Modern classical music, why is always derelict?

[Peter]

Originally posted by v russo:
All I am saying is that not all newer music is bad(OR DERELECT),that line of thinking implies ignorance in my view.
And Shostakovich blows away Dvorak and Schumann and many of these other luke-warm-post-Beethovenians. His Symphonies and Quartets are far more significant in Western Classical music than that of these 2 men.

listen and you shall hear....

respectfully,

Respectfully I have listened, I have performed and I have taught - it is not ignorance but personal preference! Ignorance is judging people to be deficient in some way if they fail to share our tastes.

------------------
'Man know thyself'



[This message has been edited by Peter (edited February 24, 2004).]

[v russo]

Originally posted by Peter:
Respectfully I have listened, I have performed and I have taught - it is not ignorance but personal preference! Ignorance is judging people to be deficient in some way if they fail to share our tastes.

I was not calling you ignorant. I was saying the ideology of thinking that all newer music in "derelect" is...
I am a composer and a poet (seeing that you are in the mood for justifying credentials) and I am telling you that the 20th and 21st centuries have yielded some great things. Art reflects its time....(whether you like it or not).

respectfully,

------------------
v russo

[This message has been edited by v russo (edited February 24, 2004).]

[Beyond Within]

Most people blindly despise modern music based on hearsay and lack of listening experience. For instance: I blindly hated all modern music, so when I finally heard a collection of it (ranging from "chance music" to "atonal" to "villa-lobos") I was forcing myself to hate it. I was disappointed because a lot of it did have merit- beyond entertainment I might add.

However, modern music does not have any super brilliant geniuses like all the past periods had. There is no Bach, Mozart, Beethoven or Chopin generating masterpiece after masterpiece. At best, its good, but I dont see any 9th symphonys or Don Giovannis surfacing any time soon.

[Jin]

Incidentally, I opened the latest issue (2/16&23) of the New Yorker to see an article ("Listen to This: A classical kid learns to love pop") by their music critic Alex Ross about almost our exact topic, though he doesn't think modern music is derelict.

Ross addresses the changes in cultural atmosphere in the recent past and suggests that all genres cycle reach height and decline as part of a natural musical cycle of sorts. He talks a bit about Beethoven and Eroica (that's my excuse for linking it; sorry, I seem to go off topic too much, don't I?). Sometimes I disagree with his characterizations of classical music and classical listeners, but for the most part I think it's an interesting and intelligent view, though the ending is cheesy.

An excerpt: <blockquote>"All music becomes classical music in the end. Reading the histories of other genres, I often get a warm sense of deja vu. The story of jazz, for example, seems to recapitulate classical history at high speed. First, the youth-rebellion period: Satchmo and the Duke and Bix and Jelly Roll teach a generation to lose itself in the music. Second, the era of bourgeois grandeur: the high-class swing band parallels the Romantic orchestra. Stage 3: artists rebel against the bourgeois image, echoing the classical modernist revolution, sometimes by direct citation. Stage 4: free jazz marks the point at which the vanguard loses touch with the mass and becomes a self-contained avant-garde. Stage 5: a period of retrenchment. ...But this effort comes too late to restore the art to the popular mainstream. Jazz recordings sell about he same as classical recordings, three per cent of the market.

"The same progression worms its way through rock and roll. What were my hyper-educated punk-rock friends but Stage 3 high modernists, rebelling against the bloated Romanticism of Stage 2 stadium rock? Right now, there seems to be a lot of Stage 5 classicism going on in what remains of rock and roll. The Strokes, the Hives, the Vines, the Stills, the Thrills, and so on hark back to some lost pure moment of the sixties or seventies....

"The original classical is left in an interesting limbo. It has a chance to be liberated from the social cliches that currently pin it down. It is no longer the one form carrying the burden of the past. Moreover, it has the advantage of being able to sustain constant reinterpretation, to renew itself with each repetition. The best kind of classical performance is never a retreat into the past but rather an intensification of the present. When you hear a great orchestra perform Beethoven's 'Eroica,' it isn't like a rock band trying to mimic the Beatles -- it is like the Beatles reincarnated. The mistake that apostles of the classical have always made is to have joined their love of the past to a dislike of the present. The music has other ideas: it hates the past and wants to escape."</blockquote>Unfortunately, I couldn't find an online text, so the best I could do short of typing the nine pages was to photograph them (no scanner here), which resulted in definitely readable but somewhat furry text. I would guess that most libraries carry the magazine though, so if you're interested, you could look there. Heck, I'll even send you photocopies if for some reason you want them that much. : )

