Modern classical music, why is always derelict?

[Ahmad]

Originally posted by v russo:
the fifth points forward to the future, the future of his own later period, the future of Freud and his discoveries and the implementation of these ideas in the music of the second vienesse school and the whole music of the 20th century,

Well, I think we stopped at the "fifth stage", not overstepping it…

Why is modern classical music always derelict? I asked my self this question after noting that members of this forum (including me!) are concerned only with the classical and baroque eras, sometimes overstepping to the romantic era, but what about Debussy, Schoenberg,Stravinsky, Messian, De Falla,....?

Yesterday I attended a piano concert organized in cooperation with the Spanish embassy in my country, the pianist name was Claudio Carbo Montaner.The concert program was: "The Spanish music over the last century". It included piano pieces by contemporary composers such as Antonio Garcia Abril, Zulema de la Cruz. In addition, the program included pieces of who are named "Classical" Spanish composers including Isaac Albeniz and Manuel de Falla and others who lived in both the 19th and 20th centuries...

It was not the first time that I listen to modern classical music, as I have some listening experiment with some impressionist composers (Debussy and Ravel) and a few pieces written in atonality style, but it's really a new world of music worthy of putting into concern that I haven't discovered completely yet.

Of course I didn't understand Abril and Cruz pieces as I do with Beethoven's or Chopin's, but indeed I was amazed about this very modern style that have its new way to express the human soul...It wasn't odd and bothersome music (as many would describe
it), it's really something new and fascinating...

It's an invitation here for every member of this forum to explore the modern classical music, and remember, the great Mozart that we know today was considered a musician of the 2nd or 3rd grade in his lifetime!


[This message has been edited by Ahmad (edited February 16, 2004).]

[v russo]

Originally posted by Ahmad:
Well, I think we stopped at the "fifth stage", not overstepping it…

Why is modern classical music always derelict? I asked my self this question after noting that members of this forum (including me!) are concerned only with the classical and baroque eras, sometimes overstepping to the romantic era, but what about Debussy, Schoenberg,Stravinsky, Messian, De Falla,....?

Yesterday I attended a piano concert organized in cooperation with the Spanish embassy in my country, the pianist name was Claudio Carbo Montaner.The concert program was: "The Spanish music over the last century". It included piano pieces by contemporary composers such as Antonio Garcia Abril, Zulema de la Cruz. In addition, the program included pieces of who are named "Classical" Spanish composers including Isaac Albeniz and Manuel de Falla and others who lived in both the 19th and 20th centuries...

It was not the first time that I listen to modern classical music, as I have some listening experiment with some impressionist composers (Debussy and Ravel) and a few pieces written in atonality style, but it's really a new world of music worthy of putting into concern that I haven't discovered completely yet.

Of course I didn't understand Abril and Cruz pieces as I do with Beethoven's or Chopin's, but indeed I was amazed about this very modern style that have its new way to express the human soul...It wasn't odd and bothersome music (as many would describe
it), it's really something new and fascinating...

It's an invitation here for every member of this forum to explore the modern classical music, and remember, the great Mozart that we know today was considered a musician of the 2nd or 3rd grade in his lifetime!


[This message has been edited by Ahmad (edited February 16, 2004).]

I suggest that you broaden your musical horizons Ahmad. There is a whole century plus of music you are missing out on. Art always reflects its time, if you see it as derilect, so be it. We are in the era of Post-Classical music anyway. Composers like Philip Glass, Steve Reich, Arvo Part, Henrick Gorecki have forged thier own styles from western classical to indian music to elements of pop music.

What about the great Bartok, Stravinsky, Shostakovich and Aaron Copland to today's composers like Ligeti, Boulez and New York composers Michael Gordon and David Lang.

There is a whole treasure trove of western art music out there, and I love it all! From plainchant to classical to electronic dance music, you will always find interesting composers...

but still, Beethoven will always be nearest to my heart and soul.


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

[This message has been edited by v russo (edited February 16, 2004).]

[This message has been edited by v russo (edited February 16, 2004).]

[King Stephen]

I sometimes wonder in which direction is Classical Music headed. I find that most of what is called modern or 20th century music to be "cold" and far removed from the music that appeals to me. An example would be John Cage's Piece for prepaired piano. Ugh. My question is what is wrong with the piano that we know without driving screws through the strings. The music does not touch let alone reach the heart. I do find some of the 20th century music satisfing ie: Stravinsky, Bartok, Shostakovich, Orff, Harris and a few others but for the most part I'am a baroque, classical, romantic period lover. I hold out no hope of have another Mozart, Bach or Beethoven popping up in our time or for that matter anytime in the future, regarless of what grade composer he or she is considered.
We are lucky we were not born around 1600 for we would have missed the greatest time in history for musical composition.

