amour du Loin_, the Santa Fe Opera added additional performances because of the demand for tickets. Some time later, at the opening of Golijov's _Ainadamar_, the opera house gift shop was flooded with people after the performance asking if they had a recording of the opera for sale.

But to get back to original thread question and perhaps take it in a new direction - perhaps classical music did not 'end' but rather diversified and fragmented - went in a lot of different directions (i.e. minimalism, serialism, experimentalism, opera, musical theater, film music, jazz forms, popular music, etc.). Perhaps it's not that the music ended but that it morphed into forms such that the very term 'classical music' isn't really meaningful as a generic name for a particular class of music that is being written or performed now.


----------



## eugeneonagain

DaveM said:


> That composers had to please the public, patrons and the like is not another thing entirely. And you missed out on publishers. Many composers depended on publishers and patrons for income. A publisher would not buy music it couldn't sell.
> 
> Since you chose to focus on 'listening public',


No sir, _you_ chose to focus on the listening public and how they are no longer pleased. I have re-quoted you already to show this.



DaveM said:


> I will explain in more detail something that I thought self-evident: In modern times, with recordings, streaming music, YouTube, and, of course, concerts, the term 'listening public' applies. In the 19th century and before it was the church, the court, nobility, patrons and publishers. (And I might add, critics such as Schumann.) In the latter case, most composers had to produce within certain constraints, at least initially. And a lot of great music was produced within those constraints. But once a record was established, the great ones had more latitude to innovate. In modern times, those rules apparently don't apply, at least to a significant number of composers.


I don't really know why you are 'explaining' this because it is, as you say, self-evident. Nothing I have written contradicts it.



DaveM said:


> You believe that all great music came from composers creating music from whatever creative whim crossed their mind and that it doesn't and didn't require that it be, in some way, attractive melodically, structurely or otherwise to someone other than themselves. Interesting perspective. Unfortunately, times that resulted in a constructive dynamic have changed.


What I glean from the above is that you don't find the music you have in mind in your critique melodic. Unfortunately others do and whatever traditional melodic notions are sacrificed has resulted in other things that interest people. Your "attractive melodically" is nothing more than an aesthetic judgement and a subjective one.



DaveM said:


> Over my lifetime, I've enjoyed so much music from early baroque to the beginning of the 20th century. During that time I've heard astounding music, great music, average music and ho-hum music, but never music that was crap. Sorry, but without some constraints that take the listener into account (melody, development of melody, structure, etc.), there's a lot of crap being composed today.


Well it's not like we haven't heard this tale before. I wish folk would save themselves all the typing and others all the reading by stating again: "I don't like modern music (but have no actual argument against it)". I'm sorry you can't get anything from it. My own collection has baroque and even early music alongside romantic and contemporary. Really you cannot always blame the producers of art for the fact of you not deriving anything from it.



DaveM said:


> Who said anything about 'always trying to please'.


You did. Once again:



DaveM said:


> I'm surprised that you believe that composers of those prior eras did not have to please, in some combination, their employers, the publishers, the players, listeners...
> 
> These changes were not asked for by the listening public.


What are these arguing if it is not the demands of the listening public (i.e. your tastes) to be served and pleased above all?


----------



## Enthusiast

Thomyum2 said:


> But to get back to original thread question and perhaps take it in a new direction - perhaps classical music did not 'end' but rather diversified and fragmented - went in a lot of different directions (i.e. minimalism, serialism, experimentalism, opera, musical theater, film music, jazz forms, popular music, etc.). Perhaps it's not that the music ended but that it morphed into forms such that the very term 'classical music' isn't really meaningful as a generic name for a particular class of music that is being written or performed now.


Yes, indeed. Classical music did diversify massively in the 20th Century. I think of this as a flowering rather than a fragmentation. Something similar can be seen in (biological) evolution. Some people get misled by the term "survival of the fittest" but a big part of the story of evolution is a story of diversification as new niches for survival (or in fact replication) are opened up and exploited.


----------



## Enthusiast

DaveM said:


> I'm surprised that you believe that composers of those prior eras did not have to please, in some combination, their employers, the publishers, the players, listeners and in some periods, their peers and could compose in the free form way that composers do today and get away with it.


My understanding of the relatively wealthy (and relatively educated) people who patronised music in those far off days often craved novelty and therefore welcomed the shock of the new. Sometimes, I think, their fads were "ahead of" the commercially minded composers, who then found it necessary to change their spots to retain their audience (Handel is an obvious example).


----------



## science

As far as the demands placed on composers, for a period in the twentieth century (and to some degree even now) an ambitious composer's audience was often other composers, or at least listeners who were _very_ knowledgeable about music theory, the history of western music, sometimes also ethnomusicology, and so on. The financial reward they sought was not necessarily record sales or tickets to performances but tenure at universities. This is all sometimes lamented by people who hate the music they created, but as someone who finds that music fascinating, I'm quite thankful for it.

Even when we consider composers (and performers for that matter) as something like "servants of the audience," the fact is that the today's audience is really quite large and diverse. Francisco López, Fretwork, Cinquecento, and Kronos Quartet all make decent livings without performing much Beethoven or Brahms.


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## Nereffid

Enthusiast said:


> Yes, indeed. Classical music did diversify massively in the 20th Century. I think of this as a flowering rather than a fragmentation. Something similar can be seen in (biological) evolution. Some people get misled by the term "survival of the fittest" but a big part of the story of evolution is a story of diversification as new niches for survival (or in fact replication) are opened up and exploited.


To extend the analogy way beyond what you intended... I guess the avant-garde is a wayward comet, modern "serious" composers are either crocodiles or primitive birds, and Karl Jenkins is a tiny shrew? :lol:


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## Enthusiast

Nereffid said:


> To extend the analogy way beyond what you intended... I guess the avant-garde is a wayward comet, modern "serious" composers are either crocodiles or primitive birds, and Karl Jenkins is a tiny shrew? :lol:


I'm sure the avant-garde is more like new branch of the orchid family and the butterflies that visit their flowers!


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## Thomyum2

Enthusiast said:


> My understanding of the relatively wealthy (and relatively educated) people who patronised music in those far off days often craved novelty and therefore welcomed the shock of the new. Sometimes, I think, their fads were "ahead of" the commercially minded composers, who then found it necessary to change their spots to retain their audience (Handel is an obvious example).


An interesting outlier to this is perhaps Charles Ives, who by being successful in insurance sales was able to support himself and thereby avoid having to be subservient to the demands of anyone's musical tastes. Depending on one's perspective, one could say that it was his downfall (in that his music is still not widely heard) or his genius (in that his music persists even to this day).


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## Strange Magic

Enthusiast said:


> Yes - I don't think we disagree. I guess the only difference in our views may be that despite being fairly experienced, where music that is more than, say, 70 years old, I do still allow myself to be guided by the consensus arrived at by the rigorous - which I take to be our best guess at objective truth - for what is worth spending my time with.


As someone who often finds himself directly under the highest part of the bell curve when queried about the popularity of this or that, I think that being guided by the consensus arrived at by the rigorous makes a lot of sense. I don't think it has anything to do with objective truth, but going with the crowd as the first pass at experiencing new things will provide, for me and you also, the strongest, quickest return on investment of time. If it's of any relevance or provides any insight, I almost always agree with the selections on "best of" CDs of popular music artists, for example. Wisdom of the crowd at work.


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## DaveM

eugeneonagain said:


> No sir, _you_ chose to focus on the listening public and how they are no longer pleased. I have re-quoted you already to show this.
> 
> I don't really know why you are 'explaining' this because it is, as you say, self-evident. Nothing I have written contradicts it.
> 
> What I glean from the above is that you don't find the music you have in mind in your critique melodic. Unfortunately others do and whatever traditional melodic notions are sacrificed has resulted in other things that interest people. Your "attractive melodically" is nothing more than an aesthetic judgement and a subjective one.
> 
> Well it's not like we haven't heard this tale before. I wish folk would save themselves all the typing and others all the reading by stating again: "I don't like modern music (but have no actual argument against it)". I'm sorry you can't get anything from it. My own collection has baroque and even early music alongside romantic and contemporary. Really you cannot always blame the producers of art for the fact of you not deriving anything from it.
> 
> You did. Once again:
> 
> What are these arguing if it is not the demands of the listening public (i.e. your tastes) to be served and pleased above all?


I understand that you find this subject troubling to the point that what should be conversational becomes confrontational and it is hard to focus so I'll leave you to your thoughts.


----------



## Enthusiast

Strange Magic said:


> As someone who often finds himself directly under the highest part of the bell curve when queried about the popularity of this or that, I think that being guided by the consensus arrived at by the rigorous makes a lot of sense. I don't think it has anything to do with objective truth, but going with the crowd as the first pass at experiencing new things will provide, for me and you also, the strongest, quickest return on investment of time. If it's of any relevance or provides any insight, I almost always agree with the selections on "best of" CDs of popular music artists, for example. Wisdom of the crowd at work.


Ah well. But, bearing in mind that I am talking about music that has been around for a good few decades, that doesn't work for me at all. I very rarely enjoy the most popular works (the ones in the most popular lists) as much as the works that there is an "informed consensus" are "the best". I think the "wisdom of crowds" thesis is flawed!


----------



## joen_cph

As a side remark, having only in recent years begun exploring in depth the subjects of the "_1000 Albums you need to hear, before you die_" and other "_Top 500_" lists etc. from rock, pop & jazz 
- the more I listen to music of these genres, the more I tend to discard much of the content of those lists, as increasingly irrelevant for my taste and my own likings. Frankly, the limited, frozen conformity there can be suffocating.

Therefore, I also rarely agree with the "_Best Of_"-albums for any musicians or genres, and buy them only when I plan to invest little time and further research into that music.

"_Boccherini´s Minuet_" is by far his most well-known and popular piece. But it is a nothingburger compared to the tons of other, richer works that he wrote.


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## eugeneonagain

joen_cph said:


> "_Boccherini´s Minuet_" is by far his most well-known and popular piece. But it is a nothingburger compared to the tons of other, richer works that he wrote.


They wouldn't have worked quite so well in _The Ladykillers_ though.


----------



## janxharris

Nereffid said:


> How much Classic FM have you listened to? Much as I love the _Rite_, it just doesn't strike me as the sort of music they play.
> 
> Here's a couple of hours' programming from this morning:
> Mendelssohn: Violin concerto - 3rd mvt
> Fauré: Pavane
> Mozart: Piano concerto no.20 - 2nd mvt
> Brahms: Symphony no.4 - 1st mvt
> Rodrigo: Concierto de Aranjuez - 1st mvt
> Horner: Braveheart excerpt
> Albinoni: Oboe concerto op.9 no.2 - 1st mvt
> Tchaikovsky: Swan Lake - Waltz
> Elgar: Serenade for strings - 1st mvt
> Handel: Arrival of the Queen of Sheba
> Beethoven: 'Pathetique' sonata, 2nd mvt
> Suppé: Morning, Noon and Night in Vienna
> Puccini: Tosca - E lucevan le stelle
> JC Bach: Symphony op.18 no.4 - 3rd mvt
> Rota: Romeo and Juliet - Love Theme
> Sarasate: Nocturne-Serenade
> Kozeluch: Piano concerto no.1 - 3rd mvt
> 
> Anything with a spiky rhythm would seem rather out of place there.


I often listen - nearly every day. I just thought that they would like to include pieces that their audience have voted for.


----------



## janxharris

Enthusiast said:


> Sure. The existence of an objective view of an artwork's worth - a fact, if you will - like "x is great but y is not so great" does not stop us from having personal preferences like "I like y but I don't really enjoy x".
> 
> Many will say "how can there be such an objective truth about an art work?" But they usually support that view with an argument that goes "it is impossible to know ...". This clearly does not demonstrate that there is no objective truth about these things. But, for me, it is wrong even as proof that we cannot know because we can get relatively close. Most scientific "facts" are also only close approximations. I don't suppose any of this matters very much to us!


Ok, we remain unaware of any objective chart of worth for music and any notion of x > y has not occurred.


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## Enthusiast

janxharris said:


> any notion of x > y has not occurred.


As you know, I disagree with that. We can come fairly close. We can say that, say that any of Mozart's last seven symphonies or a good number of his later piano concertos or any of the Beethoven symphonies and greater than, say, Mendelssohn's violin concerto or his symphonies. This is, I believe, an objective truth but could be argued with. You may prefer some of the Mendelssohn works to some of the Mozart of Beethoven works I mention and that's fine but objectively they are not as great. I deliberately chose works that are very popular and widely loved for this comparison because it makes more clear what I am saying.


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## Art Rock

Enthusiast said:


> As you know, I disagree with that. We can come fairly close. We can say that, say that any of Mozart's last seven symphonies or a good number of his later piano concertos or any of the Beethoven symphonies and greater than, say, Mendelssohn's violin concerto or his symphonies. This is, I believe, an objective truth but could be argued with. You may prefer some of the Mendelssohn works to some of the Mozart of Beethoven works I mention and that's fine but objectively they are not as great. I deliberately chose works that are very popular and widely loved for this comparison because it makes more clear what I am saying.


Please clarify what you mean by "objectively they are not as great". If there is an objective ranking that says

Mozart's Jupiter > Mendelssohn's Violin concerto

you should be able to define on what that is based.


----------



## janxharris

Enthusiast said:


> As you know, I disagree with that. We can come fairly close. We can say that, say that any of Mozart's last seven symphonies or a good number of his later piano concertos or any of the Beethoven symphonies and greater than, say, Mendelssohn's violin concerto or his symphonies. This is, I believe, an objective truth but could be argued with. You may prefer some of the Mendelssohn works to some of the Mozart of Beethoven works I mention and that's fine but objectively they are not as great. I deliberately chose works that are very popular and widely loved for this comparison because it makes more clear what I am saying.


I just have difficulty and reservations about expressing such (possible) objective truths. Imho I hear flaws in just about every composition I've experienced - except, perhaps, a handful - but if my opinion was in line with the general consensus I could never imagine averring that, therefore, I was 'right'.


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## PlaySalieri

Art Rock said:


> Please clarify what you mean by *"objectively they are not as great".* If there is an objective ranking that says
> 
> Mozart's Jupiter > Mendelssohn's Violin concerto
> 
> you should be able to define on what that is based.


That is a dodgy statement of course.

All once can say is, for example - it has often been claimed that Mozart's jupiter symphony is better than any haydn symphony - while this may be a matter of opinion - various polls on TC and other classical music media seem to confirm this, since the jupiter is consistently ranked higher by enough classical music lovers to place it higher than any Haydn symphony - it would therefore not be too unreasonable to assert, in the absence of any other contradictory evidence, that Mozart's jupiter is indeed a better work than any Haydn symphony if popularity among classical music lovers is accepted as a criteria for quality.


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## Art Rock

stomanek said:


> ... if popularity among classical music lovers is accepted as a criteria for quality.


Let's not do that. That road leads to Ravel's Bolero being higher quality than Daphnis et Chloe, and so on.

Or if you counter that those people who would choose the Bolero are not really classical music LOVERS (another slippery slope), any result of polls and so on is still a combination of subjective views.


----------



## janxharris

stomanek said:


> That is a dodgy statement of course.
> 
> All once can say is, for example - it has often been claimed that Mozart's jupiter symphony is better than any haydn symphony - while this may be a matter of opinion - various polls on TC and other classical music media seem to confirm this, since the jupiter is consistently ranked higher by enough classical music lovers to place it higher than any Haydn symphony - it would therefore not be too unreasonable to assert, in the absence of any other contradictory evidence, that Mozart's jupiter is indeed a better work than any Haydn symphony if popularity among classical music lovers is accepted as a criteria for quality.


It's possible that the Jupiter has such a ranking for reasons other than objective greatness; we might also suppose that Justin Bieber currently might have a ranking higher than the Beatles for example.

That may change over time and perhaps reflect societal changes.


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## Art Rock

It is also a recognized logical fallacy:
The ad populum fallacy (Lat., “to the populous/popularity”) is when something is accepted because it’s popular.


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## PlaySalieri

Art Rock said:


> It is also a recognized logical fallacy:
> The ad populum fallacy (Lat., "to the populous/popularity") is when something is accepted because it's popular.


which is why I qualified my reasoning -

it would therefore not be too unreasonable to assert, in the absence of any other contradictory evidence, that Mozart's jupiter is indeed a better work than any Haydn symphony *if popularity among classical music lovers is accepted as a criteria for quality.*

why do we have polls on TC?

to test opinion and establish some consensus

otherwise - what is to stop me from claiming I am the world's greatest composer - if you are going to utterly exclude collective judgement.

then anything goes - and everything we say is meaningless and of no value.

we are here to trade opinion - and if the collective TC view is that Beethoven is the world's greatest composer - in the absence of any other way to settle the question - it's not that unreasonable to go with that as the collective view of the board.


----------



## science

stomanek said:


> which is why I qualified my reasoning -
> 
> it would therefore not be too unreasonable to assert, in the absence of any other contradictory evidence, that Mozart's jupiter is indeed a better work than any Haydn symphony *if popularity among classical music lovers is accepted as a criteria for quality.*
> 
> why do we have polls on TC?
> 
> to test opinion and establish some consensus
> 
> otherwise - what is to stop me from claiming I am the world's greatest composer - if you are going to utterly exclude collective judgement.
> 
> then anything goes - and everything we say is meaningless and of no value.
> 
> we are here to trade opinion - and if the collective TC view is that Beethoven is the world's greatest composer - in the absence of any other way to settle the question - it's not that unreasonable to go with that as the collective view of the board.


Nothing stops you from claiming that you are the greatest composer. You just have to persuade others!

And if you think you are but no one else does, well, believe in yourself! I mean, that's probably crazy, but you might as well be crazy with confidence!

Anyway, the polls have to be just for fun. Talkclassical polls probably aren't rearranging the canon.


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## PlaySalieri

science said:


> Nothing stops you from claiming that you are the greatest composer. You just have to persuade others!
> 
> And if you think you are but no one else does, well, believe in yourself! I mean, that's probably crazy, but you might as well be crazy with confidence!
> 
> Anyway, the polls have to be just for fun. *Talkclassical polls probably aren't rearranging the canon*.


rather they repeatedly confirm the canon

does that mean something? or nothing

*Nothing stops you from claiming that you are the greatest composer. You just have to persuade others!*

you mean - court popularity?

but citing popularity as evidence for greatness is a logical fallacy


----------



## science

stomanek said:


> rather they repeatedly confirm the canon
> 
> does that mean something? or nothing
> 
> *Nothing stops you from claiming that you are the greatest composer. You just have to persuade others!*
> 
> you mean - court popularity?
> 
> but citing popularity as evidence for greatness is a logical fallacy


Well, if you're really great, at the very least, someone outside your family should be able to tell. But if you're the only one who thinks so, stick to your guns, man.

