Death of Classical Music

[simoncowellforclassical]

Why? Why? Such a beautiful art form is dying....is the reason the art itself or the blame goes to the  artists of this Genre. I think the blame is the modern artists, the modern performers and classical musicians.

They dont know music!  They shud have been doing something else!

Now all great composers were and are true improvisers in their heart. But these pathetique pianists-performers and classical musicians bang the piano/or their instruments all their life not by note, every piece of mark on the sheet music  and still dont get it....This is one of the reasons Classical Music is dying....While the composers of 18th, 19th and 20th centuries were true innovators the modern performers(inlcuding Lang Lang and bang Bang) are the most boring, the most idiotic and the most insignificant of them all....they dont understand any thing in music, probably they shud have been doing something else.... 

[simoncowellforclassical]

if u play note by note, if u kill improvisation (from Bach to Bartok, everyone improvised) if Mozart have stopped saying music is Bach then there are no further innovations, if Bach had stopped music is all renaissance there is no counter-point, if Liszt had stopped music is all Beethoven there is no harmonic innovations, no pianistic performances, but what happened after that... now every one had stopped in classical and still keeps on playing Mozart and beethoven....COPY CATS, the artists ran out of steam, no further innovations, ofcourse there are some modern musicians but they are all banished by classical pundits as nothing more than improvisers and these classical pundits follow still the same score written by this guy bach 200 + years ago. I mean what kinda stupidity is that.

[pianistimo]

you are mixing up composers and performers.  performers have been in the past also composers - but many performers are not and never will be.  that doesn't mean that they can't practice something to the point 'they own it.'  i think when u own a piece - it is played well enough that whoever is listening enjoys the flow.  it can 'sound' improvised. 

for me, i enjoy music from all the 'periods' of music.  as i learned in a music history class- periods are poor terminology because a 'period' of music may not have ended exactly when an important composer of that period died.  it's not cut and dried.  they often overlapped.  we have some very unusual compositions from the classical and romantic era that used very modern sounding transitions and harmonies.  even haydn was quite wild in his 'chaos' - representing the chaos - of 'the creation.'  if u try to analyze that - u might think that it is a 20th century piece.  also , beethoven's eroica symphony is a bear to analyze until u start understanding that he was 'breaking with form.'

[thorn]

There is only so far something can be developed before it loses its' charm, and there is such thing as overdoing it.

[pianistimo]

that is in repertoire choice and not necessarily covering the entirety of classical music.  if you like classical music - you are not necessarily only listening to the music side - you are also enjoying the 'atmosphere' that makes up that particular music.  if youhave knowledge of the paintings, dance, and sculpture that went along with that musical time frame - you are likely to enjoy the experience more than say someone who was just listening for what they could personally 'get out of it' by their own 21st century experiences.  you have to give a little of urself to get something back out.  invest some time.  look at some period instruments.

or, if you are looking towards playing classically trained music for the 21st century - ur going to look at architecture and painting - and whatever technology that inspires u to realize potentials of things.  music is 3d.  it is not static and flat on the page.  the people who understand this type of music are likely to be 'renaissance' type people who are not just musicians - but have other talents as well.

to develop MORE pianists that are improvisers would take the addition of serious jazz training (improvisation) and would take a tremendous amount of time.  i'm not saying that's bad - it's just that you have to choose what u are going to specialize in.  only a few people have all these talents combined (improvising, composing, playing) and are genius quality    - as liszt and chopin.

classical music is not dying in pennsylvania.  the reason is that music class is a required course.  they start with music history, progress to reading staves/notes, playing a recorder.  later, kids have to choose between choir or band.  this is excellent, imo, because unless you are exposed to something - how can u choose if you like it or not.  you just don't know until u try it.  to actually know how to sight read music and to know about instruments is just as important in my mind as learning algebra.  why should these things be cut from public schools?  make a stink.

[ted]

I wouldn't have expressed it quite as vociferously as Simon, but I think there is more than a germ of truth in what he says and I am inclined to agree with him, and not just for classical styles. Creation as a natural function of piano playing, aside from the narrow confines of the jazz idiom, HAS been suppressed, and we are all musically the poorer for it. I improvise and compose fluently and I'm certainly no genius. These functions, the ability to immediately express our deepest thoughts in sound at the instrument, are surely the rightful property of anybody who plays the piano. The fact that they are rarely found is not an indication that they need a prerequisite of genius, but that they are simply neither taught nor encouraged.