[v russo]

Originally posted by King Stephen:
I sometimes wonder in which direction is Classical Music headed. I find that most of what is called modern or 20th century music to be "cold" and far removed from the music that appeals to me. An example would be John Cage's Piece for prepaired piano. Ugh. My question is what is wrong with the piano that we know without driving screws through the strings. The music does not touch let alone reach the heart. I do find some of the 20th century music satisfing ie: Stravinsky, Bartok, Shostakovich, Orff, Harris and a few others but for the most part I'am a baroque, classical, romantic period lover. I hold out no hope of have another Mozart, Bach or Beethoven popping up in our time or for that matter anytime in the future, regarless of what grade composer he or she is considered.
We are lucky we were not born around 1600 for we would have missed the greatest time in history for musical composition.

if we were born in 1600 we would have marveled at the innovations of Palestrina, and Monteverdi, two great and significant composers. Every era has thier exemplar...


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

[This message has been edited by v russo (edited February 16, 2004).]

[Peter]

Originally posted by v russo:
if we were born in 1600 we would have marveled at the innovations of Palestrina, and Monteverdi, two great and significant composers. Every era has thier exemplar...

That John Cage's "4'33" is my favourite piece by him says it all - modern classical music (I mean post 1950's) has lost track with the spiritual and is a product solely of the intellect with a desire for the experimental and shock value - that we ended up producing cacophony - saucepans thrown on the floor, electronic music played backwards etc is the classical music equivalent of Tracy Emin's unmade bed or Damien Hirst's dead sheep - this is trash posing as art.

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

[Ahmad]

Originally posted by King Stephen:
I hold out no hope of have another Mozart, Bach or Beethoven popping up in our time or for that matter anytime in the future, regarless of what grade composer he or she is considered.
.

I think you missed my point. What I meant is that Mozart was not fully appreciated by many of his contemporaries, so they graded him as a 2nd or 3rd grade composer..

[urtextmeister]

Where are all of the great modern classical composers?

That is kind of like saying, where are all of the great modern novels written in sanskrit? Not that many people are interested.

I hate to be pessimistic, but I don't believe a "classical" composer living now can have anywhere near the impact that Beethoven did.

It used to be that only a certain segment of society decided the trends in music. Most of the aristocracy could play instruments and understand the nuances of what they heard. Now, every idiot can download music, turn on a radio, a TV...

It's a whole new ballgame. Pop culture inhabits almost every nook and cranny of our world. All we highbrows can do is find our little corner and polish our remnants of classical music. People can compose and maybe even get paid, but nobody is going to change the world with "symphony in c, opus 1." Those times are long gone.

I am sounding unusually bitter this morning.

[Sorrano]

Originally posted by King Stephen:
I sometimes wonder in which direction is Classical Music headed. I find that most of what is called modern or 20th century music to be "cold" and far removed from the music that appeals to me. An example would be John Cage's Piece for prepaired piano. Ugh. My question is what is wrong with the piano that we know without driving screws through the strings. The music does not touch let alone reach the heart. I do find some of the 20th century music satisfing ie: Stravinsky, Bartok, Shostakovich, Orff, Harris and a few others but for the most part I'am a baroque, classical, romantic period lover. I hold out no hope of have another Mozart, Bach or Beethoven popping up in our time or for that matter anytime in the future, regarless of what grade composer he or she is considered.
We are lucky we were not born around 1600 for we would have missed the greatest time in history for musical composition.

Some of the things happening in this and the past (20th) centuries are related to experimentation with sound. Ligeti's Adventures, for example, is an exploration of the various sounds that a human voice can make. While it makes for interesting listening it does not hold the attention that a more conventional music form might. But I think that there is some validity with searching out new sounds and concepts within the realm of music. After all, if the earlier musicians had not done so we'd still be listening to plainchant (which is not a bad thing). Composers such as Stockhausen went from extreme to extreme in controlling every aspect of music as to eliminate the performer to the other end whene each performer "improvises" on a particular set of notes within a time frame. The results in an ensemble can seem very chaotic! Other composers, such as Penderecki are moving towards a neo-Romantic style, keeping some of the sounds and harmonies that help differentiate this music from that of more than a century ago.