The TC polls I think are really useful for discovering new music. If you look at the talkclassical project list (here is the top 3000 works), you're bound to find something new to you. A fun question would be how far down that list do you get before the canon vanishes?


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## Art Rock

stomanek said:


> which is why I qualified my reasoning -
> 
> it would therefore not be too unreasonable to assert, in the absence of any other contradictory evidence, that Mozart's jupiter is indeed a better work than any Haydn symphony *if popularity among classical music lovers is accepted as a criteria for quality.*
> 
> why do we have polls on TC?
> 
> to test opinion and establish some consensus
> 
> otherwise - what is to stop me from claiming I am the world's greatest composer - if you are going to utterly exclude collective judgement.
> 
> then anything goes - and everything we say is meaningless and of no value.
> 
> we are here to trade opinion - and if the collective TC view is that Beethoven is the world's greatest composer - in the absence of any other way to settle the question - it's not that unreasonable to go with that as the collective view of the board.


That does not change the fact that it is a well-known logical fallacy. I am not disputing that a lot of polls outcomes will be predictable, and that similar composers and works come out on top, but the logical fallacy is to conclude that this means that they are the greatest. No, they are the most popular. Not the same. Unless indeed you define that popularity = greatest, but then you have to bend over backwards to limit the population for which the popularity is the deciding factor. Otherwise Lady Gaga is greater than Bach, and Andrea Bocelli is the greatest tenor ever.


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## PlaySalieri

Art Rock said:


> *That does not change the fact that it is a well-known logical fallacy.* I am not disputing that a lot of polls outcomes will be predictable, and that similar composers and works come out on top, but the logical fallacy is to conclude that this means that they are the greatest. No, they are the most popular. Not the same. Unless indeed you define that popularity = greatest, but then you have to bend over backwards to limit the population for which the popularity is the deciding factor. Otherwise Lady Gaga is greater than Bach, and Andrea Bocelli is the greatest tenor ever.


yes I know - and I repeat - that is why I qualified my statement.

now please dont reply

"that doesn't change the fact that ....."

BTW - if polls only prove which composers are the most popular

how do we determine who is the greatest?


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## Strange Magic

I have wretched, depraved taste in music and the arts, and am clearly incapable of discriminating between the great, the merely mediocre, and the outright shoddy. I count this obvious flaw as one of the saving wonders of my life, as it has provided me with scores of years of enormous pleasure and satisfaction. Others should be so lucky!


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## Art Rock

stomanek said:


> how do we determine who is the greatest?


In my opinion, there is no objectively greatest.


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## KenOC

Art Rock said:


> ...I am not disputing that a lot of polls outcomes will be predictable, and that similar composers and works come out on top, but the logical fallacy is to conclude that this means that they are the greatest. No, they are the most popular. Not the same.


If not popularity, then what? Please advise! Bear in mind that the entire "classical canon," the "performing repertoire," both are based primarily on enduring popularity -- and are subject to the usual vagaries of popularity.


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## Art Rock

See previous answer. For me "greatest" is a subjective matter. By all means, conclude that (depending on type of poll, type of participants, and phase of the moon) Beethoven, Bach or Mozart is the most popular composer. But why do you have to expend that by saying that whoever wins the popularity contest is therefore the greatest? Does not make sense to me.


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## arpeggio

KenOC said:


> If not popularity, then what? Please advise! Bear in mind that the entire "classical canon," the "performing repertoire," both are based primarily on enduring popularity -- and are subject to the usual vagaries of popularity.


Really KenOC. Even you can come up with a list of outstanding composers who are not popular with the general classical music public. I am sure that outside of this forum very few have ever heard the music of Reicha, Danzi or Reis. According to ArkiveMusic there are more recordings of the music of Cage available than these three fine composers combined.

As far as the rest of this thread it lost me about fifty post ago. It just sounds like another if I do not like it is not any good debate.


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## Larkenfield

Perhaps it's because greatness is related to one's depth of response or enjoyment of the given work - what experience it reliably creates in the listener - and operates on a different plane than popularity but can include it. Greatness is a quality that brings the listener back to experience it again and has the ability to reveal something new because the work has captured the same life force, something universal, that has its counterpart in the listener, and they merge: _As above... so below._


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## Art Rock

In my subjective approach greatness is indeed a lot along the lines of what Larkenfield said. A lot of popular composers and works are in my subjective approach great (to me), because they bring me immense pleasure time and time again. A lot of popular composers and works do not, and some I really don't like at all. And there are also lots of composers and works that rarely feature in the top of polls, but that for me are among the greatest (to me).


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## KenOC

Art Rock said:


> See previous answer. For me "greatest" is a subjective matter. By all means, conclude that (depending on type of poll, type of participants, and phase of the moon) Beethoven, Bach or Mozart is the most popular composer. But why do you have to expend that by saying that whoever wins the popularity contest is therefore the greatest? Does not make sense to me.


There is popularity, which is reasonably objective and measurable if somewhat transient. And there is greatness, of which little meaningful can be said except that it is an opinion. Still, at any point in time, the collections of composers and works we formally consider "great" are defined far more by popularity than anything else.


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## Strange Magic

Larkenfield said:


> Perhaps it's because greatness is related to one's depth of response or enjoyment of the given work - what experience it reliably creates in the listener - and operates on a different plane than popularity but can include it. Greatness is a quality that brings the listener back to experience it again and has the ability to reveal something new because the work has captured the same life force, something universal, that has its counterpart in the listener and they merge: _As above... so below._


This is all true. But the question endlessly brought before the house is whether your experience of Greatness is--or ought to be--the same as mine. Is the greatness inherent in the work or uniquely inherent in one's own mind? And the question of popularity among what audience always lurks in the background.


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## PlaySalieri

Art Rock said:


> See previous answer. For me "greatest" is a subjective matter. By all means, conclude that (depending on type of poll, type of participants, and phase of the moon) Beethoven, Bach or Mozart is the most popular composer. But why do you have to expend that by saying that whoever wins the popularity contest is therefore the greatest? Does not make sense to me.


and popularity polls also are based on subjectivity

so what's the difference?

to me the greatest composer is Mozart and he is also my favourite

and if 100% of people shared my exact view?

who could we say is the greatest composer?


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## Art Rock

KenOC said:


> Still, at any point in time, the collections of composers and works we formally consider "great" are defined far more by popularity than anything else.


Well then it has been decided. Strauss' Radetzky March, Stanley Myers' Cavatina and Pachelbel's Canon are greater than any Mahler symphony (reference).


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## KenOC

Art Rock said:


> Well then it has been decided. Strauss' Radetzky March, Stanley Myers' Cavatina and Pachelbel's Canon are greater than any Mahler symphony (reference).


Quite true, but they certainly rank lower than the latest from Childish Gambino and Dolla $ign. (reference)


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## eugeneonagain

When I'm feeling cheesed-off I go and play through Radetzky March on the piano and it improves things. I've never felt that from a Mahler symphony. Well probably at the beginning, but 5 hours in my back starts to hurt and my ears are struggling to hear a 15-minute-long quadruple pianissimo string tremolo.


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## Enthusiast

Art Rock said:


> Please clarify what you mean by "objectively they are not as great". If there is an objective ranking that says
> 
> Mozart's Jupiter > Mendelssohn's Violin concerto
> 
> you should be able to define on what that is based.


I did define it several times: there is a critical consensus that it is the case. I also agree with it but that is just subjective.

As it is an agreement of people of some expertise who have asked such questions in a rigorous way, I take the critical consensus - applied to music that is sufficiently old to have "bedded down" (70-80 years?) - to be as close as we can get to (objective) value. If I disagree with it - and I very often do - that is my (subjective) taste and for me that rules ... but I do like to have guidance on what music to spend time on and what to expect to get out of it.


----------



## Enthusiast

stomanek said:


> That is a dodgy statement of course.
> 
> All once can say is, for example - it has often been claimed that Mozart's jupiter symphony is better than any haydn symphony - while this may be a matter of opinion - various polls on TC and other classical music media seem to confirm this, since the jupiter is consistently ranked higher by enough classical music lovers to place it higher than any Haydn symphony - it would therefore not be too unreasonable to assert, in the absence of any other contradictory evidence, that Mozart's jupiter is indeed a better work than any Haydn symphony if popularity among classical music lovers is accepted as a criteria for quality.


But I doubt that you could get a _consensus _of critics that the Jupiter is greater than the London or the Drum Roll. There may be a _majority _among critics who think this is the case but some, I suspect, would demur. When things get close a consensus is increasingly unlikely.


----------



## Thomyum2

Enthusiast said:


> But I doubt that you could get a _consensus _of critics that the Jupiter is greater than the London or the Drum Roll. There may be a _majority _among critics who think this is the case but some, I suspect, would demur. When things get close a consensus is increasingly unlikely.


Even much less likely that you could get a consensus on what is the proper definition of 'great'. As this discussion and others I think illustrates well.

However, I'd like to suggest that there are elements to classical music composition that perhaps fit here, which are what I'd refer to 'craftsmanship' and 'inventiveness' which I think are essential components of what makes something great. Just as, say, with a piece of furniture, you might or might not like the look or enjoy the feel of a piece, you can still appreciate the skill and attention to detail that goes into construction of something of high quality, and by extension the value of the invention of some new technique or style that can then be adapted by others to create their own works of beauty. I think the same applies to 'great' music. So just because you don't want it in your house doesn't mean you can't learn to appreciate the skill and imagination that goes into conceiving a work of music.


----------



## janxharris

Enthusiast said:


> I did define it several times: there is a critical consensus that it is the case. I also agree with it but that is just subjective.
> 
> As it is an agreement of people of some expertise who have asked such questions in a rigorous way, I take the critical consensus - applied to music that is sufficiently old to have "bedded down" (70-80 years?) - to be as close as we can get to (objective) value. If I disagree with it - and I very often do - that is my (subjective) taste and for me that rules ... but I do like to have guidance on what music to spend time on and what to expect to get out of it.


It's probably likely that more classical music lovers opt for the Jupiter at present. To go further and say it is objectively greater may be seen as arrogant. Certainly, the Jupiter would likewise trounce the likes of Sibelius's 5th (and I'm fine with that subjective view) - but I could never accept it as objectively greater.


----------



## janxharris

Is the Rach 2 concerto > Jupiter?


----------



## PlaySalieri

janxharris said:


> It's probably likely that more classical music lovers opt for the Jupiter at present. To go further and say it is objectively greater may be seen as arrogant. Certainly, the Jupiter would likewise trounce the likes of Sibelius's 5th (and I'm fine with that subjective view) -* but I could never accept it as objectively greater*.


a meaningless statement because no piece is objectively greater than another.


----------



## janxharris

stomanek said:


> a meaningless statement because no piece is objectively greater than another.


Yet some here appear to be arguing otherwise.


----------



## KenOC

The thread title: "Classical music" came to an end 60 years ago

I think it can be argued that it came to an end almost a century ago. Sure, there have been a few pieces written after 1918 that have entered the repertoire, but seriously: How many?

It's been a long time since the days of Vivaldi, when last year's music had the same status as the Stones' _Yesterday's Papers_.


----------



## techniquest

I do apologise if this has been said (or suggested) earlier, but I haven't gone through all 11 pages of this thread; however I wanted to make a point about Classic FM that had been raised early on.
When Classic FM first started in the 1990's it had a relatively small playlist which included some very obscure works that wouldn't then have been in any way considered mainstream, or light, classical music such as Gorecki's 3rd and Gavin Bryers 'Jesus' Blood...'; who outside of the European avant-garde had heard of Gorecki prior to 1992? Certainly not the bulk of the British 'Lark Ascending'-listening public. It is my _opinion_ that these works were deliberately pushed to gauge how the public could be manipulated into buying classical music that they a) haven't heard of before and b) possibly won't really enjoy, in order to justify to the advertising world that Classic FM was a viable station worthy of their financial support.


----------



## janxharris

techniquest said:


> I do apologise if this has been said (or suggested) earlier, but I haven't gone through all 11 pages of this thread; however I wanted to make a point about Classic FM that had been raised early on.
> When Classic FM first started in the 1990's it had a relatively small playlist which included some very obscure works that wouldn't then have been in any way considered mainstream, or light, classical music such as Gorecki's 3rd and Gavin Bryers 'Jesus' Blood...'; who outside of the European avant-garde had heard of Gorecki prior to 1992? Certainly not the bulk of the British 'Lark Ascending'-listening public. It is my _opinion_ that these works were deliberately pushed to gauge how the public could be manipulated into buying classical music that they a) haven't heard of before and b) possibly won't really enjoy, in order to justify to the advertising world that Classic FM was a viable station worthy of their financial support.


The Gorecki isn't really avant-garde though is it? 
If this is the Bryers piece then nor is it modernist.


----------



## Nereffid

techniquest said:


> I do apologise if this has been said (or suggested) earlier, but I haven't gone through all 11 pages of this thread; however I wanted to make a point about Classic FM that had been raised early on.
> When Classic FM first started in the 1990's it had a relatively small playlist which included some very obscure works that wouldn't then have been in any way considered mainstream, or light, classical music such as Gorecki's 3rd and Gavin Bryers 'Jesus' Blood...'; who outside of the European avant-garde had heard of Gorecki prior to 1992? Certainly not the bulk of the British 'Lark Ascending'-listening public. It is my _opinion_ that these works were deliberately pushed to gauge how the public could be manipulated into buying classical music that they a) haven't heard of before and b) possibly won't really enjoy, in order to justify to the advertising world that Classic FM was a viable station worthy of their financial support.


"Holy minimalism", as it was called, was taking off before Classic FM launched, though, and chant was also having a revival. True, the Górecki wouldn't have been known to many listeners, and though the scale of its success may have come as a surprise, I suspect the Classic FM people knew the time was right for that piece or something like it. Meanwhile in the US, according to Wikipedia, the Zinman/Upshaw recording topped the Billboard classical charts for 38 weeks.

Reading up a bit further on the topic, I see that Classic FM's original playlist was developed by one person, Robin Ray, who also gauged the likely popularity of each track using a star rating. His ratings were "substantially confirmed" by the station's own research.


----------



## Nereffid

KenOC said:


> The thread title: "Classical music" came to an end 60 years ago
> 
> I think it can be argued that it came to an end almost a century ago. Sure, there have been a few pieces written after 1918 that have entered the repertoire, but seriously: How many?
> 
> It's been a long time since the days of Vivaldi, when last year's music had the same status as the Stones' _Yesterday's Papers_.


In terms of the works that have regularly appeared in the Classic FM Hall of Fame, the peak for popular classical music is from the 1870s to the 1900s. But it's a very sharp peak, and outside of it the popularity is actually quite consistent between the 1780s and 1950s. My own polls - different audience, of course - indicated a peak between the 1890s and 1940s, with the tallest peak in the 1910s. I'd be inclined to say that 1918 (or thereabouts) could be called the beginning of a slow decline, rather than an end per se. The point of my original post was to note that the 1950s shows a rather abrupt end to the popular perception of what classical music even is.


----------



## PlaySalieri

janxharris said:


> Yet some here appear to be arguing otherwise.


and with your statement - you are validating the proposition towards objective evaluation of art.


----------



## janxharris

stomanek said:


> and with your statement - you are validating the proposition towards objective evaluation of art.


How so?
.................................


----------



## Blancrocher

KenOC said:


> The thread title: "Classical music" came to an end 60 years ago
> 
> I think it can be argued that it came to an end almost a century ago. Sure, there have been a few pieces written after 1918 that have entered the repertoire, but seriously: How many?
> 
> It's been a long time since the days of Vivaldi, when last year's music had the same status as the Stones' _Yesterday's Papers_.


It's been awhile since I heard anything that seems destined to enter the repertoire of "classic rock," for that matter.


----------



## joen_cph

stomanek said:


> a meaningless statement because no piece is objectively greater than another.


Wagner's Ring is objectively a greater piece, involving greater effort, result and content, than Mozart's Minuet K1. Arguing the opposite would be a case of absurdity.


----------



## Guest

Blancrocher said:


> It's been awhile since I heard anything that seems destined to enter the repertoire of "classic rock," for that matter.


Elaborate, _per favore?_


----------



## Blancrocher

dogen said:


> Elaborate, _per favore?_


You asked for a follow-up before I could edit--I'm not sure I agree with my statement upon further reflection :lol:

Basically, I was thinking "who's as good as the Stones right now?"


----------



## janxharris

joen_cph said:


> Wagner's Ring is objectively a greater piece, involving greater effort, result and content, than Mozart's Minuet K1. Arguing the opposite would be a case of absurdity.


Effort wont make a work somehow 'better' - but, certainly, content could - if you can prove that Wagner's content is objectively greater.


----------



## janxharris

Blancrocher said:


> You asked for a follow-up before I could edit--I'm not sure I agree with my statement upon further reflection :lol:
> 
> Basically, I was thinking "who's as good as the Stones right now?"


Loads.................................


----------



## Blancrocher

janxharris said:


> Loads.................................


I'll accept that--and I won't even ask you to prove it :lol:


----------



## eugeneonagain

joen_cph said:


> Wagner's Ring is objectively a greater piece, involving greater effort, result and content, than Mozart's Minuet K1. Arguing the opposite would be a case of absurdity.


I'm willing to accept this. The twiddlings of a boy writing essentially flat-pack music you could find anywhere at the time, is not remotely comparable to a work that obviously broke new ground harmonically and artistically.


----------



## janxharris

If it's as good as Tristan then it must be great


----------



## janxharris

If one's sensibilities are in tune with a certainer composer, then that composer's music will be agreeable. No objective pronouncement that says otherwise will be accepted - surely?


----------



## PlaySalieri

joen_cph said:


> Wagner's Ring is objectively a greater piece, involving greater effort, result and content, than Mozart's Minuet K1. Arguing the opposite would be a case of absurdity.


But length, complexity, effort do not, per se, content make one piece greater than another.

result must be subjective - there are people who cant stand Wagner's result and would prefer K1.

and we still have not defined what we mean when we say "greater"


----------



## eugeneonagain

stomanek said:


> But length, complexity, effort do not, per se, content make one piece greater than another.
> 
> result must be subjective - there are people who cant stand Wagner's result and would prefer K1.
> 
> and we still have not defined what we mean when we say "greater"


Behave yourself. K.1 is a nursery rhyme tune. I don't even like opera, but it doesn't take much effort to see that The Ring is a greater achievement. Nitpicking about 'it all depends what you mean by...' in a C.E.M Joad way is silly.