If I couldn't create at the the instrument I wouldn't bother playing at all. 

[ramseytheii]

As Charles Rosen, the scholar-pianist, once wrote, “The death of classical music is perhaps its oldest continuing tradition.”

Walter Ramsey

[houseofblackleaves]

I don't think it's dead!?!?! 

You kinda mixed up classical music itself and lyricism.  I guess from a perspective of all music as a whole, classical/opera/etc. are lower in social popularity, but not "dying" or "dead."  Whether a performer plays to the "emotional" standard of a peice or not compeltely relies on the experience, maturity, and all around understanding of a certain peice of the perfomer.

Yes, people nowdays do take it for granted, and are amused by the "bang bang," without actually liking the music itself.

I think that there is no one and nothing to blame for classical music's unpopularity.  100 years ago they didn't have electronic instruments and vocal music outside opera/choir/church etc.  And I think that the reason that it held out so long is because that's all there was.

Now is different.

We have more types of music... if I want to go to a concert, theres more than instrumental to pick from.  (Even though I myself probobly would go to an orchistra or solo piano recital than an actual "concert") And people take advantage of that.  What we have present day.  It's what we do.  It's what they did 100 years ago.  It's what we've got, and people want what they like best.  Which may or may not be "classical" music.

[jas]

There's a really interesting book on this subject by Norman Lebrecht called When the Music Stops: Managers, Maestros and the Corporate Murder of Classical Music. It's a bit "doomsday", but a good read.

if u play note by note, if u kill improvisation (from Bach to Bartok, everyone improvised) if Mozart have stopped saying music is Bach then there are no further innovations, if Bach had stopped music is all renaissance there is no counter-point, if Liszt had stopped music is all Beethoven there is no harmonic innovations, no pianistic performances, but what happened after that... now every one had stopped in classical and still keeps on playing Mozart and beethoven....COPY CATS, the artists ran out of steam, no further innovations, ofcourse there are some modern musicians but they are all banished by classical pundits as nothing more than improvisers and these classical pundits follow still the same score written by this guy bach 200 + years ago. I mean what kinda stupidity is that.

People do still compose and improvise. Unfortunately, the whole cultural climate has changed, and they don't get the kind of attention they would in an ideal world.

But if you think of the alternative to what classical music is like now -- ie. the works that have real popularity are generally 100 years old or more. Before the nineteenth century, no one played past music. In Bach's time there were no concerts of Palestrina, in Mozart's time there were no concerts of Bach, and in Beethoven's time there were no concerts of Mozart. It wasn't until the nineteenth century that there was even a concept of "early music" (or earlier music). One generation was supplanted by another and that was that. But now, we can hear music going way back to the 1000s and beyond; we have a hugely diverse musical back-catalogue, if you like. We've got literally 1000 years worth of music to pick from. If things had stayed as they were, we wouldn't have that. We'd have lots of modern composers who, like today, probably wouldn't get a great deal of public attention, and no well-love "classics" to listen to because they'd be forgotten about.

Anyway, it's usually posterity with which a composer becomes really great, so you never know what's going to happen with today's composers. I agree that it's a shame that there isn't more composing going on today, but the whole music industry has been taken over by crappy pop, and classical music just doesn't get the funding it deserves. Sad but true. But classical music and modern classical music are very much alive, if a bit less widespread than it used to be. It hasn't totally gone out the window.

Jas

[Derek]

Yeah...another thing is most classical musicians are absolutely convinced that everything that can be said with melodic, easily listenable and enjoyable music has all been said/discovered by the masters of western composition. From personal experience I can say this is total nonsense. Music is an utterly vast landscape. Once you get really fluent with improvising, even with a non virtuosic technique, you will find that it isn't difficult at all to make each improvisation totally different from your last except for your overall style.

[ahinton]

"...has been widely exaggerated..."

Not my line, sadly!...