Page 1
<a href="http://www.stanford.edu/~idedalus/Music/Ross/Listen2.jpg" target=_window>Page 2</a>
<a href="http://www.stanford.edu/~idedalus/Music/Ross/Listen3.jpg" target=_window>Page 3</a>
<a href="http://www.stanford.edu/~idedalus/Music/Ross/Listen4.jpg" target=_window>Page 4</a>
<a href="http://www.stanford.edu/~idedalus/Music/Ross/Listen5.jpg" target=_window>Page 5</a>
<a href="http://www.stanford.edu/~idedalus/Music/Ross/Listen6.jpg" target=_window>Page 6</a>
<a href="http://www.stanford.edu/~idedalus/Music/Ross/Listen7.jpg" target=_window>Page 7</a>
<a href="http://www.stanford.edu/~idedalus/Music/Ross/Listen8.jpg" target=_window>Page 8</a>
<a href="http://www.stanford.edu/~idedalus/Music/Ross/Listen9.jpg" target=_window>Page 9</a>

I wouldn't say that most people despise modern music; they just don't care for the sound. As for why there are no modern geniuses... time! We judge genius by endurance through the centuries and it isn't yet clear who will survive. (one vote for Radiohead!) And could we really say that Mozart, Beethoven and Chopin were considered geniuses during their time?

On a random note (sorry, this is getting lengthy), has anyone heard of Morton Feldman or Olivier Messiaen? (the latter is by no means a modern composer)

[This message has been edited by Jin (edited February 25, 2004).]

[Peter]

Originally posted by v russo:

I was not calling you ignorant. I was saying the ideology of thinking that all newer music in "derelect" is...
I am a composer and a poet (seeing that you are in the mood for justifying credentials) and I am telling you that the 20th and 21st centuries have yielded some great things. Art reflects its time....(whether you like it or not).

respectfully,

Yes art reflects its time and I agree the 20th century produced some greats - in my view Bartok, Stravinsky and Shostakovich foremost among them.
I never used the words 'all new music is derelict' as I am the first to stand up against generalisations however there is little music post 1950 that I find appealing and I find the music prior to 1830 most appealing of all - personal preference.

Hopefully always respectful!

------------------
'Man know thyself'

[This message has been edited by Peter (edited February 25, 2004).]

[Peter]

[QUOTE]Originally posted by Jin:
Incidentally, I opened the latest issue (2/16&23) of the New Yorker to see an article ("Listen to This: A classical kid learns to love pop") by their music critic Alex Ross about almost our exact topic, though he doesn't think modern music is derelict.

I read this article a while back, interesting.



And could we really say that Mozart, Beethoven and Chopin were considered geniuses during their time?


Yes they were (or within a short time of their deaths) - look at the huge number that turned out for Beethoven's funeral.



On a random note (sorry, this is getting lengthy), has anyone heard of Morton Feldman or Olivier Messiaen? (the latter is by no means a modern composer)

Heard of Messiaen - I like some of his music.


------------------
'Man know thyself'

[v russo]

Originally posted by Beyond Within:
Most people blindly despise modern music based on hearsay and lack of listening experience. For instance: I blindly hated all modern music, so when I finally heard a collection of it (ranging from "chance music" to "atonal" to "villa-lobos") I was forcing myself to hate it. I was disappointed because a lot of it did have merit- beyond entertainment I might add.

However, modern music does not have any super brilliant geniuses like all the past periods had. There is no Bach, Mozart, Beethoven or Chopin generating masterpiece after masterpiece. At best, its good, but I dont see any 9th symphonys or Don Giovannis surfacing any time soon.

but, if there was a great "Beethoven" in our era...would we recognize him? We he get the same attention amidst all the media, pop culture and trash most people are addicted to? Would there be a "market" for him?



------------------
v russo

[v russo]

Jin, great stuff! This line says it all for me:

"The mistake that apostles of the classical have always made is to have joined their love of the past to a dislike of the present. The music has other ideas: it hates the past and wants to escape."


------------------
v russo

[v russo]

[quote]Originally posted by Peter:

Originally posted by Jin:
Incidentally, I opened the latest issue (2/16&23) of the New Yorker to see an article ("Listen to This: A classical kid learns to love pop") by their music critic Alex Ross about almost our exact topic, though he doesn't think modern music is derelict.

I read this article a while back, interesting.



And could we really say that Mozart, Beethoven and Chopin were considered geniuses during their time?


Yes they were (or within a short time of their deaths) - look at the huge number that turned out for Beethoven's funeral.



On a random note (sorry, this is getting lengthy), has anyone heard of Morton Feldman or Olivier Messiaen? (the latter is by no means a modern composer)

Heard of Messiaen - I like some of his music.