----------



## Guest

Blancrocher said:


> I'll accept that--and I won't even ask you to prove it :lol:


That's for the best. :tiphat:


----------



## Nereffid

stomanek said:


> But length, complexity, effort do not, per se, content make one piece greater than another.
> 
> result must be subjective - there are people who cant stand Wagner's result and would prefer K1.
> 
> and we still have not defined what we mean when we say "greater"


In theory I agree with you completely, but really in practice it's hard to come up with convincing grounds, _given what we know about what people generally want from music_, where K.1 would be the equal of the _Ring_. The problem is that these kind of "obvious" cases are so readily extrapolated into a universally applicable law: "Wagner's _Ring_ is obviously superior to K.1, therefore X [= any piece of music which I personally think is excellent] is obviously superior to Y [=any piece of music which I personally don't think is excellent]".


----------



## Nereffid

By the way, I genuinely thought when I was writing the above that I was posting on the "Assumption of greatness" thread! I don't like telling people what to post about, but isn't this discussion better suited to that thread?


----------



## PlaySalieri

Nereffid said:


> In theory I agree with you completely, but really in practice it's hard to come up with convincing grounds, _given what we know about what people generally want from music_, where K.1 would be the equal of the _Ring_.* The problem is that these kind of "obvious" cases are so readily extrapolated into a universally applicable law:* "Wagner's _Ring_ is obviously superior to K.1, therefore X [= any piece of music which I personally think is excellent] is obviously superior to Y [=any piece of music which I personally don't think is excellent]".


quite - and where do you draw the line to the extent it is not an obvious case?

a line has been drawn from 1 example. a 1 minute minuet vs 10 hours of opera.

at some point there will be parity - how do we establish where that is?

I am interested because perhaps we can make some real progress in these discussions - we have a starting point at last. Now we need to expand - if that is not possible - then we never had a starting point at all and I am afraid your obvious cases are all based on logical fallacies.


----------



## eugeneonagain

stomanek said:


> at some point there will be parity - how do we establish where that is?


With these two particular examples there will not be 'parity' at any point. Please refrain from dressing it up in language unsuited to its stature.


----------



## Strange Magic

stomanek said:


> quite - and where do you draw the line to the extent it is not an obvious case?
> 
> a line has been drawn from 1 example. a 1 minute minuet vs 10 hours of opera.
> 
> at some point there will be parity - how do we establish where that is?
> 
> I am interested because perhaps we can make some real progress in these discussions - we have a starting point at last. Now we need to expand - if that is not possible - then we never had a starting point at all and I am afraid your obvious cases are all based on logical fallacies.


For myself, I would much rather listen to Chopin's Polonaise in A flat major than any number of what I have previously described as "late 19th or early 20th century vast, gaseous, portentous, interminable symphonies". As before, I will not name those symphonies out of a distaste for needlessly upsetting others, but instead ask others to think of their own such examples.


----------



## PlaySalieri

eugeneonagain said:


> With these two particular examples there will not be 'parity' at any point. Please refrain from dressing it up in language unsuited to its stature.


that doesn't address my point

we accept that a 1 minute piece will never have parity with The Ring -

how long should a piece be before it might be considered the equal of The Ring?


----------



## eugeneonagain

stomanek said:


> that doesn't address my point
> 
> we accept that a 1 minute piece will never have parity with The Ring -
> 
> how long should a piece be before it might be considered the equal of The Ring?


Your point assumes that it's merely a matter of length? If K.1 was the same length as The Ring it would just be a very long, simple minuet.

K.1 is a throwaway minuet and there are hundreds like it from that period. How many _Rings_ are there?


----------



## Thomyum2

stomanek said:


> that doesn't address my point
> 
> we accept that a 1 minute piece will never have parity with The Ring -
> 
> how long should a piece be before it might be considered the equal of The Ring?


Length aside, unless you are in the business of judging a competition, why consider whether one piece is the equal of another at all? Why not take every piece on its own merits? Value each work for what it has to offer. We don't rank humans this way in our daily relationships, so why do we try to rank compositions? Each one is unique, just as each human being is unique. Personally I've not found much value in trying to determine a ranking of pieces and doing so can detract from the task of cherishing what each one has to offer.


----------



## eugeneonagain

I will defer to Thomyum's post. It seems to me the most reasonable approach.


----------



## Madiel

stomanek said:


> BTW - if polls only prove which composers are the most popular
> 
> how do we determine who is the greatest?


why should we determine who is the greatest? this sports mentality is not adequate when discussing art, alas the sports mentality is so ingrained into our way of thinking that we are unable to live without it even when its silliness is so blatant as when we talk about classical music.
Popularity as a measure of greatness? are you serious? polls? does your reasoning include politicians? :devil:


----------



## larold

This argument, or discussion, began with a poll from a radio station. There have been other such polls cited around here; they always are made up of mostly friendly, tonal pieces of classical music. Most are usually very well-known. What isn't cited in polls is the listening, or collecting, or other consumption habits of radio listeners. 

It is my understanding the average classical radio listener, as well as the average concert goer, is not a collector or someone who spends their life's time looking at and listening to a lot of different types of classical music. In my experience most of these people are casual listeners, people that like the music but don't focus their spare time on it as collectors, readers or otherwise searching about it.

This, I believe, is why these polls typically end up listing a lot of well-known, familiar and in many cases vanilla music. 

The fact that a poll of listeners to classical music being asked their favorite music from 1959 forward was that didn't list anything by Shostakovich (who died 1975 and wrote his 12th, 13th, 14th and 15th symphony from 1961-71 and the string quartets Nos. 7-15 from 1960-74) or didn't include any of Benjamin Britten's later compositions (he wrote, for example, the operas A Midsummer Night Dream's in 1960 and Death In Venice 1973, the War Requiem 1971 and the Cello Symphony 1963) indicates to me the participants in the poll aren't very sophisticated about classical music.

I don't think at all that it meant classical music died in 1959.


----------



## Nereffid

larold said:


> I don't think at all that it meant classical music died in 1959.


I don't think that either! It was literally the second sentence of the first post.


----------



## Phil loves classical

I don't think Classical Music died, but there was no real development since the 50's. It seems all new ideas have been exhausted. Now the music is real just like the old. There is still interesting music around though.


----------



## janxharris

Strange Magic said:


> For myself, I would much rather listen to Chopin's Polonaise in A flat major than any number of what I have previously described as "late 19th or early 20th century vast, *gaseous*, portentous, interminable symphonies". As before, I will not name those symphonies out of a distaste for needlessly upsetting others, but instead ask others to think of their own such examples.


.........................................


----------



## joen_cph

Phil loves classical said:


> *I don't think Classical Music died, but there was no real development since the 50's. It seems all new ideas have been exhausted. Now the music is real just like the old. *There is still interesting music around though.


The more contemporary music one hears, the less valid such generalizations seem to be.


----------



## Phil loves classical

joen_cph said:


> The more contemporary music one hears, the less valid such generalizations seem to be.


I wish I could say the same. By liistening to more I started feeling it is like sitcoms, which rehash techniques, etc. of old.


----------



## larold

Classical music isn't dead but is also not thriving. I think there are a lot of reasons for that, the principal one being the art from itself and its practitioners, composers, have let down its public. Who are the great composers and where are the world-class compositions that create new fans? They are not apparent in this art form. I think that has to be because the people that would have created them previously pursued other art forms. One thing classical music is not is visual; if you look at most modern art forms the visual element is important. There hasn't been a classical composer that merged visual and aural art.


----------



## Madiel

larold said:


> One thing classical music is not is visual; if you look at most modern art forms the visual element is important. There hasn't been a classical composer that merged visual and aural art.


I guess you need to expand your knowledge of contemporary composers


----------



## Strange Magic

Gaseous: (Informal definition) "Lacking firmness or solidity; uncertain; not definite."


----------



## schigolch

Wow, I haven't noticed!. Thanks for the heads-up.


----------



## Nereffid

Strange Magic said:


> Gaseous: (Informal definition) "Lacking firmness or solidity; uncertain; not definite."


Surely the most gaseous symphony is the _Jupiter_?


----------



## Euler

Nereffid said:


> Surely the most gaseous symphony is the _Jupiter_?


Closely followed by the Symphony of Sorrowful Thongs


----------



## Strange Magic

Nereffid said:


> Surely the most gaseous symphony is the _Jupiter_?


Very good, good sir! :tiphat:


----------



## Mozart555

Truly great classical music ended over 100 years ago. I don't believe it was necessarily a reduction in human creativity or intelligence, but rather a social change for the worse that started with WWI, where the values of people were forever changed.


----------



## Guest

Mozart555 said:


> Truly great classical music ended over 100 years ago. I don't believe it was necessarily a reduction in human creativity or intelligence, but rather a social change for the worse that started with WWI, where the values of people were forever changed.


And thus prompted the creation of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights?


----------



## Mozart555

shirime said:


> And thus prompted the creation of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights?


Yeah I wouldn't want to live in the 19th century. But the goodies of the modern age were at a cost of the very values that gave us all this music. Post WWI music had a very different flavour to it, one that reflected the times all too well.


----------



## EddieRUKiddingVarese

Strange Magic said:


> Very good, good sir! :tiphat:


What about Uranus  the magic one

and back to the OP if it ended when did it start?


----------



## science

Holst wrote a fine work that starts off with some very rocky movements and concludes with some very gassy ones. I suppose it's an experience that's hard to get through sitting down. I'd bet none of us are going to get beyond it.


----------



## Nereffid

EddieRUKiddingVarese said:


> What about Uranus  the magic one
> 
> and back to the OP if it ended when did it start?


Pachelbel's _Canon_.


----------



## Prat

Classical music can never die, pure and simple


----------



## Nereffid

Prat said:


> Classical music can never die, pure and simple


Ah, but what about "classical music"?


----------



## haydnguy

I have thought a lot about this topic "generally". I think classical music just doesn't fit our present day. It's not that the music isn't fantastic or that people wouldn't like it. It's just that it doesn't fit.

The average young/middle age person is far too busy (or think they are) to sit and listen "focusly" to a full symphony. They can only take 3-4 minute clips of popular music. Even if they listen to several, those clips are independent so they don't have to take in a large "whole" as a symphony would be. 

The one thing that might show this is wrong is that they sit for hours watching Netflix. They DO have time for that so perhaps they have the time. But I do think that the length of much classical music has a lot to do with it. 

One interesting thing. My cable company has two channels that are dedicated to classical music. One called 'Classical Masterpieces' and one called, 'Classical Lite'. I admit that the Lite channel gets played more so that others in the household will accept it. They DO come up with composers that I've never heard of so that get's me exploring new territory. But they only will play one movement or one part of a piece. I guess beggars can't be choosers but that's irritating.


----------



## Strange Magic

EddieRUKiddingVarese said:


> What about Uranus  the magic one
> 
> and back to the OP if it ended when did it start?


Jupiter runs rings around Uranus .


----------



## Woodduck

haydnguy said:


> I have thought a lot about this topic "generally". I think classical music just doesn't fit our present day. It's not that the music isn't fantastic or that people wouldn't like it. It's just that it doesn't fit.
> 
> The average young/middle age person is far too busy (or think they are) to sit and listen "focusly" to a full symphony. They can only take 3-4 minute clips of popular music. Even if they listen to several, those clips are independent so they don't have to take in a large "whole" as a symphony would be.
> 
> The one thing that might show this is wrong is that they sit for hours watching Netflix. They DO have time for that so perhaps they have the time. But I do think that the length of much classical music has a lot to do with it.


It isn't a matter of not having time. People make time for whatever they value. If they have an hour for a TV show but not for a symphony, the question to ask is why the first is more appealing to them than the second. If they will also make time for a long concert of popular music, but not for the symphony, the difference has to be sought in the nature of the music and the way people relate to it.


----------



## Enthusiast

haydnguy said:


> I have thought a lot about this topic "generally". I think classical music just doesn't fit our present day. It's not that the music isn't fantastic or that people wouldn't like it. It's just that it doesn't fit.
> 
> The average young/middle age person is far too busy (or think they are) to sit and listen "focusly" to a full symphony. They can only take 3-4 minute clips of popular music. Even if they listen to several, those clips are independent so they don't have to take in a large "whole" as a symphony would be.
> 
> The one thing that might show this is wrong is that they sit for hours watching Netflix. They DO have time for that so perhaps they have the time. But I do think that the length of much classical music has a lot to do with it.
> 
> One interesting thing. My cable company has two channels that are dedicated to classical music. One called 'Classical Masterpieces' and one called, 'Classical Lite'. I admit that the Lite channel gets played more so that others in the household will accept it. They DO come up with composers that I've never heard of so that get's me exploring new territory. But they only will play one movement or one part of a piece. I guess beggars can't be choosers but that's irritating.


The thing is I am not so sure that I - well past middle age - listen focusly. I hate short bursts from longer pieces and, although I enjoy miniatures, I don't listen to them often (note to self: programme more recitals into my listening). But my listening style involves moving in and out of concentration or focus. It always has done. A lot of my processing of music is subconscious or unconscious. I was amazed a while back (and a little skeptical) to read here that so many only listen to classical music when they can really concentrate and I think some thought that my way of listening lacked seriousness or respect. But, with works I know well, there is no difficulty getting the whole with my style of listening. And with new works I am saved the effort of working to "understand" the music. It just slowly grows inside me if there are sufficient rewards en route for multiple hearings.

I'm sure others could listen to classical music in the same way I do and that the famous "short attention span" of today's young people is no obstacle as such.

When I was growing up more than fifty years ago I was the only one in my class who enjoyed and listened to classical music and may have been the only one who came from a house where classical music was freely available and often playing. I don't think I have ever had serious classical music fans within my friends circle. So I guess it has always been thus: that classical music is a minority interest. Most who do like it come to it a little later in life - perhaps their late twenties - but they have missed that period when their brains were wired for learning.


----------



## Enthusiast

Woodduck said:


> It isn't a matter of not having time. People make time for whatever they value. If they have an hour for a TV show but not for a symphony, the question to ask is why the first is more appealing to them than the second. If they will also make time for a long concert of popular music, but not for the symphony, the difference has to be sought in the nature of the music and the way people relate to it.


I think the issue with films or TV programmes versus music is that people do things together. It is easier to watch a drama or a documentary with others than to listen to music with others. Firstly, the chances of each person present liking or wanting the same music is less and, secondly, music is a more solitary experience anyway. It isn't even very easy to talk about.


----------



## Nereffid

haydnguy said:


> I have thought a lot about this topic "generally". I think classical music just doesn't fit our present day. It's not that the music isn't fantastic or that people wouldn't like it. It's just that it doesn't fit.
> 
> The average young/middle age person is far too busy (or think they are) to sit and listen "focusly" to a full symphony. They can only take 3-4 minute clips of popular music. Even if they listen to several, those clips are independent so they don't have to take in a large "whole" as a symphony would be.
> 
> The one thing that might show this is wrong is that they sit for hours watching Netflix. They DO have time for that so perhaps they have the time. But I do think that the length of much classical music has a lot to do with it.


Certainly I'd say that the general public's view of "classical music" and all its trappings - seated and hushed concerts, dinner jackets, two-hundred-year-old music written for aristocrats, etc - doesn't match the times. But I wouldn't pin it on modern attention spans or business or anything like that. I saw _2001: A Space Odyssey_ in the cinema recently and was surprised to find that, as per the original showing, it came with an intermission. Checking afterwards I discovered the film is no longer than _Infinity War_, which has no intermission and a vastly greater information content. The point of relevance to music being that people today would be well able to focus on a large symphony _if they wanted to_: length and information content isn't an issue. But they don't want to, for whatever reason. I'm inclined to think it's just a reflection of the fact that "sitting for a long time quietly listening to a continuous piece of music" isn't, culturally speaking, a thing any more, whereas "sitting for a long time watching a continuous TV series" is. The culture keeps changing [shrug emoji].


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## millionrainbows

I don't really understand the OP. Classical music is a historical pursuit, like a library or museum, where one explores the music of history.
Popular, and cinema music, is designed for a certain utilitarian purpose and market, in an industry which is profit-driven.

When "classical" music was being composed, like Beethoven's, there was a different power system in place.

In our time, the audience has diversified and split off into cinema, games, popular…unless we can experience and accept this music as being as valid as classical, it will remain with its differences, and history will be history.

What the OP seems to be lamenting is the fragmentation of history, the discontinuity of the post-modern age, the explosive fragmentation of styles and mediums. Good music will remain good music.


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## Guest

Kivimees said:


> Since my cognitive bias doesn't want to believe "classical music" came to an end 60 years ago, I will offer a rationalization:
> 
> The 1910 to 1959 list is established now, not in 1959. Who knows what the list would have looked like in 1959? Time has sieved through that music over 60 years with to give this result. Perhaps, given 60 years, time will sieve through the music since 1960 and offer more "classical music" than the Górecki and Pärt works listed.


I read the OP and I read this reply. No need to read the rest of the thread, because this post put it to rest. The list for current music is dominated by film music, so what, in 1959 film music was probably more popular than any of the classical music listed. There is lots of serious, high quality classical music that has become established (Shostakovich, Messiaen, Ligeti, Dutilieux, etc) and will be better remembered than all of that fluff.


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## Woodduck

Enthusiast said:


> I think the issue with films or TV programmes versus music is that people do things together. It is easier to watch a drama or a documentary with others than to listen to music with others. Firstly, the chances of each person present liking or wanting the same music is less and, secondly, music is a more solitary experience anyway. It isn't even very easy to talk about.


People sit for hours alone in front of a screen. Listening to music is a very different activity (as is reading a book for that matter). Watching a movie engages vision, hearing, and verbal comprehension; it tales you into a different reality and requires little or no effort to pay attention. Listening to music is an unnatural activity; in no other circumstances do we pay attention exclusively to sounds for long periods.


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## Nereffid

millionrainbows said:


> I don't really understand the OP. Classical music is a historical pursuit, like a library or museum, where one explores the music of history.
> Popular, and cinema music, is designed for a certain utilitarian purpose and market, in an industry which is profit-driven.
> 
> When "classical" music was being composed, like Beethoven's, there was a different power system in place.
> 
> In our time, the audience has diversified and split off into cinema, games, popular…unless we can experience and accept this music as being as valid as classical, it will remain with its differences, and history will be history.
> 
> What the OP seems to be lamenting is the fragmentation of history, the discontinuity of the post-modern age, the explosive fragmentation of styles and mediums. Good music will remain good music.


I wasn't _lamenting_ anything.


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## Steve Mc

Baron Scarpia, are you referring to film music as fluff. Granted, a great deal of it is. But, a good deal of it is not. For me, "classical" music refers to a discipline, a way of arranging musical sound that is rooted in tradition, yet remains looking forward. Certainly the glory years of classical music have passed. But, listening and studying the great scores of composers like Korngold, Rozsa, Williams and Horner, one cannot help but come to the conclusion that these individuals most certainly write in the classical tradition, and that their work offers the listener something unique and meaningful beyond the medium for which the music was written.
Their music will endure.