Best,

Alistair

[jason2711]

Before the nineteenth century, no one played past music. In Bach's time there were no concerts of Palestrina, in Mozart's time there were no concerts of Bach, and in Beethoven's time there were no concerts of Mozart. It wasn't until the nineteenth century that there was even a concept of "early music" (or earlier music).

I don't think this is true so much... Beethoven as a child was forced to learn Bach and Haydn, and Liszt himself performed the forty eight prelude and fugues for beethoven (allegedly transposing into any key asked by the old man).  It's maybe just that the concerts of contemporary music at that time were much more memorable than regurgitating already heard works.

For example, imagine Rachmaninoff premiering his third piano concerto.  It would have been a great occasion, with the exclusion of a couple of snooty critics.  Now imagine him playing Beethoven's 3rd instead that night.  Magnificent piece performed by a magnificent pianist, but I doubt it would have been remembered in the history books for ages.

As for the direction of classical music, I think part of it may be down to improvising.  It's through improvisation that we're able to explore the possibilities of our instrument and so it's only really through that that we are able to create new music.  I think too many modern composers are a bit too 'ivory tower' in that they compose 'intellectually' (and not even that a lot of the time) and don't have the musical affinity that previous composers have.  Perhaps a lot of the great composing potential has been distracted by other musical forms, which don't quite show it as well.

I don't think classical music will ever die, but it is degenerating... we just aren't sure where to go with it yet.... much has been tried, but much of that is rubbish.  In time the good modern stuff will emerge and will get passed on through natural selection, hopefully.

[jas]

I don't think this is true so much... Beethoven as a child was forced to learn Bach and Haydn, and Liszt himself performed the forty eight prelude and fugues for beethoven (allegedly transposing into any key asked by the old man).  It's maybe just that the concerts of contemporary music at that time were much more memorable than regurgitating already heard works.

Oh, I know that composers and musicians learned from earlier composers. I meant that there wasn't any widespread public performance of it. Only musicians tended to be familiar with earlier music, while the general public just didn't have access to it, unlike today, when we can hear concerts of almost anything. Then in the nineteenth century there was this fascination with the past, and you could hear concerts of a lot of earlier music. But even then they left their stamp on it; Liszt was known to alter things on occasion, and Mendelssohn's performance of the St Matthew Passion would have been seen as sacreligious today! Wasn't until the 20th c. that authenticity became a factor.
 
Jas

[ronde_des_sylphes]

I think there are two main issues.

Firstly, classical music is no longer the idiom to which children are likely to be exposed to; there are plenty of other forms out there. Can you imagine that Liszt would be as famous/notorious if he lived today? His agent would probably suggest an affair and urgh, a "crossover" album with, for example, J-Lo.

Secondly, art has historically shown a tendency to disappear up its own backside in the process of its evolution (in some cases, becoming embarrassingly self-referential). I'm sure that Jackson Pollock, Damien Hirst, etc are probably less likely to be appreciated by the general "uninformed" public than, for example, Rembrandt or Monet. It's probably a cheap analogy, but the same surely applies to any random modernist when put alongside Beethoven or Debussy?

This occurs because, as artists/composers are intellectually curious, the progressive ones do not wish to stand still, and seek to push the boundaries of their art form (I am certainly not arguing that this is a bad thing, btw). However, for those who are less "artistically educated" or whoever you wish to put it, perhaps it renders the end result less accessible? And music, like art, has reached such a point.. where modern classical music is inaccesible to many and the music of Beethoven, Bach etc is wrongly perceived as passé and redundant because the composers are dead?

[le_poete_mourant]

Imagine 1% of the 8 billion people on this planet want to listen to classical music.  And that's a conservative figure.  That's still eight million people.  I don't think that qualifies classical music as dead.  In fact, as long as one person is listening to it, it's still alive. 

Everybody worries too much about this.  But the fact is, as people get older, they mature, and they want deeper meaning to their music.  I believe they will naturally drift towards classical music.  Perhaps more people attended concerts sixty years ago, but then again, they were still mostly an older crowd.  The problem with pointing at declining attendance is that the recording industry has exploded so much, we accept it as just as good as live music (which it is not).