Feldman and Messiaen are two 20th century composers who composed in the mid to late part of the century. Messiaen died in the early 1990's. Oliver Messiaen is considered by many to be one of the foremost French composers of the 20th century. Do your research Peter!

"has anyone heard of Messiaen"
where have you been?.... step out of the 18th century.

???!!!!!

Bordering on respectfully,


------------------
v russo

[spaceray]

Originally posted by Jin:
Olivier Messiaen? (the latter is by no means a modern composer)

[This message has been edited by Jin (edited February 25, 2004).][/B]

Jin,
I have heard of Olivier Messian,he was the Frank Zappa of French organ music and a naturalist and birdwatcher who collected samples of birdsong that inspired him to compose in "modes with limited transpositions"
A devout Christian,he dedicated many works to the church.
He was born in 1908 and died in 1992,he was a modern composer.
Like or hate it this music is extraordinary.I urge you to listen to some of this master composers work for the organ and the piano.
Muriel

[Peter]

Originally posted by v russo:

Feldman and Messiaen are two 20th century composers who composed in the mid to late part of the century. Messiaen died in the early 1990's. Oliver Messiaen is considered by many to be one of the foremost French composers of the 20th century. Do your research Peter!

"has anyone heard of Messiaen"
where have you been?.... step out of the 18th century.

???!!!!!

Bordering on respectfully,

Actually if you read the threads properly you'll see it was Jin who asked the question about Messiaen (last bit of his lengthy post which you obviously gave up on), I merely responded saying I had heard of Messiaen and that I liked some of his music - you are acting strangely lately!



------------------
'Man know thyself'

[Jin]

Sorry for the confusion. I was told by a friend that Messiaen wasn't modern, but he was wrong apparently. He mentioned the organ, but said more emphatically that Messiaen played around with something called the ondes martentot? Something that's theremin-like? Just for the heck of it, has anyone played the theremin extensively? I installed software that let me use my laptop touchpad as a theremin for a short while before my laptop committed suicide, and it was interesting at first but got a little boring, probably cuz the touchpad was so small and 2D.

[urtextmeister]

I have increasing respect and admiration for Messiaen. Some of his music is so exotic and beautiful! Like nothing I have heard before.
I was unfamiliar with the Ondes Martentot until recently. Obviously it hasn't caught on quite as well as the clarinet and tuba. I believe it is featured in the Turangalila symphony, which is one of the more accessible works of Messiaen and one I listened to quite a bit when I was younger, but haven't heard it lately.

I thought the except from the article about the cycles music genres go through was very interesting. There are eerie parallels between classical, jazz, rock, etc.

One final word on this original topic: the world has changed.
If we are looking for the next Beethoven or Mozart, we should stop expecting him to be wearing a powdered wig.

[Chaszz]

Originally posted by urtextmeister:
I have increasing respect and admiration for Messiaen. Some of his music is so exotic and beautiful! Like nothing I have heard before.
I was unfamiliar with the Ondes Martentot until recently. Obviously it hasn't caught on quite as well as the clarinet and tuba. I believe it is featured in the Turangalila symphony, which is one of the more accessible works of Messiaen and one I listened to quite a bit when I was younger, but haven't heard it lately.

I thought the except from the article about the cycles music genres go through was very interesting. There are eerie parallels between classical, jazz, rock, etc.

One final word on this original topic: the world has changed.
If we are looking for the next Beethoven or Mozart, we should stop expecting him to be wearing a powdered wig.

When I was growing up I enjoyed the older jazz, which had had its heyday before I was born, and never felt completly at home listening to modern jazz. Had I been young during the era of earlier jazz, I certainly would have become a jazz musician, but I couldn't make that choice for the modern jazz of the 50s and 60s when I was growing up. I still feel that way today, and in almost exactly the same way I prefer older classical to modern classical music.

The article was indeed very good, in the parallels it made.

[v russo]

Originally posted by Peter:
Actually if you read the threads properly you'll see it was Jin who asked the question about Messiaen (last bit of his lengthy post which you obviously gave up on), I merely responded saying I had heard of Messiaen and that I liked some of his music - you are acting strangely lately!

ha, haa! Sorry Peter (please dont kick me off the site). Yes, I was confused...that darned Jin

I actually am sick with a fever. Interesting that you can tell that I am "acting strangley". I apologize to you and Jin (who I admire for liking Radiohead)but, I hope you see the point in my message.
I stand by these points and I never mean to offend anyone.

ULTRA RESPECTFULLY,


------------------
v russo

[This message has been edited by v russo (edited February 25, 2004).]

[This message has been edited by v russo (edited February 25, 2004).]