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## Enthusiast

Woodduck said:


> People sit for hours alone in front of a screen. Listening to music is a very different activity (as is reading a book for that matter). Watching a movie engages vision, hearing, and verbal comprehension; it tales you into a different reality and requires little or no effort to pay attention. Listening to music is an unnatural activity; in no other circumstances do we pay attention exclusively to sounds for long periods.


If alone I will probably read a book while listening to music rather than turn on the TV. There must be others like me?


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## Enthusiast

Steve Mc said:


> Baron Scarpia, are you referring to film music as fluff. Granted, a great deal of it is. But, a good deal of it is not. For me, "classical" music refers to a discipline, a way of arranging musical sound that is rooted in tradition, yet remains looking forward. Certainly the glory years of classical music have passed. But, listening and studying the great scores of composers like Korngold, Rozsa, Williams and Horner, one cannot help but come to the conclusion that these individuals most certainly write in the classical tradition, and that their work offers the listener something unique and meaningful beyond the medium for which the music was written.
> Their music will endure.


There is no "certainly" about the idea that "the glory years of classical music have passed"!

I partly agree with what you say of film music but there is something - a thing that is crucial to a definition of classical music - that film music seems to lack and that is the sense of developing an argument or narrative over time. Film music _accompanies _a film that develops the argument or narrative but it is only when the music is very central to the film that the music captures this flow. So, to me, most film music cannot be classical music. I don't suppose that really matters, though.


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## San Antone

Sometimes film music will utilize stylistic elements of classical music, mainly I am thinking of scores like those by John Williams (and others) whose orchestral writing seems to come straight out of Holst. But this is not the same as John Williams writing classical music.

New classical music is incredibly varied, and I find it a very exciting time for hearing new music.

While I love the music of Bach, Beethoven and Brahms - I also consider myself very lucky to live at a time where one can find all kinds of new classical music all over the Internet.

For me, NOW is the golden age of classical music, since it is all available to us - old and new.


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## Steve Mc

Enthusiast said:


> There is no "certainly" about the idea that "the glory years of classical music have passed"!
> 
> I partly agree with what you say of film music but there is something - a thing that is crucial to a definition of classical music - that film music seems to lack and that is the sense of developing an argument or narrative over time. Film music _accompanies _a film that develops the argument or narrative but it is only when the music is very central to the film that the music captures this flow. So, to me, most film music cannot be classical music. I don't suppose that really matters, though.


A valid point. Film music that just underscores is of limited value. But, a composer with classical credentials will be able to make the most of the medium, creating a work that supports the movie, yes, but is also able to exist and say something beyond the movie. Hence, Prokofiev's _Kieje_ and _Nevsky, Rozsa's Ben-Hur, and Williams's Close Encounters and Schindler's List among others._


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## Guest

Steve Mc said:


> Baron Scarpia, are you referring to film music as fluff. Granted, a great deal of it is. But, a good deal of it is not. For me, "classical" music refers to a discipline, a way of arranging musical sound that is rooted in tradition, yet remains looking forward. Certainly the glory years of classical music have passed. But, listening and studying the great scores of composers like Korngold, Rozsa, Williams and Horner, one cannot help but come to the conclusion that these individuals most certainly write in the classical tradition, and that their work offers the listener something unique and meaningful beyond the medium for which the music was written.
> Their music will endure.


I don't dispute that some film music is of high quality and could be considered "classical music" just as incidental music, ballet scores, etc, from the older musicians is. The typical film score is a commercial product.

The suggestion that the "glory years of classical music have passed," does not strike me as a certainty, it strikes me as completely absurd. Great scores are being written and performed, music lovers flocking to concert halls and electronic sources. The fact that you don't know about it or like it does not mean it doesn't exist.


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## Nereffid

Baron Scarpia said:


> I read the OP and I read this reply. No need to read the rest of the thread, because this post put it to rest. The list for current music is dominated by film music, so what, in 1959 film music was probably more popular than any of the classical music listed. There is lots of serious, high quality classical music that has become established (Shostakovich, Messiaen, Ligeti, Dutilieux, etc) and will be better remembered than all of that fluff.


I'd love to have an equivalent list for 1959. In the absence of such information all we can do is speculate, and I see no particular reason to go with your speculation rather than mine.
One thing that sticks out with the Classic FM list is how much new music is on it. The 2018 Hall of Fame has 300 works on it, and a full 50 of them were composed since 1960. But only 4 of those are by "serious" classical composers - Glass, Gorecki, Part and Maxwell Davies (whose piece is the unrepresentative "Farewell to Stromness").
So here's a representative list of some serious classical composers that have never been on the Classic FM list since the annual poll began in 1996: (I've listed only composers born since 1920, so they're quite unlikely to have composed something that would be on any 1959 poll): Ligeti, Rautavaara, Schnittke, Adams, Boulez, Reich, Penderecki, Feldman, Takemitsu, Berio, Xenakis, Stockhausen, Gubaidulina, Nørgård, Kurtág, Henze, Saariaho, Crumb, Corigliano, Adès. Basically apart from a handful of minimalist works (and a couple of pieces by Malcolm Arnold!) modern serious music isn't there.
If we look at serious classical composers born in the 60 years before 1920 (in other words, "modern" composers for a 1959 poll), the Classic FM list includes the following: Mahler, Sibelius, Debussy, Ravel, Prokofiev, Stravinsky, Rachmaninoff, R Strauss, Shostakovich, Vaughan Williams, Barber, Copland, Holst, Gershwin, Satie, Delius, Bernstein, Korngold, Khachaturian, Orff, Rodrigo. (Britten, Respighi, Poulenc, and Glazunov were on previous lists).
Obviously the numbers look better for the older composers because their music has had much longer to become established. If we were to have an equivalent list created in 1959, no doubt there would be plenty of lighter-classical pieces (such as the likes of Ketelbey or Leroy Anderson) and popular hymns and "crossover" songs. But would _almost none_ of the above composers feature? I have my doubts. I made the point elsewhere in the thread that what stands out among the classical works preferred by the public is the presence of "a good tune". That's what comes through for all the earlier composers listed above - Sibelius is represented by _Finlandia_ and _Karelia_, Debussy by _Clair de Lune_, Prokofiev by _Romeo and Juliet_, Barber by the _Adagio_, and so on. And this is the case for much older composers too - Beethoven's got the "Moonlight" sonata, not the "Hammerklavier". The reason I feel that there's been a shift in perspective (or an "end") is that (a) it's not too hard to imagine (in the absence of documentary evidence) that a bunch of works by Sibelius, Debussy et al might be popular with the general classical audience in 1959, but (b) while Messiaen, Ligeti, Saariaho et al may be well established among serious listeners, it's hard to see where their equivalent of _Finlandia_ or _Clair de Lune_ is going to come from.


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## eugeneonagain

Nereffid said:


> ...Sibelius is represented by _Finlandia_ and _Karelia_, Debussy by _Clair de Lune_, Prokofiev by _Romeo and Juliet_, Barber by the _Adagio_, and so on. And this is the case for much older composers too - Beethoven's got the "Moonlight" sonata, not the "Hammerklavier". The reason I feel that there's been a shift in perspective (or an "end") is that (a) it's not too hard to imagine (in the absence of documentary evidence) that a bunch of works by Sibelius, Debussy et al might be popular with the general classical audience in 1959, but (b) while Messiaen, Ligeti, Saariaho et al may be well established among serious listeners, it's hard to see where their equivalent of _Finlandia_ or _Clair de Lune_ is going to come from.


This is not just a phenomenon within classical music. All genres/artists have a more limited 'greatest hits' nucleus. Miles Davis? Does anyone apart from a jazz listener know anything of his apart from _So What_? Is jazz now dead? Well, at least one opinionated YouTuber thinks so (he's wrong though).

This all reminds me of the phenomenon of actors being talked about in terms of 'whatever happened to...' just because they now take on a lot of theatre roles. As if the measure of existing as an actor is _only_ in highly popular film/TV roles. The popular listening 'market' is dominated by a certain type of music which crowds out other things for most people. One needs to be actively searching for other things to hear them; like all connoisseurship.

The slight snobbery towards film music bothers me, some of it is (or perhaps has been) very good. It isn't just the specially-written music though; films have been vehicles for selecting and showcasing and popularising many great works of actual art music. They provide a better entrance to listening than most or all other avenues for a large audience.


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## Nereffid

eugeneonagain said:


> This is not just a phenomenon within classical music. All genres/artists have a more limited 'greatest hits' nucleus. Miles Davis? Does anyone apart from a jazz listener know anything of his apart from _So What_? Is jazz now dead? Well, at least one opinionated YouTuber thinks so (he's wrong though).


I guess in keeping with my theme, I should say that _jazz_ isn't dead, but _"jazz"_ is.


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## eugeneonagain

Nereffid said:


> I guess in keeping with my theme, I should say that _jazz_ isn't dead, but _"jazz"_ is.


It isn't. It's only perceived as dead if you think it should stay in one place unchanged, usually at its popular peak. This is the erroneous assumption of this entire thread.


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## Nereffid

eugeneonagain said:


> It isn't. It's only perceived as dead if you think it should stay in one place unchanged, usually at its popular peak. This is the erroneous assumption of this entire thread.


I don't think you got the point of the thread.

From the OP:

So this is what I mean when I say "classical music" appears to have come to an end 60 years ago. The 1950s represents the last decade in which there's any significant overlap between what's popular with the general public and what's popular with serious classical listeners. Or, more significantly, between _what's called classical music_ by the public and the specialist.


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## JeffD

Nereffid said:


> So this is what I mean when I say "classical music" appears to have come to an end 60 years ago. The 1950s represents the last decade in which there's any significant overlap between what's popular with the general public and what's popular with serious classical listeners. Or, more significantly, between _what's called classical music_ by the public and the specialist.


I respectfully disagree. Well, lets say I am very skeptical.

I play folk music, and especially old time music. Which would have been the popular music of times gone by. Old time fiddle music, traditional dance music and its enthusiasts, have minimally overlapped with high classical music, since forever ago.

In Ireland, they even had three levels of music that minimally overlapped - penny whistle and dance tunes, harp music (the indigenous classical music) and that European classical stuff coming over from Italy and Germany. O'Carolan's Concerto is a harp (now fiddle) tune that Turlough O'Carolan wrote upon hearing one of Bach's concertos and figuring, "heck, if that's what you want here ya go".

Secondly I think every generation sees change and nobody likes it. So for every generation the really good stuff was about 50 years prior, and things have just fallen apart since then. I think many have viewed it this way, also since forever ago.

That said, I don't think you are wrong, in a sense, because though its always been true, it is true now as well. It really is.

The future will look back on us, and see us as part of a continuum and not an all that significant break from the past, and they will bemoan the loss of what they consider "classical", (which may not even be something we can see right now.) Every generation re-discovers the wheel, and thinks they were the first ones.

But again, that doesn't mean what you say is not true. We live now, and we are most cognizant of what is happening now and in the recent past. We have no choice. It is impossible to live outside of time and place, and have an opinion from nowhere and no-when. So, being forced to live in the point of time where we live, yes, what you say is true.

I wonder if a being with a truly eternal perspective would even be understandable to us.


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## eugeneonagain

Nereffid said:


> I don't think you got the point of the thread.
> 
> From the OP:
> 
> So this is what I mean when I say "classical music" appears to have come to an end 60 years ago. The 1950s represents the last decade in which there's any significant overlap between what's popular with the general public and what's popular with serious classical listeners. Or, more significantly, between _what's called classical music_ by the public and the specialist.


I'm perfectly familiar with the OP, I answered it on page 1. The slight drift into assuming that what isn't popular must dead is being addressed. It also forms part of the OP, and it is a falsehood.


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## Guest

I have no difficulty finding new classical music and finding ways to listen to it. There is music from the first half of the 20th century which is being recorded for the first time now. All sorts of weird ***** is available to be streamed on youtube. In what sense is it dead? Because we don't have an equivalent of Liberace today? Thank god. But we have that guy the plays Strauss Waltzes with an orchestra of attractive ladies in evening gowns. There are myriad ways of listening to music these days so any comparison of classical music "popularity" today and in 1959 is impossible.


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## st Omer

Maybe a better term than classical music would be concert music to distinguish it from the popular idioms. I once heard an FM classical music DJ (or whatever they call them on the classical stations) say that concert music, or music performed in a formal setting, is a more accurate term for what we call classical. The classical era compositions typically consisted of concert works in the sonata form. I don't know when the term classical music gained credence but I have heard it was first used in the early 19th century and I believe it was generally applied to composers who composed in the traditional sonata form. What we call classical music today has gone off in hundreds of directions since the early 19th century. I wonder if art song was considered classical music until years after it became popular? Some people have no patience for anything longer than 2-5 minutes so they can't tolerate larger forms except the highlights. I would guess it has always been that way. In the old days the average person may not have been able to tolerate anything longer than the popular folk music of the day. I think that is fine because there has been some wonderful, timeless popular music through the ages that resonates. There are many pop works composed in my lifetime that I enjoy every bit as much as the great classics. I won't suggest they rise to the same level but nevertheless I cherish them. 

My son in law is a trained classical composer but has told me he doesn't really care for most classical music except the hits. I was surprised because the guy is brilliant and excels in many academic areas but he has no time or inclination to listen to Mahler. I love Mahler and I would guess that my IQ is about half what his is if it is half that much. 

What I am saying in a round about way is that I think classical music, or concert music performed in a formal setting, has always been dead to a all but a relatively small audience. I think it will live on because the best of it has proven to have an appeal to enough of us to survive and continue to survive long after we are gone. Today we have the blessing of recordings and don't have to pay out the nose to attend a concert. The music is accessible to a larger audience today than it ever has been.


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## millionrainbows

Nereffid said:


> I wasn't _lamenting_ anything.


Then your OP seems to be holding on to the validity of the "classical" paradigm, which has changed in its new age and context.

It shouldn't matter whether music of today meets any standards of the old classical paradigm; the paradigm is an old one which was formed under different circumstances of the past. Now is now.


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## Nereffid

millionrainbows said:


> Then your OP seems to be holding on to the validity of the "classical" paradigm, which has changed in its new age and context.
> 
> It shouldn't matter whether music of today meets any standards of the old classical paradigm; the paradigm is an old one which was formed under different circumstances of the past. Now is now.


If I gave the impression that I was insisting that the old paradigm be upheld, that wasn't my intention. In subsequent posts I think I made it clear that I'm totally OK with "classical" being expanded to cover other kinds of music that are currently frowned upon by those in favour of the old paradigm, or the artificial barrier between "classical" and "not classical" being erased or ignored as appropriate.


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## st Omer

I have a fair understanding of what classical music is and what it isn't but sometimes we get hung up on defining works and placing them in a category. Sometimes the lines are blurred. My daughter bought me a book for Christmas several years ago titled "What's Up With Opera". It was written by a Time Magazine music critic Michael Walsh. In one of the chapters of the book he makes the point that the line between Broadway musicals and opera is often very blurred and artificial. I am not a real aficionado of either Broadway musicals or opera but I think his point is valid. We should enjoy what we like and not get too hung up on how to how to classify it. Great music is great music.


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## Enthusiast

Nereffid said:


> If I gave the impression that I was insisting that the old paradigm be upheld, that wasn't my intention. In subsequent posts I think I made it clear that I'm totally OK with "classical" being expanded to cover other kinds of music that are currently frowned upon by those in favour of the old paradigm, or the artificial barrier between "classical" and "not classical" being erased or ignored as appropriate.


I'm not sure what that paradigm is. If it is a thing at all it seems to have been an ever-changing thing. The name "classical" may be wrong but I don't see it being replaced in common usage. It is nice to have niches to organise our musical taste into but is such a paradigm more than that? I don't find it hard to "see" a long tradition going back centuries and still active in the most avant garde music of today. Sometimes there is borrowing from other traditions but this doesn't mean the tradition is dead - there were always borrowings. Genuine "cross-over" also occurs but I know very few successful examples.


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## Madiel

st Omer said:


> We should enjoy what we like and not get too hung up on how to how to classify it. Great music is great music.


it is amazing how many people are hostage of this nonsense.


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## San Antone

> We should enjoy what we like and not get too hung up on how to how to classify it.


++1 - "absolutely" (I wouldn't have added that word except for the fact the forum nanny made me).


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## eugeneonagain

Madiel said:


> it is amazing how many people are hostage of [to] this nonsense.


What nonsense is that amigo? The matter of taste? Good luck in defining parameters for it.


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## DaveM

Enthusiast said:


> I'm not sure what that paradigm is.


Melody, no screeching of violins that may or may not be in tune, no random bonks, clinks, no abuse of grand pianos included plucking their strings, consistency at least to the extent that one can tell if wrong notes are being played. And, in general, music that assumes an audience of people with normal nervous systems.


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## Steve Mc

DaveM said:


> Melody, no screeching of violins that may or may not be in tune, no random bonks, clinks, no abuse of grand pianos included plucking their strings, consistency at least to the extent that one can tell if wrong notes are being played. And, in general, music that assumes an audience of people with normal nervous systems.


There is a place for harsh experimentation. But, people have become far too dogmatic about it. 
For centuries, melody was at the forefront of the music. Now, it is rather harshly frowned upon. I feel this to be wrong.


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## Guest

Steve Mc said:


> There is a place for harsh experimentation. But, people have become far too dogmatic about it.
> For centuries, melody was at the forefront of the music. Now, it is rather harshly frowned upon. I feel this to be wrong.


I have never come across any composers alive who 'frowns upon' writing melodies...........or are _you_ actually frowning upon the melodies of living composers here?


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## Lisztian

DaveM said:


> Melody, no screeching of violins that may or may not be in tune, no random bonks, clinks, no abuse of grand pianos included plucking their strings, consistency at least to the extent that one can tell if wrong notes are being played. And, in general, music that assumes an audience of people with normal nervous systems.


Just because you don't like this music, doesn't mean that those who do aren't normal.

'This kind' of music actually has a wider audience than you think. There are many fans on an other classical music forum (many members of whom used to post here, until they got sick of similar sorts of suggestions), and also on general music boards. On these general music boards it's the kind of music you condemn which is actually often the most highly regarded as far as classical goes (with people that are usually very familiar with the traditional repertoire too). A few times on these latter forums I've seen these classical fans asked why they don't come to classical forums, and the answer is pretty much always that they are sick of the museum mindset wherein nothing of interest has been written in the last 100 years. The more time I spend on TC, the more I agree with them.


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## DaveM

Lisztian said:


> Just because you don't like this music, doesn't mean that those who do aren't normal.
> 
> 'This kind' of music actually has a wider audience than you think. There are many fans on an other classical music forum (many members of whom used to post here, until they got sick of similar sorts of suggestions), and also on general music boards. On these general music boards it's the kind of music you condemn which is actually often the most highly regarded as far as classical goes (with people that are usually very familiar with the traditional repertoire too).


