Is classical music dying?

[superstition2]

Pop music isn't meant as an art form.

Have you heard the early Cure records like Seventeen Seconds, Faith, and Pornography? What about Joy Division's Closer? Have you heard the Cure song "Plainsong" from the album "Disintegration"?

All music is art. Some examples of pop music are more interesting than others. Britney Spears isn't even as good as ABBA, and ABBA was very mainstream. The ABBA song Voulez Vous is good, as is Dancing Queen and several others. I can appreciate even mainstream pop music, if it's done right. Similarly, I like the pop art paintings of Roy Liechtenstein despite liking a great deal of classical art, Western and Eastern.

Modern pop music is a veritable wasteland to me. I wasn't alive at the time, but it seems to me that the 60s was a more mature/fertile period for music. We've gone back to something more like the 50's business model. The music is formulaic. The bands are interchangable and often produce nothing but one or two shallow singles. Even the sonics are regressing, with the emphasis on very lossy mp3 compression and square wave mastering (clipping).


As for the main concern of this topic... I think classical music is continuing to decline in popularity. Borders used to have a large portion of its stores devoted to classical music, and now there is very very little. The Naxos discs have even been put into the major label bins because it seems the company isn't ordering many new discs, if any.

[prometheus]

Surely not all music is art. A ridiculous, but correct, example would be jingles opening tv programs. Sometimes these are very short. Surely this isn't art, whatever art may be.

ABBA is good but Britney Spears is? I don't see much difference. Surely for almost all pop music it was never intended as art. When something is intended to entertain it can not be art.

And some pop music isn't even made to entertain, but just to make money.


And classical music is continuing to decline? Since when? Yeah, stores cut in their assortiment, at least here where I live. I am not familiar with a shop called 'Borders'. If you want to buy music you either go to a specialised shop, or you buy it online. Normal CD stored don't sell much the average music enthasiast would be interested in. Classical music, with a few exceptions, was never popular. It has always been something enjoyed by a select few for a select few.

[superstition2]

Just because something isn't art to you doesn't mean it's not art to anyone else. Commercial art is called commercial art because it's art. Arguing that something that's produced to make money isn't art is illogical.

Jingles are art to some people.

Borders was once a great place to buy classical music. It had a huge selection. It's possible that the Internet had hurt sales. It's also possible that classical music is continuing the steady decline it's been in since Horowitz's early years, a time he said a pianist like himself was akin to today's rock stars. Poetry declined even more in importance between the 18th century and today.

[bernhard]

If have been following this thread with a mild interest.

The main thrust seems to be that an activity is dying/dies unless there is a massive public interest in watching it.

I beg to differ.

The watching public is of little interest to the health of any activity, except for producers and the like, who then have the opportunity to make obscene amounts of money.

What makes for the health of an activity is, instead, the number of people doing it, that is, engaged in a commited way to that activity.]

Often one hears the idea that unless people listen to a certain repertory, it will disappear. This is not true. A piece disappears form the repertory not when the general public loses interest in it, but when performers stopped playing it. As long as a performer keeps playing it, the piece will remain in the repertory. (e.g., Alkan came back to the repertory not because the public demanded it, but because performers like Hamelin decided unilaterally to play it).

This is true for everything. Is ice-skating dying? Just because there is less public interest in it than, say, football, does not mean that it is dying, since there are enough people doing it to sustain the activity. And no amount of public interest will keep football alive if no one wants to play it anymore, no matter ow much people may want to watch it.

The martial arts are a very good example of this sort of thing. There is a huge industry devoted to martial arts – and until the advent of martial arts movies – completely sustained by people wishing to learn it and practise it. In fact due to a tradition of secrecy, public displays for the general public entertainment (like in boxing and more recently in the Olympics) were non-existent (and some traditionalists – me included – would argued that transforming the martial arts in a “sport” for public consumption is what will eventually kill it).

Often Victorian times are quoted as one of the great ages of piano, not because everyone was going to concerts, but because everyone was playing it (there was no TV, radio or computers, and it was deemed a desirable social skill and a husband catcher activity).

Engaging in an activity privately is far less visible than being a passive watcher. The true health of music is not going to be ascertained by how many people go to concerts, or even by how many CDs are sold, but rather by how many pianos are sold, and how many music scores are produced or even by the number of members of pianostreet. Considering these three indicators, I would say that classical music is doing fine.

And so is collecting stamps.

Best wishes,
Bernhard.

[prometheus]

Arguing that something that's produced to make money isn't art is illogical.

I don't see why this is. Surely this is obviously wrong when the artists intention is part of the definition of art.

Commercial art? Whats that? And opening sounds of tv programs are considered art by some people? Are you sure? So everythning created by man is art?


What have rock stars to do with anything? People want stars, they want people that are bigger than life, gods, kings, emperors, dictators, rock stars, pianists, writers, painters, scientists, philosophers, politicians, athletes, anything can be an idol. This is is a self fulfilling propecy. This isn't a side product of piano popularity.

[berrt]

What makes for the health of an activity is, instead, the number of people doing it, that is, engaged in a commited way to that activity.]

I think both active and passive engagement is necessary. When there was no recording possibility (in victorian times) performer and listener had to meet at the same time at the same location - this now can be split (i think that is a good thing). There will be always enough buyers of classical music to keep up economical interest for the industry, even if it is not such a monstrous money-making machine as pop music.
Moreover, from time to time there are pop-star-resembling heroes who reach the pop-listeners, eg anna netrebko, lang lang (btw, i like both of them!)

berrt

[superstition2]

The main thrust seems to be that an activity is dying/dies unless there is a massive public interest in watching it.

Not massive. Let's consider the influence and popularity of poetry in the 18th century and today. Slam poetry is mildly popular, and there are innumerable amateurs and students. But, professional poetry has dramatically lost popularity and influence.

Writers have said classical music was the pop-rock of the past. It has lost influence. It does seem to be slowly losing popularity and influence, like poetry. It's probably difficult for most of us to see the progression, since classical music lost its place in the center of the music world quite a long time ago.

Classical isn't going to die out completely, but Borders has basically killed their once extensive classical selection, probably due to competition from the Net, and the majority of people I know, most of them professors, don't listen to classical music unless I make CDs for them. Pop music isn't very healthy right now. Music itself may be losing influence. It may be becoming more of a commodity and less of an art form, at least in the way it's treated. There is now computer software that analyzes pop songs to determine which songs should be turned into singles and which bands should be signed. While classical hasn't hit that rock bottom and won't, there is definitely a relatively new sub-type of classical, the mainstream-public radio-Wal-Mart "greatest hits". Turn on WGUC in Cincinnati and you'll hear something with strings, probably from the baroque period. Lite fare... Once upon a time, classical music wasn't just "background music", as it is to a lot of people I talk to, including Ph.D professors. The 20th century focus on dissonance and flash is probably partially responsible for the loss of influence-importance. How many people can enjoy a Rautavaara piano concerto or sonata? I don't even like them.

[superstition2]

I don't see why this is. Surely this is obviously wrong when the artists intention is part of the definition of art.

Commercial art? Whats that?

Oh, come now. Surely you don't believe that art is never created to make money. Scriabin published Vers la Flamme before he was finished developing it because he needed money. Rachmaninov worked as a concert pianist and had little time for composition because he needed to make money. Commissions are older than Bach.