[Rutradelusasa]

I've written a few things myself and one of them I'm going to submit to a contest (e-mail me if any of you want to hear the midi) and I don't intend to create anything new or anything shocking.
Anytime I see (or hear) one of those trying to shock "art" I realize that the "artist" is indeed trying to hard to do something he's not and cannot do, and always go beyond the limits of what is artistic to go to the boundaries of stupid and world-famous crap.
In music it gets even worse, and I'll get Mahler for an example. Mahler made his symphonies trying to surpass Beethoven, period. He always tried to hard to have the most grandious of music ever conceived before (!), this way he had to have a lot of timpani, 8 trumpets, 16 horns, 8 trombones and lots of lots of lots of other people, and, of course, those 500 singers to make a participation on a symphonie, with any text grand enough to impress the audience. Greek tragedies, etc., nothing escaped Mahler. And I ask you: why? To make a great impression? To show exalted emotions? I'm sorry but the Marcia Funebre from the Eroica does it much better with 2 timpani, 2 trumpets 3 horns and a total of 60 players, tops. Mahler (IMHO) tryied so hard that he got lost amidst all of his players and many modern composers do the same as well. Modern instruments and general sound-makers offer so great a range of possible sounds and notes that composers get lost in this vast universe.
Instead of doing music, these composers end up doing just noise, a big bunch of it. Why can't these composers try only to write a beautiful violin sonata? Because it has been done before? If this thought had been found inside Beethoven's, Mozart's, Bruckner's, Shumann's or worse Schubert's (because he lived under the great shadow of Beethoven) head because they all lived after great composers like Gluck, Haendel, Vivaldi, Pergolesi, Palestrina, Bach and etc. we would have not a fith of all the great music we have today.

What composers from today forget is to keep the music simple and focused on your feelings and the effectiveness of passing them to the listeners, not try to shock the listeners every time they get near your music, for that they can simply stick their fingers on the power outlet: simple and fun.

[v russo]

Originally posted by urtextmeister:
Where are all of the great modern classical composers?

That is kind of like saying, where are all of the great modern novels written in sanskrit? Not that many people are interested.

I hate to be pessimistic, but I don't believe a "classical" composer living now can have anywhere near the impact that Beethoven did.

It used to be that only a certain segment of society decided the trends in music. Most of the aristocracy could play instruments and understand the nuances of what they heard. Now, every idiot can download music, turn on a radio, a TV...

It's a whole new ballgame. Pop culture inhabits almost every nook and cranny of our world. All we highbrows can do is find our little corner and polish our remnants of classical music. People can compose and maybe even get paid, but nobody is going to change the world with "symphony in c, opus 1." Those times are long gone.

I am sounding unusually bitter this morning.

you are not sounding bitter, that is the truth. Pop culture and technology are the new norm and standard in western life. Your words were dead on accurate!

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

[This message has been edited by v russo (edited February 17, 2004).]

[v russo]

Originally posted by Peter:
That John Cage's "4'33" is my favourite piece by him says it all - modern classical music (I mean post 1950's) has lost track with the spiritual and is a product solely of the intellect with a desire for the experimental and shock value - that we ended up producing cacophony - saucepans thrown on the floor, electronic music played backwards etc is the classical music equivalent of Tracy Emin's unmade bed or Damien Hirst's dead sheep - this is trash posing as art.

I agree with you on some of these composers. Serialism is often sterile, mathmatical, and any other term used to describe NON-MUSICAL. These composers lacked profound ideas and vision in thier music. It is the music of the science lab, for the introvert, for a secret society. Art and math are on two different sides of the brain the last time I checked...
But there are other great composers of today and in the last century writing in a communicable language. John Cage is an extreme example. Minimalism has always had a trance like emotion and penetrated much deeper than post- serialism. Also eclectic composers such as Lou Harrison combine intersting forms. What about Penderecki and Gorecki? There are many when you take a look...(and many that I am forgetting right now)


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

[This message has been edited by v russo (edited February 17, 2004).]

[King Stephen]

Originally posted by Ahmad:
I think you missed my point. What I meant is that Mozart was not fully appreciated by many of his contemporaries, so they graded him as a 2nd or 3rd grade composer..

I may have missed your point but my point is if is not pleasing to my ears, absorbed by my brain or touches my heart I am not interested at my age to play around with experimantal music nor am I inclined to try, after listening to certain composers, liking their music. To sum it up if I live to be 300 I would still not live long enough to hear all the music from the baroque,classical and romantic periods.
If you wish to taste the "Modern" music and you enjoy it all I can say is more power to you. At 67 I know what I like and I'll stick to it without feeling I have missed anything.
I did all my experimental listening over half century ago, and in so doing I have settled into what I consider a nice niche.