First of all, I'm talking about a narrow category -that appears to be a niche within a niche- that includes the examples I gave above and does not include modern/contemporary music in general. There is an active, popular following of contemporary music on this forum and several threads to prove it. I've listened to a number of examples from those threads. They are not typically in the Ferneyhough/Hersch category.

As for the other forum, it has an extremely limited following. I would guess that there are far more active posters on modern music here than there. But I repeat, I'm talking about a narrow fringe. If you're claiming that the stuff in the category of Ferneyhough/Hersch et al is 'often the most highly regarded' on general music boards then it's going to take more than an anecdote to prove it.



> A few times on these latter forums I've seen these classical fans asked why they don't come to classical forums, and the answer is pretty much always that they are sick of the museum mindset wherein nothing of interest has been written in the last 100 years. The more time I spend on TC, the more I agree with them.


Oh cry me a river. This must be a sorry lot you're connecting with. If you haven't seen the strong support on TC for contemporary/modern then you haven't been paying attention. On the other hand, if you're lamenting the lack of support for stuff in the category of Ferneyhough/Hersch then, according to you, the place to go is those general music boards.


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## Guest

Is this Michael Hersch that we are talking about? He's one of my favourite American composers, but I doubt he comes anywhere close to Ferneyhough in his compositional process and style.


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## Bluecrab

Lisztian said:


> A few times on these latter forums I've seen these classical fans asked why they don't come to classical forums, and the answer is pretty much always that they are sick of the museum mindset wherein nothing of interest has been written in the last 100 years.


The last 100 years? Oh, it's far worse than that. There are plenty here who appear to believe that no good music has been composed since 1791.


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## Lisztian

shirime said:


> Is this Michael Hersch that we are talking about? He's one of my favourite American composers, but I doubt he comes anywhere close to Ferneyhough in his compositional process and style.


Exactly. I think the reason Dave is lumping them together is simply because it's the most recent fairly outre contemporary work he's heard. Honestly though, in my experience from looking around the internet/attending a few festivals (not many yet, but more and more as I've find enjoyment in them) this Hersch work is exactly the kind of piece that attracts a decent audience. Personally, I've only been listening to contemporary classical for about a year and a work like the violin concerto just sounds _good_: it's exciting stuff. Ferneyhough is more difficult I think, perhaps a real 'niche within a niche', but that doesn't mean he doesn't have anything to offer or even that he's not a master.


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## EddieRUKiddingVarese

Bluecrab said:


> The last 100 years? Oh, it's far worse than that. There are plenty here who appear to believe that no good music has been composed since 1791.


I would transpose that 1971


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## Guest

Lisztian said:


> Exactly. I think the reason Dave is lumping them together is simply because it's the most recent fairly outre contemporary work he's heard. Honestly though, in my experience from looking around the internet/attending a few festivals (not many yet, but more and more as I've find enjoyment in them) this Hersch work is exactly the kind of piece that attracts a decent audience. Personally, I've only been listening to contemporary classical for about a year and a work like the violin concerto just sounds _good_: it's exciting stuff. Ferneyhough is more difficult I think, perhaps a real 'niche within a niche', but that doesn't mean he doesn't have anything to offer or even that he's not a master.


Have you been to the Bendigo International Festival of Exploratory Music? There are some cool things happening there in September, if you're still living in this part of Australia. The Metropolis Festival is obviously good fun, and I guess it is less 'niche within a niche' than BIFEM and Tilde New Music (also good).

People's taste in music change, so I am going to be a bit hesitant when it comes to simply not liking what I hear............ (and I would guess it might be the same for anyone else!).

And, like you said, you've only been listening to contemporary classical for about a year (although  I would like to point out you attended a performance of one of my own compositions back in 2015), so I can only say that DaveM has the potential to enjoy it just as much as you do, or I do, by spending a bit more time with it.


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## Strange Magic

It's been demonstrated countless times that knocking the other person's music accomplishes no useful purpose. It only generates animosity; feelings of utterly misplaced grandiosity on the part of the "critics" as they themselves--knowingly or unknowingly--are steeped in reciprocal resentment and anger. If you don't like someone else's music, it's your problem. The best reply to "bad" music is an enigmatic silence. What's the old adage?: Better to remain silent and be thought a fool, than to speak (post) and remove all doubt.


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## Lisztian

shirime said:


> Have you been to the Bendigo International Festival of Exploratory Music? There are some cool things happening there in September, if you're still living in this part of Australia. The Metropolis Festival is obviously good fun, and I guess it is less 'niche within a niche' than BIFEM and Tilde New Music (also good).
> 
> People's taste in music change, so I am going to be a bit hesitant when it comes to simply not liking what I hear............ (and I would guess it might be the same for anyone else!).
> 
> And, like you said, you've only been listening to contemporary classical for about a year (although  I would like to point out you attended a performance of one of my own compositions back in 2015), so I can only say that DaveM has the potential to enjoy it just as much as you do, or I do, by spending a bit more time with it.


I haven't been to the Bendigo, but I'll definitely look into it! I'm living in Geelong at the moment so Bendigo is quite ideal.

Haha! Yes I do remember that, at the Recital Centre (probably my favourite place for a concert: amazing acoustics), and remember enjoying it a great deal. To be precise, of course I'd heard _some _ contemporary music before the last year, but only in the last year have I started fairly actively exploring it as I've started to find a lot of it every bit as exciting as what came before. I guess the difference is back then I'd have gone for the...I believe it was Tchaikovsky and Haydn, while being pleasantly surprised by the work by the guy I hadn't heard of  While these days seeing that a contemporary work will be played is a real boost for the program when I'm choosing what to go to...


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## DaveM

Strange Magic said:


> It's been demonstrated countless times that knocking the other person's music accomplishes no useful purpose. It only generates animosity; feelings of utterly misplaced grandiosity on the part of the "critics" as they themselves--knowingly or unknowingly--are steeped in reciprocal resentment and anger. If you don't like someone else's music, it's your problem. The best reply to "bad" music is an enigmatic silence. What's the old adage?: Better to remain silent and be thought a fool, than to speak (post) and remove all doubt.


So discussions about what is and what isn't classical music in appropriate threads is 'knocking the other persons music'? Not to mention that people raising their likes and dislikes about various composers or sub-genres of classical music constitute the subject of countless interesting threads on TC. In a healthy, vibrant forum people should be able to present what they like and dislike without people taking everything personally as knocking their music.

Btw, I don't think saying anything negative about a type of music in a thread opened specifically for people who like it is appropriate, but having opinions pro or con in threads where the OP or the discussion raises questions is not only appropriate, but what forums are for.

As for that last sentence, there's another saying, 'When you point the finger at someone, there are 4 of them pointing back at you.'


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## Strange Magic

> DaveM: "As for that last sentence, there's another saying, 'When you point the finger at someone, there are 4 of them pointing back at you.'"


I also like "When the shoe fits, wear it.". Lisztian's extract from your previous post, and his subsequent remarks captured accurately the heart of my argument. Is everybody feeling better and wiser now? I think not.


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## DaveM

Strange Magic said:


> I also like "When the shoe fits, wear it.". Lisztian's extract from your previous post, and his subsequent remarks captured accurately the heart of my argument. Is everybody feeling better and wiser now? I think not.


The OP is 'Classical music came to an end 60 years ago'. That raises the question whether some 'new music' is truly classical music. Inevitably, there's going to be disagreement, but here's no reason for it to be contentious. There are some who will avoid the subject. There are some who have opinions on the subject. And then, apparently there are few whose only contribution is to school others on their opinions and how they express them.


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## millionrainbows

Many listeners are not really listening to music for what it is, but are 'listening to an ideology' that was ingrained into their musical paradigm by 'the ideology of tonality' and its practices, habits, values, and devices.


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## San Antone

DaveM said:


> The OP is 'Classical music came to an end 60 years ago'. That raises the question whether some 'new music' is truly classical music. Inevitably, there's going to be disagreement, but here's no reason for it to be contentious. There are some who will avoid the subject. There are some who have opinions on the subject. And then, apparently there are few whose only contribution is to school others on their opinions and how they express them.


What I think is "classical music" is a label that has described a kind of music that is distinct from pop, jazz and other genres. But labels are always reductive, used for convenience, and are not definitive, imo.

There certainly are composers writing music in the last sixty years that have written/are writing music that I consider classical. But if others don't consider it classical music, it still aspires to a high degree of artistic discipline and achievement and is a far cry from pop music.

Those people whose taste demands that they exclude new music from the universe of classical music, well, that's their little red wagon.


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## DaveM

San Antone said:


> What I think is "classical music" is a label that has described a kind of music that is distinct from pop, jazz and other genres. But labels are always reductive, used for convenience, and are not definitive, imo.
> 
> There certainly are composers writing music in the last sixty years that have written/are writing music that I consider classical. But if others don't consider it classical music, it still aspires to a high degree of artistic discipline and achievement and is a far cry from pop music.
> 
> Those people whose taste demands that they exclude new music from the universe of classical music, well, that's their little red wagon.


This is my little red wagon:


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## Phil loves classical

millionrainbows said:


> Many listeners are not really listening to music for what it is, but are 'listening to an ideology' that was ingrained into their musical paradigm by 'the ideology of tonality' and its practices, habits, values, and devices.


I tend to agree with this statement. I have to admit I'm one of those. I've built an "understanding" of music over time, but music by Ferneyhough sounds sounds totally alien or like a mish mash small uninterrelated musical ideas, while very intrincately performed, has little registers with me overall. RIhm, Ades, Chin, Lindberg, and even Lachenmann I feel I can get more or less, based on certain conventions.


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## Larkenfield

“The reports of classical music’s death have been greatly exaggerated.” —Mark Twain


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## Logos

millionrainbows said:


> Many listeners are not really listening to music for what it is, but are 'listening to an ideology' that was ingrained into their musical paradigm by 'the ideology of tonality' and its practices, habits, values, and devices.


I think this fails to consider that tonality (or rather those features of tonality which appeal so strongly to the listener) may ultimately have a basis in nature. Rather than tonality being a completely artificial construct, its power may be due, in part, to human evolutionary biology; whereas avante-garde music composed under the 'unnatural' influence of ersatz intellectual constructions disconnected from human instincts fails for that reason to emotionally affect as many people.


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## Nereffid

DaveM said:


> The OP is 'Classical music came to an end 60 years ago'. That raises the question whether some 'new music' is truly classical music. Inevitably, there's going to be disagreement, but here's no reason for it to be contentious. There are some who will avoid the subject. There are some who have opinions on the subject. And then, apparently there are few whose only contribution is to school others on their opinions and how they express them.


In fact you're misquoting the OP, which is '"Classical music" came to an end 60 years ago'. The scare-quotes are a fundamental part of the argument and represent the general public's conception of classical music, not serious classical listeners' conception of it.


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## Bluecrab

EddieRUKiddingVarese said:


> I would transpose that 1971


Eddie, I'm afraid that you might have missed my point.


----------



## Guest

Logos said:


> I think this fails to consider that tonality may ultimately have a basis in nature. Rather than tonality being a completely artificial construct, its appeal may be due to human evolutionary biology; whereas avante-garde music composed under the 'unnatural' influence of ersatz intellectual constructions disconnected from human instincts, fails for that reason to emotionally affect as many people.


There is certainly a basis in nature for certain intervals being consonant and other intervals being dissonant. Any tone sounded by a tuned instrument comes with a series of overtones and for the consonant intervals the fundamental frequency of one note lines up with an overtone of the other note. The brain perceives these notes as related.

But even atonal music makes use of the contrast between consonant and dissonant intervals and has its basis in nature. Tonality is one among many ways to take advantage of the harmonic relationships that we get from nature.


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## DaveM

Nereffid said:


> In fact you're misquoting the OP, which is '"Classical music" came to an end 60 years ago'. The scare-quotes are a fundamental part of the argument and represent the general public's conception of classical music, not serious classical listeners' conception of it.


Okay, you posted the OP, fair enough. But FYI, this means that this thread went off topic long ago.


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## Woodduck

Baron Scarpia said:


> There is certainly a basis in nature for certain intervals being consonant and other intervals being dissonant. Any tone sounded by a tuned instrument comes with a series of overtones and the for the consonant intervals the fundamental frequency of one note lines up with an overtone of the other note. The brain perceives these notes as related.
> 
> But even atonal music makes use of the contrast between consonant and dissonant intervals and has its basis in nature. *Tonality is one among many ways to take advantage of the harmonic relationships that we get from nature.*


Tonality, broadly defined, is something more than one way among many of "taking advantage" of nature. It is the _only_ way of doing what it does - namely, subordinating melodic and harmonic relationships to a hierarchy rooted in the idea and sensation of centricity. That idea/sensation, applied both spatially (in chords) and temporally (in melodic and harmonic progression) is the most powerful organizing principle in music and the greatest structural factor accounting for music's expressive power, which explains its dominance in most of the music of the world, as well as the small audience for music in which tonal relationships are absent.


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## Logos

Baron Scarpia said:


> There is certainly a basis in nature for certain intervals being consonant and other intervals being dissonant. Any tone sounded by a tuned instrument comes with a series of overtones and the for the consonant intervals the fundamental frequency of one note lines up with an overtone of the other note. The brain perceives these notes as related.


Right, but what I had in mind was the emotional power or meaning that the listener tends to perceive in tonal music. Example: Because dissonance is for evolutionary reasons associated with disturbed environmental states (the simultaneous wailing of different voices, the shouts of different attackers in the night, auditory scenes of chaos, turmoil, grief or ambiguity) we tend to perceive such intervals as less than cheerful. It's been observed that people speaking in agitated states such as sadness tend to drop a minor third from first syllable to second. James Young's book _Critique of Pure Music_ from Oxford University Press, is filled with such examples.

In other words the power of emotionally resonant music comes from its relation to expressions of sound in nature and human behavior, and its skillful manipulation of those correspondences using mathematical proportion; rather than from a direct relation to abstract mathematical proportions themselves which have no human meaning.


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## Guest

Woodduck said:


> Tonality, broadly defined, is something more than one way among many of "taking advantage" of nature. It is the _only_ way of doing what it does - namely, subordinating melodic and harmonic relationships to a hierarchy rooted in the idea and sensation of centricity. That idea/sensation, applied both spatially (in chords) and temporally (in melodic and harmonic progression) is the most powerful organizing principle in music and the greatest structural factor accounting for music's expressive power, which explains its dominance in most of the music of the world, as well as the small audience for music in which tonal relationships are absent.


Tonality may be the only way of _doing what it does_ and you may like it best, but that does not mean that other forms of music that _do what they do_ don't take advantage of "nature," it ways that people find compelling.

So, serial music has a relatively small audience. Well, Bach has a small audience compared with Justin Bieber. The fact that you have to appeal to popularity is a manifestation the weakness of your argument.


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## San Antone

I thought it might be instructive to revisit the OP:



Nereffid said:


> Yeah, a click-bait sort of thread title, but please note the use of quotation marks. Although I mischievously said on another thread recently that classical music has been dead for 60 years, that's not something I believe (or want!) to be true.
> 
> I've been following the Classic FM Hall of Fame, which if you don't know it is the annual poll of the UK radio station's listeners' favourite classical works. It's been going for over 20 years now, and I've been somewhat obsessively collating all the results.
> 
> Here, by my reckoning, are the 10 most popular works among Classic FM listeners composed in the 50 years from 1910 to 1959:
> Vaughan Williams: The Lark Ascending
> Elgar: Cello Concerto
> Vaughan Williams: Fantasia on a Theme by Thomas Tallis
> Barber: Adagio for Strings
> Holst: The Planets
> Rodrigo: Concerto de Aranjuez
> Rachmaninov: Rhapsody on a theme by Paganini
> Shostakovich: Piano Concerto no. 2
> Gershwin: Rhapsody in Blue
> Prokofiev: Romeo and Juliet
> 
> This probably doesn't correspond to the top 10 of any "serious" classical listener such as us, uh, discerning sophisticates on TC - obviously it leans heavily towards the "popular classics". But it's about what you'd expect from the general public and unless you're a real snob it's a fairly decent list; most of the works have featured quite high on some TC poll or other over the years.
> 
> 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)
> 
> Wait, _what?_ With the exception of the Górecki and Pärt, many of us here wouldn't necessarily consider this to even be classical music. I could list many other works, but the general gist is that it's film music, short pieces for choir (composers such as Whitacre and Rutter), "light" or crossover works, and even video game music.
> 
> So this is what I mean when I say "classical music" appears to have come to an end 60 years ago. *The 1950s represents the last decade in which there's any significant overlap between what's popular with the general public and what's popular with serious classical listeners.* Or, more significantly, between _what's called classical music_ by the public and the specialist.
> 
> So, why did this divergence occur? Though I don't want this thread to just become another place for people to moan about modern music, the nature of modern music is undoubtedly an important aspect. But what about how the audience changed? And what other factors were involved?


Music that is popular with the mass audience is an indication that it appeals to the lowest common denominator. I don't think it tells us anything about "classical music" in the last sixty years.


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## Star

San Antone said:


> I thought it might be instructive to revisit the OP:
> 
> Music that is popular with the mass audience is an indication that it appeals to the lowest common denominator. I don't think it tells us anything about "classical music" in the last sixty years.


Sh I see. Music that is popular and gives a lot of people pleasure has to be rubbish? I thought this was the aim of music.


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## JeffD

KenOC said:


> Please do. And include my compliments and hopes they can continue to improve the tastes of the common herd.


We are the common herd. We just happen to like classical music.

Others like jazz or popular music. Or don't like music at all but prefer to play chess, or run businesses or figure out difficult problems in engineering, or construction, or public policy.

One indication we are the common herd is that each of us sees our own predilections and idiosyncrasies as evidence we are not common, but everyone else, with different taste is. Everyone does that. Its so common.


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## Guest

Star said:


> Sh I see. Music that is popular and gives a lot of people pleasure has to be rubbish? I thought this was the aim of music.


As I understand the claim, it is not that lowest common denominator music is rubbish. Common denominator music has something to appeal to the broadest group of people and lacks elements that will offend the taste of the broadest group of people. Very popular music is generally innocuous. If music is less popular it may simply be of low quality, or it may be music that makes a strong statement, requiring greater familiarity with the genre to be appreciated.


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## DaveM

Baron Scarpia said:


> Tonality may be the only way of _doing what it does_ and you may like it best, but that does not mean that other forms of music that _do what they do_ don't take advantage of "nature," it ways that people find compelling.
> 
> So, serial music has a relatively small audience. Well, Bach has a small audience compared with Justin Bieber. The fact that you have to appeal to popularity is a manifestation the weakness of your argument.


Claiming that this is about popularity suggests that someone is mistaken about what the argument is. One could say that after 300 hundred years, especially when it comes to the Ferneyhough stuff (my current rant ), someone is trying to change the rules of the game.


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## Thomyum2

DaveM said:


> Claiming that this is about popularity suggests that someone is mistaken about what the argument is. One could say that after 300 hundred years, especially when it comes to the Ferneyhough stuff (my current rant ), someone is trying to change the rules of the game.


I don't know...I think the 'rules' change, to a greater or lesser degree, all the time - every time a new piece of music is created in fact. Some composers (or performers) stretch the rules more than others, but music is always evolving. Composers play with the expectations of the listeners, pleasantly or unpleasantly surprising us with new things. And some listeners prefer a more subtler bending of the rules (or none at all) whereas others are pleased to see the rules shattered altogether.


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## arpeggio

Star said:


> Sh I see. Music that is popular and gives a lot of people pleasure has to be rubbish? I thought this was the aim of music.


It is not that the music is rubbish it just that our ears are better than theirs


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## Woodduck

Baron Scarpia said:


> Tonality may be the only way of _doing what it does_ and you may like it best, but that does not mean that other forms of music that _do what they do_ don't take advantage of "nature," it ways that people find compelling.
> 
> So, serial music has a relatively small audience. Well, Bach has a small audience compared with Justin Bieber. The fact that you have to appeal to popularity is a manifestation the weakness of your argument.


What argument? I didn't make an argument. I merely described what tonality does, and pointed out that what it does appears peculiarly compelling to humans (for reasons I didn't delve into, but might have). That isn't an appeal to popularity; it's just a drily objective reference to near-universality. 

Interesting how devotees of non-tonal music are quick to defend themselves even when they haven't been attacked. I have nothing against non-tonal music. It just doesn't do what tonal music does. What it does do can be very interesting in its own way.


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## Chronochromie

Woodduck said:


> What argument? I didn't make an argument. I merely described what tonality does, and pointed out that what it does appears peculiarly compelling to humans (for reasons I didn't delve into, but might have). That isn't an appeal to popularity; it's just a drily objective reference to near-universality.
> 
> Interesting how devotees of non-tonal music are quick to defend themselves even when they haven't been attacked. I have nothing against non-tonal music. It just doesn't do what tonal music does. What it does do can be very interesting in its own way.


Cleverly evading criticism there by saying "near-universality" or we'd have to go into the traditional music of many cultures.


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## Woodduck

Chronochromie said:


> Cleverly evading criticism there by saying "near-universality" or we'd have to go into the traditional music of many cultures.


I may be clever, but I have no need to evade criticism. Criticize to your heart's content.

Tonality has been a worldwide phenomenon from the earliest music of which we have remaining traces. Why?


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## Larkenfield

What’s the value in mentioning the popularity of certain rock stars when one might not have any interest in pop but rather classical music? Comparisons, IMO, are better off being made within the same field of interest. Even Mozart and Beethoven are nothing in popularity compared to Justin Bieber, and yet they are still Titans within their field of relative public obscurity... Unless people post specific examples of what they dislike or like in the music of the past 120 years, the discussions become abstract and there’s no tangible basis for comparison. The music wasn’t all the same on either side!


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## Guest

I saw so many bizarro comments about how Tonality is somewhat Natural or [near-]Universal that I had to go start a thread on it 

Tonality is Unnatural


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## Logos

Classical music may not be as popular as other types of music, but that isn't because people _actively_ dislike it. They may believe that classical music is admirable, skillful, beautiful, but also be intimidated by it or feel culturally alienated by its association with European aristocracy. In other words, they like classical music but feel it isn't _for them_.

Atonal music on the other hand is actively disliked.


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## Bulldog

Logos said:


> Classical music may not be as popular as other types of music, but that isn't because people _actively_ dislike it. They may believe that classical music is admirable, skillful, beautiful, but also be intimidated by it or feel culturally alienated by its association with European aristocracy. In other words, they like classical music but feel it isn't _for them_.


I'm skeptical. Do you have any evidence to support your premise?


----------



## San Antone

Woodduck said:


> I may be clever, but I have no need to evade criticism. Criticize to your heart's content.
> 
> Tonality has been a worldwide phenomenon from the earliest music of which we have remaining traces. Why?


Tonality was not a found in the earliest music; it did not develop until the late 16th century, with the music of Palestrina and his contemporaries infomally writing what we can recognize as tonality. It did not become completely solidified until the music of Bach.

Prior to Palestrina there was modal music, and prior to that was the parallelism of organum which is made up of the intervals octaves and fifths - neither of which is tonality. Drones were quite prevalent in early music. Plainchant is monophonic and modal, also not an example of tonality.

The hallmark of tonality is the aspect of functional harmonic movement. It requires more than just the presence of consonant harmonies (which, the definition of what is consonant and what is dissonant has changed. At one time fourths were considered consonant and thirds dissonant).

Tonality is no more "natural" than modal music, or parallel intervals, both of which preceded it - and some of that music can sound quite dissonant to our modern ears (listen to some Solage).

Tonality came and went and is found today mostly in popular music.


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## Logos

Bulldog said:


> I'm skeptical. Do you have any evidence to support your premise?


Do you think that _anyone_ really thinks that the music of Mozart or Beethoven is _positively_ bad? In my experience, even people who don't listen to classical music are far from believing that classical music is bad music. They're passively uninterested in it, not actively disgusted with it. Cultural trends have simply drawn them to popular forms with which they have grown accustomed. In the case of avant-garde music however, there's active disgust.


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## Guest

Logos said:


> Do you think that _anyone_ really thinks that the music of Mozart or Beethoven is _positively_ bad? In my experience, even people who don't listen to classical music are far from believing that classical music is bad music. They're passively uninterested in it, not actively disgusted with it. Cultural trends have simply drawn them to popular forms with which they have grown accustomed. In the case of avant-garde music however, there's active disgust.


I have met people who have honestly said that they hate Mozart. I don't why it is important to you say 'there's active disgust' about certain styles of music.


----------



## Fredx2098

shirime said:


> I have met people who have honestly said that they hate Mozart. I don't why it is important to you say 'there's active disgust' about certain styles of music.


This may be a tangent, but I am a pretty big fan of Mozart but not a fan of Beethoven at all, except the Missa Solemnis and maybe some early pieces where he was copying Mozart.


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## Logos

shirime said:


> I have met people who have honestly said that they hate Mozart.


But is it plausible that such people, taken in sum, would even begin to approach the number of those who actively recoil from avant-garde music?


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## San Antone

> In the case of avant-garde music however, there's active disgust.


You can find people to express disgust about many things, which proves nothing about the object of their disgust but exposes their own prejudice.


----------



## Logos

Fredx2098 said:


> This may be a tangent, but I am a pretty big fan of Mozart but not a fan of Beethoven at all, except the Missa Solemnis and maybe some early pieces where he was copying Mozart.


All right, but do you believe that Beethoven's music is positively bad or merely unsuitable to you? I'm trying to distinguish here between different degrees of dislike.


----------



## Fredx2098

Logos said:


> But is it plausible that such people, taken in sum, would even begin to approach the number of those who actively recoil from avant-garde music?


That does not seem plausible at all. I feel like the vast majority of people who claim to dislike Mozart, Beethoven, and classical music in general say so because they think of it just as that stuffy old people music with no dank beats and lyrics you can't understand and that is too long than the average pop song to be appreciated by people with extremely short attention spans which I believe we are evolving towards.

I'm fairly young, 20 years, and I'm disgusted by my peers. They think of popular classical music as boring background music for doing homework and avant-garde classical as music created solely to annoy them in their music history class that they're forced to take as an elective and they expect it to be about pop music.


----------



## Logos

San Antone said:


> You can find people to express disgust about many things, which proves nothing about the object of their disgust but exposes their own prejudice.


Why is this prejudice so pervasive, if not indicative of the unnatural, wholly intellectual basis of so much avant-garde music? I'm exposing the prejudice for the purpose of examining its origin.


----------



## Fredx2098

Logos said:


> All right, but do you believe that Beethoven's music is positively bad or merely unsuitable to you? I'm trying to distinguish here between different degrees of dislike.


I have no problem with people enjoying his music, though it does annoy me a bit when people act like he's objectively the best composer of all time. I feel a similar way about Bach, but I enjoy his music much more than Beethoven's, but I believe that those two are not the best composers even of their times.

I find his music very bland, boring, and simplistic. I would not assert to a fan that his music is objectively bad, but I do dislike his music in general and have trouble understanding why he's so popular, aside from catering to the lowest common denominator with repetition and pretty sound (not to demean his music or any fan).

If someone would like to recommend pieces that I might like, be my guest. I absolutely hate the 5th and 9th symphonies, moonlight sonata, mostly any of his pieces that are well-known.

Again I want to emphasize that these are just my opinions and not meant to be insulting.


----------



## Fredx2098

Logos said:


> Why is this prejudice so pervasive, if not indicative of the unnatural, wholly intellectual basis of so much avant-garde music? I'm exposing the prejudice for the purpose of examining its origin.


I believe this is a case of people being raised listening to tonal music. I myself love "unnatural" avant-garde music in a completely non-intellectual way, and I am not very fond of "normal" or "natural" music comparatively, though I do love many tonal and relatively tonal composers.


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## Guest

Fredx2098 said:


> This may be a tangent, but I am a pretty big fan of Mozart but not a fan of Beethoven at all, except the Missa Solemnis and maybe some early pieces where he was copying Mozart.


For a while I really hated Mozart.........*really* hated.

But taste changes, and what I liked and disliked when I was 15 is not necessarily the same as what I like/dislike now.


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## Logos

Fred, which composers do you listen to most often?


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## San Antone

Logos said:


> Why is this prejudice so pervasive, if not indicative of the unnatural, wholly intellectual basis of so much avant-garde music? I'm exposing the prejudice for the purpose of examining its origin.


I am not convinced it is pervasive. First, all of classical music is listened to by a fraction of people who listen to music. Second, the taste of those who listen to classical music is not as monolithic as you presume. And third, whether or not a significant number of classical music listeners prefer Mozart to Schoenberg is irrelevant. People gravitate to the music they like and it is not a general statement about the music they don't like.


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## Fredx2098

Logos said:


> Fred, which composers do you listen to most often?


Well, my avatar is a picture of Morton Feldman who is by far my favorite composer. After that I don't have a solid hierarchy, but I love Brahms, Ives, Messiaen, Chopin, Liszt, Marin, Berg, Schoenberg, Webern, Tchaikovsky, Jeremy Soule (a composer of video game music), Monteverdi, Mahler, Ligeti, Wagner, Stravinsky, Haydn, Penderecki, Nono. Most of the well-known composers I at least like aside from Beethoven.


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## Fredx2098

shirime said:


> For a while I really hated Mozart.........*really* hated.
> 
> But taste changes, and what I liked and disliked when I was 15 is not necessarily the same as what I like/dislike now.


Mozart is not my exact cup of tea because it sounds very happy and whimsical, but I believe he does that style very well and I at least appreciate his talent if he's not my favorite.


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## Guest

Fredx2098 said:


> Mozart is not my exact cup of tea because it sounds very happy and whimsical, but I believe he does that style very well and I at least appreciate his talent if he's not my favorite.


I don't think Mozart often sounds happy and whimsical, but that's just me. At the time, I enjoyed happy and whimsical music, music with a real humour and liveliness like many works by Ligeti...................


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## Larkenfield

The lack of interest on the part of one’s peers is normal from generation to generation: classical music sales go only to about 3% of the population. The music is mostly for the independent thinkers, the musicians and singers, and quite often the loners. I didn’t understand or appreciate Mozart until I was 50, and then I never looked back. Feldman is much easier to understand by comparison. He couldn’t have written anything like the complexity of the fourth movement of Mozart’s Jupiter Symphony if he’d been paid $1 million. So who represented the true avant-garde for his time, and who expanded the possibilities of the entire range of music the most? It wasn’t Feldman, and that commands a certain degree of respect for Mozart for the basic foundation of music that Feldman later became part of in his own inspired way as a modernist. Even the modernists have stood on the shoulders of the giants who came before them.


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## Fredx2098

shirime said:


> I don't think Mozart often sounds happy and whimsical, but that's just me. At the time, I enjoyed happy and whimsical music, music with a real humour and liveliness like many works by Ligeti...................


Not as happy and lively as Scelsi in my opinion.


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## Fredx2098

Larkenfield said:


> The lack of interest on the part of one's peers is normal from generation to generation: classical music sales go only to about 3% of the population. The music is mostly for the independent thinkers, the musicians and singers, and quite often the loners. I didn't understand or appreciate Mozart until I was 50, and then I never looked back. Feldman is much easier to understand by comparison. He couldn't have written anything like the complexity of the fourth movement of Mozart's Jupiter Symphony if he'd been paid $1 million. So who represented the true avant-garde for his time, and who expanded the possibilities of the entire range of music the most? It wasn't Feldman, and that commands a certain degree of respect for Mozart for the basic foundation of the music that Feldman later became part of in his own inspired way as a modernist. Even the modernists have stood on the shoulders of the giants who came before them.


Why do you care if I like Feldman more than Mozart? Would you care if someone liked Mozart more than Bach? or Bach more than Monteverdi? Where does it end? I don't think that Feldman would _want_ to compose something like Mozart. Do you really think that if you showed the average person Mozart and then showed them Feldman that they would think Feldman is easier to understand and more accessible? The virtuosity of a composer has nothing to do with how good their music is subjectively. And I said that I like Mozart. Why belittle my taste when I am respecting others' tastes?


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## San Antone

Logos said:


> But is it plausible that such people, taken in sum, would even begin to approach the number of those who actively recoil from avant-garde music?


They might not recoil, but would be bored. Many young people went from Rock to Stockhausen or Feldman. For them Mozart, e.g., sounds tame and uninteresting.


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## Fredx2098

San Antone said:


> They might not recoil, but would be bored. Many young people went from Rock to Stockhausen or Feldman. For them Mozart, e.g., sounds tame and uninteresting.


I am a young person who likes Stockhausen, Feldman, and Mozart. I am an enigma. I like nearly anything besides commercial music.


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## Eva Yojimbo

Fredx2098 said:


> If someone would like to recommend pieces that I might like, be my guest. I absolutely hate the 5th and 9th symphonies, moonlight sonata, mostly any of his pieces that are well-known.


Given your tastes you may like his Grosse Fugue movement for string quartet. The last 5 piano sonatas and Diabelli Variations have certain vaguely avant-garde qualities, certainly for their time.


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## San Antone

Fredx2098 said:


> I am a young person who likes Stockhausen, Feldman, and Mozart. I am an enigma. I like nearly anything besides commercial music.


You're not an enigma to me; there are others, including myself, that recoil from commercial music of all kinds, including works from the standard "canon" of classical music. Big orchestral music, for me, is especially bothersome.


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## Fredx2098

Eva Yojimbo said:


> Given your tastes you may like his Grosse Fugue movement for string quartet. The last 5 piano sonatas and Diabelli Variations have certain vaguely avant-garde qualities, certainly for their time.


Thank you, I will listen to that as soon as I can. I don't _need _avant-garde, I just don't like the completely strict and rigid common practice that Beethoven does.


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## Eva Yojimbo

Fredx2098 said:


> Thank you, I will listen to that as soon as I can. I don't _need _avant-garde, I just don't like the completely strict and rigid common practice that Beethoven does.


Beethoven could be strict and rigid, but he could also be loose and sprawling. The reason he was a towering figure is because he was a singular influence on both opposing strains of romanticism: the highly formal, tight, logical, motivic developments of Schubert, Brahms, and Mendelssohn; and the expressive, loose, experimental, often sprawling styles of Chopin, Liszt, and Wagner (Schumann was something of a mix). Both sides were looking at different aspects of Beethoven's compositions.


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## Nereffid

Baron Scarpia said:


> As I understand the claim, it is not that lowest common denominator music is rubbish. Common denominator music has something to appeal to the broadest group of people and lacks elements that will offend the taste of the broadest group of people. Very popular music is generally innocuous. If music is less popular it may simply be of low quality, or it may be music that makes a strong statement, requiring greater familiarity with the genre to be appreciated.


Any claims I made have absolutely nothing to do with whether any music is good or bad.

Seeing as you brought up the lowest common denominator, I suppose my argument is that the difference between the lowest common denominator (i.e., what the general public considers _good_ classical music) and what I guess we might call the median (i.e., what the classical fan considers _typical_ classical music) is much wider than it used to be.


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## Fredx2098

shirime said:


> For a while I really hated Mozart.........*really* hated.
> 
> But taste changes, and what I liked and disliked when I was 15 is not necessarily the same as what I like/dislike now.


I'm not a little kid by the way. I have developed tastes.


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## Thomyum2

Logos said:


> Classical music may not be as popular as other types of music, but that isn't because people _actively_ dislike it. They may believe that classical music is admirable, skillful, beautiful, but also be intimidated by it or feel culturally alienated by its association with European aristocracy. In other words, they like classical music but feel it isn't _for them_.


As someone who lived in a US college dorm for four years during which I tried to listen to classical music in peace, I can assure you that there are definitely people who _actively_ dislike it!


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## eugeneonagain

Nereffid said:


> Any claims I made have absolutely nothing to do with whether any music is good or bad.
> 
> Seeing as you brought up the lowest common denominator, I suppose my argument is that the difference between the lowest common denominator (i.e., *what the general public considers good classical music) and what I guess we might call the median (i.e., what the classical fan considers typical classical music) is much wider than it used to be*.


I suppose this means that 50/60/70 years ago the general public liked what the 'typical' classical fan liked? I don't know how this can be properly discerned or measured. The 'typical' classical fan probably _was_ the general public, or part of it, and if not then he represented roughly the same, niche listening demographic as the 'typical' classical listener now.

I don't see why the general public has to be actively interested in classical music, so it's only worth considering the classical listener from then as compared to now. What was he listening to in the '40s the '50s and the '60s? Music from the 1790s up to 1900? So between 160 and 60 years old. I wonder if anyone was declaring its death as a music? Apart from the enemies of then-modern music.

The average listener of today probably has a more expanded palate than the listener of then. There are certainly more listening to the music of composers like Bartok and Mahler and even newer composers who were scorned 60 years ago. You may object that these are 'old music', but the game has changed. The accommodation to changes is slow. There is much more music competing for listening space - especially among the general public's listening.

Classical music didn't die 60 years ago, it merely changed and expanded. That's all. If anyone thinks it really died they should inform all the many current composers and tell them to pack it up and go home.


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## Guest

Fredx2098 said:


> I'm not a little kid by the way. I have developed tastes.


I never said you weren't.


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## science

Honestly, I think I might enjoy Feldman's music, in general, more than Mozart's. I love a lot of Mozart's music, and it's much more emotionally moving, but Feldman's "sound world" is just a lot of fun to experience.


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## Fredx2098

science said:


> Honestly, I think I might enjoy Feldman's music, in general, more than Mozart's. I love a lot of Mozart's music, and it's much more emotionally moving, but Feldman's "sound world" is just a lot of fun to experience.