It's nice to be young but it's great to be retired

[Tony John Hearne]

[QUOTE]Originally posted by v russo:
[B] I agree with you on some of these composers. Serialism is often sterile, mathmatical, and any other term used to describe NON-MUSICAL. These composers lacked profound ideas and vision in thier music. It is the music of the science lab, for the introvert, for a secret society. Art and math are on two different sides of the brain the last time I checked...
But there are other great composers of today and in the last century writing in a communicable language. John Cage is an extreme example. Minimalism has always had a trance like emotion and penetrated much deeper than post- serialism. Also eclectic composers such as Lou Harrison combine intersting forms. What about Penderecki and Gorecki? There are many when you take a look...(and many that I am forgetting right now)

I was fortunate enough to hear Tasmin Little play the Ligeti Vioin Concerto under Sir Simon Rattle and the Berliner Phlharmoniker at last year's Proms (not live I hasten to add, but on radio and then on video) A few years back I would have sniffed at this, muttering "atonal gibberish", but now I seem somehow 'tuned in' and. speaking as a non musician or musical scholar - simply an avid listener, it is just fantastic. Repeated listening nourishes a great piece of music such as that



------------------
Love from London

[Tony John Hearne]

[quote]Originally posted by Tony John Hearne:
[b]

Originally posted by v russo:
I agree with you on some of these composers. Serialism is often sterile, mathmatical, and any other term used to describe NON-MUSICAL. These composers lacked profound ideas and vision in thier music. It is the music of the science lab, for the introvert, for a secret society. Art and math are on two different sides of the brain the last time I checked...
But there are other great composers of today and in the last century writing in a communicable language. John Cage is an extreme example. Minimalism has always had a trance like emotion and penetrated much deeper than post- serialism. Also eclectic composers such as Lou Harrison combine intersting forms. What about Penderecki and Gorecki? There are many when you take a look...(and many that I am forgetting right now)

I was fortunate enough to hear Tasmin Little play the Ligeti Vioin Concerto under Sir Simon Rattle and the Berliner Phlharmoniker at last year's Proms (not live I hasten to add, but on radio and then on video) A few years back I would have sniffed at this, muttering "atonal gibberish", but now I seem somehow 'tuned in' and. speaking as a non musician or musical scholar - simply an avid listener, it is just fantastic. Repeated listening nourishes a great piece of music such as that

Apologies to my colleague v russo I seem to have inadvertently 'blended' our messages with no dividing line between the two



------------------
Love from London

[Jin]

It seems more constructive to me to ask what the role of classical music is today versus then. Was folk music the "pop" music of the 18th, 19th and early 20th centuries or was that role fulfilled by classical music? I mean, when John Q Public wanted to play music in the 18th century, he immediately thought of the piano or violin or some such, right? But when someone thinks to play music nowadays, they pick up an electric guitar.

What exactly does everyone define classical music to be? Music with "traditional" instruments? Maybe it's not so much that classical music has been relegated to the sidelines or is stagnant as much that there is no long anything like classical music these days, since composers are starting to use other available techniques and methods. Sometimes I think the divide between popular music and modern classical music is what's keeping modern classical music back; maybe composers need to do a better job of branching out instead of just going to extremes with what they have.

This might be a bad example, but if you look at what Radiohead has done and is doing, they started out with the traditional rock set up, then started using all sorts of other stuff. And the music they've produced isn't altogether strange, but sounds new and very interesting, at least to me.

But then again, I haven't heard too much modern classical. I did go to a concert last week where David Finkel and Wu Han they played some Auerbach (Sonata No. 1 for Violoncello and Piano). Anyone have any views on Auerbach? I found that particular piece interesting at times (the trills in the last movement and the technique of walking the fingers almost to the bridge), but the two instruments didn't seem to "speak" to each other very well. It sounded slightly incoherent.

They played Rachmaninoff's Sonata for Cello and Piano in G Minor op. 19 after the intermission and in marked contrast to the Auerbach -- more fluid and melodic. I enjoyed that more since the instruments seemed to complement each other better, but then I wonder if we're just "conditioned" to like melody, which, after all, isn't inherently good or anything.

On a tangent: does anyone have any world music recommendations? I've been becoming interested in world music. So far I've been impressed by concerts by Ensemble Tartit, Kepa Junkera (sort of Basque) and Mah Damba (from Mali). I've posted some mp3s in my http://www.stanford.edu/~idedalus/Music/world<u>webspace</u></a> if anyone's interested. Warning though: the Auerbach and Junkera stuff is pretty shady quality since I don't have a CD and used a voice recorder to capture it.