In my mind, Feldman is more emotionally moving than any composer. I feel like people aren't taking me seriously. I'm quite serious.


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## Fredx2098

shirime said:


> I never said you weren't.


Well, you compared me to a 15-year old, but it was probably a joke. No hard feelings!


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## millionrainbows

Woodduck said:


> Tonality, broadly defined, is something more than one way among many of "taking advantage" of nature. It is the _only_ way of doing what it does - namely, subordinating melodic and harmonic relationships to a hierarchy rooted in the idea and sensation of centricity.
> 
> That idea/sensation, applied both spatially (in chords) and temporally (in melodic and harmonic progression) is the most powerful organizing principle in music and the greatest structural factor accounting for music's expressive power, which explains its dominance in most of the music of the world, as well as the small audience for music in which tonal relationships are absent.


I define "tonality" even more broadly.

As I explained elsewhere, the triad is a microcosm of tonality, with its root, fifth, and third, and it doesn't need any "spatial" dimension to accomplish this; it is a vertical singularity.

As such, we see that "tonality" in its broadest, most primordial, basic form, is vertical singularity which does not depend on progression in time. It is purely harmonic in nature.

When broken down into "moment" time like this, even serial music has a dimension of "harmonic tonality" in each of its sound events. There is no progression as such, but a series of harmonic events, which are ever-changing. This music reflects the "being-in-time" of consciousness which is unencumbered by expectation or memory; it simply "is."

Thus, Western tonal practices, which "spread this vertical phenomena out" over longer spans of time, into "logical progressions" which become formulae for Western tonality, and much pop and even folk music, is a construct, and artifice, which is really not natural in itself. In fact, these practices and formulae become, in essence, an "ideology" of sorts.


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## millionrainbows

Logos said:


> I think this fails to consider that tonality (or rather those features of tonality which appeal so strongly to the listener) may ultimately have a basis in nature. Rather than tonality being a completely artificial construct, its power may be due, in part, to human evolutionary biology; whereas avante-garde music composed under the 'unnatural' influence of ersatz intellectual constructions disconnected from human instincts fails for that reason to emotionally affect as many people.


See my post #316 above. Even serial music has a harmonic dimension which is based on natural harmonic principles; these just occur more frequently, and in isolation, in serial music.

I think the reason avante-garde music fails for most listeners is that they are disconnected from the immediacy of their being-in-time. They are unable to "be here now" and hear the pitches without the "unnatural" intellectual constructions of Western tonality, namely, the "spreading out over time" of these harmonic principles.

So, the main problem most listeners have is one of *time,* and how time and events are experienced. This is because most humans are separated from their beings. They grasp onto "time" as experienced by their egos, which is ultimately an illusion. Einstein would agree that time is an illusion, as well.

Webern used intervals in this way. You can see certain areas where fifths or fourths are prominent, then seconds, etc. based solely on their self-contained dissonance or consonance in that moment.


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## millionrainbows

Logos said:


> Right, but what I had in mind was the emotional power or meaning that the listener tends to perceive in tonal music. Example: Because dissonance is for evolutionary reasons associated with disturbed environmental states (the simultaneous wailing of different voices, the shouts of different attackers in the night, auditory scenes of chaos, turmoil, grief or ambiguity) we tend to perceive such intervals as less than cheerful. It's been observed that people speaking in agitated states such as sadness tend to drop a minor third from first syllable to second. James Young's book _Critique of Pure Music_ from Oxford University Press, is filled with such examples.
> 
> In other words the power of emotionally resonant music comes from its relation to expressions of sound in nature and human behavior, and its skillful manipulation of those correspondences using mathematical proportion; rather than from a direct relation to abstract mathematical proportions themselves which have no human meaning.


Very interesting, and I agree to an extent. Still, I think there are purely physical reasons why dissonance is disturbing, and this is waves on the eardrum. If the eardrum's waves do not coincide, this is less smooth, and could even be painful. A smooth wave can be sustained and tolerated more easily, on a physical level.


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## millionrainbows

It's funny how a thread which deals with "classical" music turns into a conservative vs. modern discussion. To me, this shows that this is not about music itself so much as it is about "ideologies" of music, and how these ideologies define our paradigms of music, and what music "can be" or "should be" or "could be."


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## Logos

> I think the reason avante-garde music fails for most listeners is that they are disconnected from the immediacy of their being-in-time. They are unable to "be here now" and hear the pitches without the "unnatural" intellectual constructions of Western tonality, namely, the "spreading out over time" of these harmonic principles.


I read this as an ideology that would exalt "eternal" Eastern values of intuitive immediacy bearing a resemblance to Zen Buddhism over those of striving, "unnatural", temporal Western values. You seem to have as much ideology behind your views as any of us.


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## Logos

San Antone said:


> Big orchestral music, for me, is especially bothersome.


Why is that?

_I need more characters to post this.
_


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## Thomyum2

millionrainbows said:


> Very interesting, and I agree to an extent. Still, I think there are purely physical reasons why dissonance is disturbing, and this is waves on the eardrum. If the eardrum's waves do not coincide, this is less smooth, and could even be painful. A smooth wave can be sustained and tolerated more easily, on a physical level.


I think there's some truth to this, but I think the big picture is more complicated. To me, music is a lot like language and operates on multiple levels of the human mind at the same time (in fact, my composition teachers in school often talked about tonality and atonality as 'musical languages'). When we hear language, we hear both the meaning and the sounds of the words, as well as a subconscious sort of subtext too in the tone of voice and expression. So if you listen to poetry, for example, you understand what's being said at the same time as you can listen to the rhythm and rhymes and the play of the sounds of the words. I think music is the same way and I think that's a lot of where the discussions I see on this forum come from - the fact that we all listen to and hear different things. Some people just listen for 'enjoyment' or because they like the sounds - in which case the above would be true, dissonances sound harsh or painful. But other people listen for the meaning, to understand what the composer is 'saying', and the dissonance is incidental.


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## Nereffid

Thomyum2 said:


> Some people just listen for 'enjoyment' or because they like the sounds - in which case the above would be true, dissonances sound harsh or painful. But other people listen for the meaning, to understand what the composer is 'saying', and the dissonance is incidental.


But "dissonance" is a personal measure too. Surely one can listen for enjoyment, and enjoy dissonance. Or listen to what the composer is 'saying', and regard dissonance as the composer shouting obnoxiously.


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## science

Fredx2098 said:


> In my mind, Feldman is more emotionally moving than any composer. I feel like people aren't taking me seriously. I'm quite serious.


I'm not surprised at all! I didn't mean to sound flippant.


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## Woodduck

millionrainbows said:


> When broken down into "moment" time like this, even serial music has a dimension of "harmonic tonality" in each of its sound events. There is no progression as such, but a series of harmonic events, which are ever-changing. This music reflects the "being-in-time" of consciousness which is unencumbered by expectation or memory; it simply "is."
> 
> I think the reason avante-garde music fails for most listeners is that they are disconnected from the immediacy of their being-in-time. They are unable to "be here now" and hear the pitches without the "unnatural" intellectual constructions of Western tonality, namely, the "spreading out over time" of these harmonic principles.
> 
> So, the main problem most listeners have is one of time, and how time and events are experienced. This is because most humans are separated from their beings. They grasp onto "time" as experienced by their egos, which is ultimately an illusion. Einstein would agree that time is an illusion, as well.


The music listener's expectation of a comprehensible progression in time is not "ideological." The brain spontaneously looks for coherence - for patterns which "make sense" of sense data, whether those data impinge on the senses simultaneously or successively. This process is prior to and independent of any "ideology."

On the other hand, the notion that this natural process of cognition represents some sort of "disconnection" from "true" perception and from the "real" nature of consciousness is very definitely an ideology.

There is no evidence that atonal music as such is supposed to be apprehended "moment by moment," chord by chord (which is not to say that there may not be particular musical works made with that approach in mind).


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## Thomyum2

Nereffid said:


> But "dissonance" is a personal measure too. Surely one can listen for enjoyment, and enjoy dissonance. Or listen to what the composer is 'saying', and regard dissonance as the composer shouting obnoxiously.


Yes, absolutely I agree. Essentially what I'm saying is that dissonance in isolation and in the abstract is musically 'neutral'. It only takes on a positive or negative meaning based on the context in which it is used, and the expectations and musical predispositions that the listener brings with them to a piece.


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## DaveM

millionrainbows said:


> I think the reason avante-garde music fails for most listeners is that they are disconnected from the immediacy of their being-in-time. They are unable to "be here now" and hear the pitches without the "unnatural" intellectual constructions of Western tonality, namely, the "spreading out over time" of these harmonic principles.
> 
> So, the main problem most listeners have is one of *time,* and how time and events are experienced. This is because most humans are separated from their beings. They grasp onto "time" as experienced by their egos, which is ultimately an illusion. Einstein would agree that time is an illusion, as well.


These are a series of assumptions from which conclusions are being drawn that have never been proven. Plus, I think the equating of Einstein's space-time or (theory of time in general) with human perception of time in music is a major stretch.

Also, the premise that Western tonality depends on 'unnatural' intellectual constructions and thus, presumably avant-garde music is 'natural' or more natural seems like a contrivance to give credibility to the avant-garde (which, I might add desperately needs it)

Avant-garde music fails for most people, not because they are disconnected from the immediacy of being-in-time (which sounds like a state that may require a hallucinogenic) but because it is foreign to almost any other kind of music they've ever heard.


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## Phil loves classical

DaveM said:


> Claiming that this is about popularity suggests that someone is mistaken about what the argument is. One could say that after 300 hundred years, especially when it comes to the Ferneyhough stuff (my current rant ), someone is trying to change the rules of the game.


I just listened to Ferneyhough's 4th String Quartet. This one really just seemed to make sense to me, and "offensive" in the right ways to me , not really offensive to at all, very fascinating and virtuostic. Hey, even the 5th makes sense over time. I can say the 4th quartet is the starting point to Ferneyhough for me.


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## Guest

DaveM said:


> Also, the premise that Western tonality depends on 'unnatural' intellectual constructions and thus, presumably avant-garde music is 'natural' or more natural seems like a contrivance to give credibility to the avant-gard (which, I might add desperately needs it)
> 
> Avant-garde music fails for most people, not because they are disconnected from the immediacy of being-in-time (which sounds like a state that may require a hallucinogenic) but because it is foreign to almost any other kind of music they've ever heard.


These statements make perfect sense. 

Except I would like to point out that I don't think anyone has yet tried to say that *avant-garde* music is 'natural.'

The harmonic functions, major-minor key systems that pervade music from the mid 17th to late 19th centuries, yeah that's about as 'derived from nature' as music which does not fall within that system, hence, 'unnatural.' The act of listening is natural though; we were born with ears and a brain, and we can use them to be interested in what we hear no matter what it is. The 'credibility' we give to the *avant-garde* is dependent on whether we want to actually give it our personal tick of approval or not, whether we simply enjoy it or not, I guess.


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## Guest

Phil loves classical said:


> I just listened to Ferneyhough's 4th String Quartet. This one really just seemed to make sense to me, and "offensive" in the right ways to me , not really offensive to at all, very fascinating and virtuostic. Hey, even the 5th makes sense over time. I can say the 4th quartet is the starting point to Ferneyhough for me.


Yay! The 4th is a nice one; personally, I like the 6th the best. 

There's a plethora of other chamber and solo works out there, including this very entertaining and theatrical performance of _Unity Capsule_......................


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## Fredx2098

shirime said:


> Yay! The 4th is a nice one; personally, I like the 6th the best.
> 
> There's a plethora of other chamber and solo works out there, including this very entertaining and theatrical performance of _Unity Capsule_......................


That's very interesting. It sounds like Jethro Tull on meth...


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## Phil loves classical

DaveM said:


> These are a series of assumptions from which conclusions are being drawn that have never been proven. Plus, I think the equating of Einstein's space-time or (theory of time in general) with human perception of time in music is a major stretch.
> 
> Also, the premise that Western tonality depends on 'unnatural' intellectual constructions and thus, presumably avant-garde music is 'natural' or more natural seems like a contrivance to give credibility to the avant-gard (which, I might add desperately needs it)
> 
> Avant-garde music fails for most people, not because they are disconnected from the immediacy of being-in-time (which sounds like a state that may require a hallucinogenic) but because it is foreign to almost any other kind of music they've ever heard.


Over time even avant garde can become conventional and cliché. Some avant garde pop and jazz from 60's started to follow predictable patterns. And what was once cutting edge, becomes imitated over time, and people more or less get used to it, such as Rite of Spring. Penderecki had the fear avant garde would go too far in the 60's, and I believe it had. It used to be new techniques and patterns hitherto unused and against the norm, but decended into cheap expressionism, trying to avoid any logic or discernable patterns. There was a video of one critic saying they were throwing tennis balls onto piano strings.


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## Guest

Fredx2098 said:


> Well, you compared me to a 15-year old, but it was probably a joke. No hard feelings!


I did not compare you to a 15 year old. And it was not a joke. I said my taste in music changed over time and gave an example of that just to show that taste certainly can change.


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## DaveM

shirime said:


> Yay! The 4th is a nice one; personally, I like the 6th the best.
> 
> There's a plethora of other chamber and solo works out there, including this very entertaining and theatrical performance of _Unity Capsule_......................


That's no way to treat a perfectly good flute!


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## Fredx2098

shirime said:


> I did not compare you to a 15 year old. And it was not a joke. I said my taste in music changed over time and gave an example of that just to show that taste certainly can change.


You probably think I'm pretentious already, but I believe I've done enough listening to music to know what my tastes are. I know exactly why I like everything that I do.


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## Guest

Fredx2098 said:


> You probably think I'm pretentious already, but I believe I've done enough listening to music to know what my tastes are. I know exactly why I like everything that I do.


I have no idea why you are trying to pick apart my comments in the way that you are, but really I was just saying that it isn't out of the question for anyone's taste to change and expand, not talking about you, just speaking generally. I can only speak about my personal taste in music, so I used myself as an example. I wouldn't be at all surprised if you have been listening to music for longer than I have been alive (as have most people on this forum) so there is no question that you know what you like and why you like it.

As for me, I am still exploring music, I am sort of young (well....not really because I am an adult) and there is a lot of music I am yet to discover.

I have never called you pretentious. I don't know enough about you to come to any conclusion like that.


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## Fredx2098

shirime said:


> I have no idea why you are trying to pick apart my comments in the way that you are, but really I was just saying that it isn't out of the question for anyone's taste to change and expand, not talking about you, just speaking generally. I can only speak about my personal taste in music, so I used myself as an example. I wouldn't be at all surprised if you have been listening to music for longer than I have been alive (as have most people on this forum) so there is no question that you know what you like and why you like it.
> 
> As for me, I am still exploring music, I am sort of young (well....not really because I am an adult) and there is a lot of music I am yet to discover.
> 
> I have never called you pretentious. I don't know enough about you to come to any conclusion like that.


I'm not sure why my discussion is being interpreted as hostile, but that really wasn't my intent for coming here. I came here trying to have thought-provoking conversation and try to develop new ideas rather than talk about the same old ideas always. I'm only 20-years old, but music is my life.

I also meant to say that it isn't always a matter of how hard a composer works. Some people are lucky and gifted and others have to work harder. Life is usually hard though. I have chronic pain so I know how hard things can be, and I believe that how hard someone works shouldn't really be considered in how good of a person they are, in any circumstance. I also know that my situation is not the worst possible situation, and I don't believe that whoever has it the hardest should be a point of contention. Traditional composers seem to be praised because the further back you go, the less likely it is that a composer was inspired by one of the "giants", or it was harder for them to become skilled.


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## Guest

Fredx2098 said:


> I'm not sure why my discussion is being interpreted as hostile, but that really wasn't my intent for coming here. I came here trying to have thought-provoking conversation and try to develop new ideas rather than talk about the same old ideas always. I'm only 20-years old, but music is my life.
> 
> I also meant to say that it isn't always a matter of how hard a composer works. Some people are lucky and gifted and others have to work harder. Life is usually hard though. I have chronic pain so I know how hard things can be, and I believe that how hard someone works shouldn't really be considered in how good of a person they are, in any circumstance. I also know that my situation is not the worst possible situation, and I don't believe that whoever has it the hardest should be a point of contention. Traditional composers seem to be praised because the further back you go, the less likely it is that a composer was inspired by one of the "giants", or it was harder for them to become skilled.


Not at all hostile; I'm sorry if I've written in a way where you feel you have been taken as 'hostile.' That's certainly not my intention. I would like to learn more about your ideas, but be prepared to have some debates. 

I'm 20


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## Fredx2098

shirime said:


> Not at all hostile; I'm sorry if I've written in a way where you feel you have been taken as 'hostile.' That's certainly not my intention. I would like to learn more about your ideas, but be prepared to have some debates.
> 
> I'm 20


I definitely came for debate, but I like a dialectic kind of debate rather than an aggressive argumentative one.

It's cool that some relatively younger people are into classical music, especially modern stuff, even though it's not my main concern how popular people and things are.


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## Roger Knox

I still feel the break in sensibility that happened over 100 years ago, separating (for example) Strauss's _Der Rosenkavalier_ from Schoenberg's _Pierrot Lunaire_, lies behind the feeling that classical music is "over." I've decided listen with "different sets of ears" for late romantic and modernist music, liking both but in different ways.


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## Phil loves classical

Fredx2098 said:


> I am a young person who likes Stockhausen, Feldman, and Mozart. I am an enigma. I like nearly anything besides commercial music.


I don't think that is really that uncommon to like contrasting music. It's good for people to explore the spectrum. I like Modern and Renaissance the most which are some of the most disonant and consonant eras. Some like me here like some rap, etc. Music doesn't have to be complex to be good.


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## Fredx2098

Phil loves classical said:


> I don't think that is really that uncommon to like contrasting music. It's good for people to explore the spectrum. I like Modern and Renaissance the most which are some of the most disonant and consonant eras. Some like me here like some rap, etc. Music doesn't have to be complex to be good.


I'm aware. This is what I'm trying to explain. People are acting like I'm just some irrational person obsessed with Feldman which is not the case. Not all modern music is Ferneyhough or Boulez. I also like rap. It's easier for me to name genres I don't like, of which there are like 3. I'm saying that music can be tonally complex without being dynamically intense and complex. I also like extremely intense genres like grindcore, but also things like ambient music. I prefer classical music that is more like the latter, but it's not all I like.


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## millionrainbows

Logos said:


> I read this as an ideology that would exalt "eternal" Eastern values of intuitive immediacy bearing a resemblance to Zen Buddhism over those of striving, "unnatural", temporal Western values. You seem to have as much ideology behind your views as any of us.


I may have suggested that, but no, because Hildegard von Bingen is Western yet she was tuned-in to this sense of "being."

This is a question of 'being-in time,' not religion or East vs. West.

I also discussed this in the "Religious Music Forum" in the thread "2 types of religious music."


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## millionrainbows

I see Morton Feldman as an "existential" composer. This is like a Westernized version of John Cage, without the religion. I think he'd be good for atheists, too. His association with Mark Rothko is revealing.

But there was nothing "holy" or "sacred" about Feldman, _except_ his devotion to art. In a MODE DVD of his piano music, the pianist describes her first encounter with Feldman, showing up for his lecture with a hooker on each arm, drinking, smoking...


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## Logos

millionrainbows said:


> I may have suggested that, but no, because Hildegard von Bingen is Western yet she was tuned-in to this sense of "being."


And surely there are some artists of the Far East whose aesthetics have more in common with values more often found in the West. In any case, I don't see why prizing this "sense of being" over another aesthetic is any less ideological than what others have been saying.


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## Fredx2098

millionrainbows said:


> I see Morton Feldman as an "existential" composer. This is like a Westernized version of John Cage, without the religion. I think he'd be good for atheists, too. His association with Mark Rothko is revealing.
> 
> But there was nothing "holy" or "sacred" about Feldman, _except_ his devotion to art. In a MODE DVD of his piano music, the pianist describes her first encounter with Feldman, showing up for his lecture with a hooker on each arm, drinking, smoking...


I agree wholeheartedly. I am an atheist, but I do not eschew the belief that there may be a god. An agnostic perhaps. I am against organized human religions.


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## millionrainbows

Logos said:


> And surely there are some artists of the Far East whose aesthetics have more in common with values more often found in the West. In any case, I don't see why prizing this "sense of being" over another aesthetic is any less ideological than what others have been saying.


The Classical Western approach is "narrative" in nature; tonality unfolds in time, and is the result of a series of uniform, connected events.

"Modernism", which I discuss in my blog "Conceptions of Musical time" is associated with modern music.
Examples are minimalism, Messiaen, Varese, Stockhausen, Feldman, Cage.

So I value and defend modernism because it seems to be under constant attack or miscomprehension.

But modern approaches are all different, whereas Western tonality is based on the principle of tonality. Therefore modern thinking is less likely to become "ideologically ingrained."


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## Logos

millionrainbows said:


> But modern approaches are all different, whereas Western tonality is based on the principle of tonality. Therefore modern thinking is less likely to become "ideologically ingrained."


Therefore modern approaches are _all alike_ in _not_ being based on the principle of tonality, according to your own definition. This gives them a unifying principle around which ideology can (has?) formed. Even a principle of total aesthetic anarchy would still be an ideological notion to which one may be passionately devoted. Some of the points you make are interesting, but this would appear to be an arbitrarily selective usage of "ideology".


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## millionrainbows

Logos said:


> Therefore modern approaches are _all alike_ in _not_ being based on the principle of tonality, according to your own definition.


I'll state it this way:

Modern approaches are all different, because they are not based *solely *on the principle of tonality. Therefore modern thinking is less likely to become "ideologically ingrained."

No, modern musical thought does not have to be based on atonality. Modernism includes ideas such as dividing the octave at the tritone, use of small intervals instead of fourths and fifths, interval projection. etc. Some of these ideas go way back into history.

Ever since 12 notes existed, modern ways of thinking about them existed.

Western major/minor tonality is based on 7-note diatonic scales.

The "tonality vs. modernism" is a false dichotomy.


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## Logos

millionrainbows said:


> The "tonality vs. modernism" is a false dichotomy.


All right, but "Western tonality vs. modernism" is precisely the dichotomy that you yourself erected in your previous statement:



> But modern approaches are all different, whereas Western tonality is based on the principle of tonality.


Again, an ideology pitting Eastern Zen-like existentialism against Western essentialism.


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## Woodduck

Mozart, I'm sure, wouldn't have given a flying fig for any "ideology" of music. Wagner was a philosopher, but not in justification of his musical techniques. Ideology only became essential to musical composition and comprehension with Modernism, which needed to explain itself, first to itself, and then to audiences who expected music to be a direct, non-ideological experience. The same phenomenon occurred in the visual arts, as Tom Wolfe hilariously recounts in "The Painted Word." So much for Modernism as a correction of, or liberation from, ideologies.


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## Fredx2098

Woodduck said:


> Mozart, I'm sure, wouldn't have given a flying fig for any "ideology" of music. Wagner was a philosopher, but not in justification of his musical techniques. Ideology only became essential to musical composition and comprehension with Modernism, which needed to explain itself to audiences who expected music to be a direct, non-ideological experience. The same phenomenon occurred in the visual arts, as Tom Wolfe hilariously recounts in "The Painted Word." So much for Modernism as a correction of, or liberation from, ideologies.


Modernism is not a correction or liberation of ideology. It's a belief that new ideas should be procured rather than rehashing old traditions.


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## Woodduck

Fredx2098 said:


> Modernism is not a correction or liberation of ideology. It's a belief that new ideas should be procured rather than rehashing old traditions.


Which of the great composers were rehashing old traditions?


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## Phil loves classical

millionrainbows said:


> I'll state it this way:
> 
> Modern approaches are all different, because they are not based *solely *on the principle of tonality. Therefore modern thinking is less likely to become "ideologically ingrained."
> 
> No, modern musical thought does not have to be based on atonality. Modernism includes ideas such as dividing the octave at the tritone, use of small intervals instead of fourths and fifths, interval projection. etc. Some of these ideas go way back into history.
> 
> Ever since 12 notes existed, modern ways of thinking about them existed.
> 
> Western major/minor tonality is based on 7-note diatonic scales.
> 
> The "tonality vs. modernism" is a false dichotomy.


Modernism is also ideological. It is more an extension of traditional ideologies. Again I stress the difference between Modernism and Postmodernism.


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## Guest

Woodduck said:


> Which of the great composers were rehashing old traditions?


Hendrik Bouman......oh wait, you said *great* composers........


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## Logos

Woodduck said:


> The same phenomenon occurred in the visual arts, as Tom Wolfe hilariously recounts in "The Painted Word."


The way Wolfe describes modern art evaporating into art theory makes me expect that eventually avant-garde music will evaporate into total silence--free from all the vulgar limitations of sound. Come to think of it, there have already been a number of experiments of that kind.


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## Guest

As I understand it, the way we think about art these days has become contextualised according to different traditions, different eras, different geographic locations and cultures. An 'ideology'-or any kind of _artist's statement_-seems to me to be a naturally occurring phenomenon as we have become more aware of what our individual aesthetic position is in relation to everything else in the world and in history.

Mozart, for example, wrote music in a world which was not the stylistically pluralist, globalised world of today, even though there _was_ quite a bit of cultural and stylistic awareness as reflected in his compositions (see: topic theory). Generally, the musical and aesthetic concerns were deeply rooted in the specific time and place with a musical education system to match. These days, even for someone who is writing pastiche (as Hendrik Bouman does), we are always aware of a multitude of styles, traditions and individual voices that artistic/aesthetic 'ideologies' simply arise out of necessity.

Sometimes I get asked about my compositional style. I respond with what my influences are, what my interests are, what my aesthetic aspirations are; these are, in effect, all part of my own 'ideology' that results in me composing the music I like to compose (and, hopefully, the musicians like to perform!).


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## Woodduck

Logos said:


> The way Wolfe describes modern art evaporating into art theory makes me expect that eventually avant-garde music will evaporate into total silence--free from all the vulgar limitations of sound. Come to think of it, there have already been a number of experiments of that kind.


Oh yes. Pity the poor artist trying to be "modern" now that there are no more old traditions to rehash and nothing left to strip away. Not even an audience.

Heh heh. Just kidding.


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## KenOC

Woodduck said:


> Which of the great composers were rehashing old traditions?


Beethoven said, more than once, that he most admired Handel, Mozart, and Bach. Proof positive, if anybody needs it, that he was rehasher-in-chief of the classical period! :tiphat:

He never said much about Schoenberg and other more recent composers, from which we can draw our own conclusions.


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## EddieRUKiddingVarese

^His ghost maybe heard and you pass by that billabong


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## Roger Knox

EddieRUKiddingVarese said:


> ^His ghost maybe heard and you pass by that billabong


Or waltzes by as in that Matilda number.


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## Thomyum2

millionrainbows said:


> I think the reason avante-garde music fails for most listeners is that they are disconnected from the immediacy of their being-in-time. They are unable to "be here now" and hear the pitches without the "unnatural" intellectual constructions of Western tonality, namely, the "spreading out over time" of these harmonic principles.
> 
> So, the main problem most listeners have is one of *time,* and how time and events are experienced. This is because most humans are separated from their beings. They grasp onto "time" as experienced by their egos, which is ultimately an illusion. Einstein would agree that time is an illusion, as well.


This idea really intrigues me - I've been thinking about it and believe there a lot to this idea as I've experienced music this way myself, at times. I've come to believe there are two levels at which we can listen to music - I think of them as listening to enjoy and listening to understand or appreciate, for lack of better terms. But in my mind, these sort of correspond to being 'in time' or 'being here now' that you describe. In listening to enjoy, we listen in the context of what we expect to hear, what we want to hear, based on our past history, and in that process we judge and compare the music to those expectations - does the music live up to what we want, or does it exceed it or fall short of it? In listening to understand, we listen with a blank slate, just 'being here now' as you say, with no expectations of what should or should not be in the music, just listening for what is and experiencing it in a more pure sense without the interference of our expectations or prejudices. I think both are valid ways of experiencing music and I suspect that all of us listening with elements of both. Thoughts?

Perhaps we should as the forum moderators to create a special section for the 'philosophy of music'. I'm seeing a lot of interesting discussions in different threads that could easily make an interesting new category.


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## millionrainbows

I think both ways of listening are valuable. I have to discipline myself to listen analytically, over time spans, since my tendency is to simply listen. 

To the degree that Classical music is structured in time, and has development, this becomes a necessary way of listening, but becomes equivalent to "reading" or "being literate" in order to fully appreciate the music on deeper levels. Classical music is thus "narrative" in that it follows a line of thought, like a book.

In music such as Messiaen, Varese, and some Debussy, we are better to listen to it as "sonic events" which happen, without 'development' in the usual sense.


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## millionrainbows

Woodduck said:


> Mozart, I'm sure, wouldn't have given a flying fig for any "ideology" of music. Wagner was a philosopher, but not in justification of his musical techniques.


That's because the "ideology" was unconscious; Mozart and Wagner simply reflected and manifest the power-system they were in, without having to think about it as an ideology.



Woodduck said:


> ...Ideology only became essential to musical composition and comprehension with Modernism, which needed to explain itself, first to itself, and then to audiences who expected music to be a direct, non-ideological experience.


Modernism needed to explain itself because it was new and novel. The audiences were so inundated, programmed, and immersed in the conventional experience of music that the new paradigm of modernism needed some explanation.



Woodduck said:


> ...The same phenomenon occurred in the visual arts, as Tom Wolfe hilariously recounts in "The Painted Word." So much for Modernism as a correction of, or liberation from, ideologies.


Art is not photography. The audience simply could not accept Abstract Expressionism as the new function of art as non-representational.

So, we "progress" on to Andy Warhol's soup cans, which replaced abstract art. Are you happy now?


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## millionrainbows

Logos said:


> The way Wolfe describes modern art evaporating into art theory makes me expect that eventually avant-garde music will evaporate into total silence--free from all the vulgar limitations of sound. Come to think of it, there have already been a number of experiments of that kind.


So what is the alternative? Video game music and cinematic soundtracks. I think I'll go back to my Boulez.


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## millionrainbows

Woodduck said:


> Oh yes. Pity the poor artist trying to be "modern" now that there are no more old traditions to rehash and nothing left to strip away. Not even an audience.


And pity the poor artist who tries to be "traditional," like Lucian Freud's portraits.


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## Thomyum2

millionrainbows said:


> I think both ways of listening are valuable. I have to discipline myself to listen analytically, over time spans, since my tendency is to simply listen.
> 
> To the degree that Classical music is structured in time, and has development, this becomes a necessary way of listening, but becomes equivalent to "reading" or "being literate" in order to fully appreciate the music on deeper levels. Classical music is thus "narrative" in that it follows a line of thought, like a book.
> 
> In music such as Messiaen, Varese, and some Debussy, we are better to listen to it as "sonic events" which happen, without 'development' in the usual sense.


Very interesting to hear you say this, since it's often the opposite for me - I have to discipline myself to just listen and not let my mind take me away from the music. My natural tendency is to think about the music rather than to just listen to it.

But your comment takes me into another line of thought - I often think of music as analogous to language. So just as in learning a foreign language, at first it requires discipline to listen carefully to catch each word and translate the meaning to your own language but eventually it becomes subconscious where you don't have to translate any more - your subconscious mind processes the sound into meaning, and your conscious mind just hears meaning, not sounds. So the same with music, when you reach a certain point, you can just listen and hear what the music is 'saying', and experience music in that way, the same way you would hear what person is saying when they speak - the analysis becomes subconscious and you just intuitively understand where you are in the music's story. Music is different from spoken language in that it can be enjoyed without listening - you can listen to music and do other things that occupy your mind and still enjoy it, where you can't, for example, listen to a book on tape while you're talking to someone - you'd have to go back and rewind to hear what you missed. I find that the more I listen to music, the more I have that experience that if I'm not giving it my full attention, I find I've missed something important and have to go back and start again and not get distracted.

I'm rambling a bit here, but very interested because I'm still trying to understand how we hear or listen to music and why we all experience it so differently.


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## eugeneonagain

millionrainbows said:


> But modern approaches are all different, whereas Western tonality is based on the principle of tonality. *Therefore modern thinking is less likely to become "ideologically ingrained*."


This does not follow at all. It certainly doesn't follow outside of music and not even for music I think. Ideology has become refined and silent; like advertising everyone claims it has no effect upon them. So it's easy to imagine that we are floating free in a sea of free ideas.


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## millionrainbows

Blancrocher said:


> You asked for a follow-up before I could edit--I'm not sure I agree with my statement upon further reflection :lol:
> 
> Basically, I was thinking "who's as good as the Stones right now?"


That's an interesting interjection to this discussion of "Classical" music. Anything that is "recorded" (in sound form, or in score) can have a "history" as time goes on.

The difference is, popular music is usually based on performances (and recordings of performances) of individuals (Mick Jagger's vocals or Frank Sinatra's vocals), whereas Classical music (in score form) is not so much; it is also more like an abstraction, or the "idea" of a piece which can then be performed again and again by different people; only then does the abstract idea (as scored artifact) become a performance.

"Performance" is therefore contingent upon an audible performance or a recording of it;

A symphony in score, or a "good song" is an idea or abstraction, waiting to be realised in a performance.

Now, for popular music, we could have the idea of a "song" or a "standard" ("Fly Me To The Moon," "You Are So Beautiful," etc.), and then judge it by performance, like in Classical music. Example: Do you like Dolly Parton's version, or Whitney Houston's version of "I Will Always Love You"?)

This seems to be the major distinguishing feature of Classical music from popular or recorded music: throughout most of its history, Classical existed in score form only, so performance in the present becomes a focus, but the works are still "abstractions" (like a "good song") which exist as a part of history and another time-period.

Now, recorded music is beginning to have its own "history," which is a history of recorded artifacts as performances (the Stones' fourth album) or, as an exception to this, a history of "works" (good songs), as in Classical.

So this "abstraction" of the idea of a piece seems to be the most distinguishing feature of Classical music, and allows it to go back into history _before_ the advent of recorded performances.


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## Alkan

Thomyum2 said:


> I'm late to join this discussion thread, but the idea that classical came to an 'end' is something I've thought about for many years. I actually attribute it to one thing: the invention of the recording. I've always felt that it was not a complete coincidence that the invention of the recording device coincided with the arrival of atonality. If you think about it, this invention changed the whole economics of music (which is a whole topic in and of itself) but the effect was to both make music more accessible while at the same time 'cheapening' it and turning it into a disposable commodity. In modern times, recorded music is so widespread that while we still enjoy it, we don't really _value_ it as much any more. After all, we now largely just use it as background sound for whatever else we're doing. So for composers who really want to say something new and communicate an idea to their listener, and not just provide entertainment or background sound, it's inevitable that they would use sounds that challenge the ear. And also inevitable that people who are accustomed to see music purely as a form of entertainment aren't going to be accepting of that. So the fact that many people don't want to be challenged by classical music doesn't mean it has come to an end.
> 
> Schoenberg once said of his 12-tone work that someday the milkman would be humming his tunes. We're not there yet, but I think he had an important point.


I've read through all 25 pages of this. Lots of interesting comments, some getting pretty far afield. I've quoted the above from Thomyum because it is on-topic(!) and the closest to my own opinion on the matter.

I think classical music did in fact croak about 100 years ago and it was Thomas Edison who done it. Music making in the home used to be a major entertainment option in the 19th century. It could be engaged in daily. People who put some effort into "appreciating" music got more out of it, and they taught their children the way of it. But it took some effort to hear themes, development and so forth. Beginning with Edison we started to get way too many entertainment options. Recordings, movies, radio, television and eventually video games and the internet. Lots of instant gratification with little thought or effort required.


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## Larkenfield

. . . . . . . .


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## EddieRUKiddingVarese

millionrainbows said:


> That's because the "ideology" was unconscious; Mozart and Wagner simply reflected and manifest the power-system they were in, without having to think about it as an ideology.
> 
> Modernism needed to explain itself because it was new and novel. The audiences were so inundated, programmed, and immersed in the conventional experience of music that the new paradigm of modernism needed some explanation.
> 
> Art is not photography. The audience simply could not accept Abstract Expressionism as the new function of art as non-representational.
> 
> So, we "progress" on to Andy Warhol's soup cans, which replaced abstract art. Are you happy now?


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## Leandrusi

I believe we cant begin to answer questions or share many opinions before we build a consensual foundation about WHAT IS "CLASSICAL MUSIC".
Is it a specific body of music works by composers during a specific time period and location? or mabe it is any music based on the theory/stylistic approach those musicians used before? How do we draw the borders about time and place or in use of musical resources in each case?


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## labarker

I often say (please, note, with my tongue firmly in my cheek!) that the classical composers stole all the best tunes. By the time the 20th century arrived there was nothing left (especially for the Devil). I taught myself to appreciate Classical music when I was 17 (I joined WRC and simply played the LPs over and over until the music "clicked"). It's not too much of an exaggeration to say in the beginning I couldn't tell Bach from Bartok. I bought only one piece of 20th century music. Once I'd listened to it enough, I remember muttering, "Okay, I can follow it, but I still can't like it." I listened to the radio quite a lot so, once I'd got to the stage of being able to follow anything, I heard more than enough 20th century music to know I would never like it. I rather envy people who do.


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