Future of classical composition

[gapoc459]

400 years from now, do you think people will still look back at Mozart and Bach and Beethoven and consider them the greatest composers of all time? Our culture is advancing exponentially, and we can't predict the future of many concert halls, let alone the entire institution of music. It seems to me that in music there is a constant pressure to innovate, but isn't there a finite amount of innovation before you get to experimental bs? The other day I was on the NEC website and there was a clip of a faculty playing something by John Zorn. It was the most pointless "exploration of piano's capabilities" I've seen. I've already experienced performers reach inside the sound board and create special sound effects. It was interesting the first time, but really, where is the line between experiment and artistic profundity? I'm afraid this post isn't terribly cogent, but essentially I'm just wondering where you guys think we're headed as a cultural institution, and whether pursuing a career in composition is at all worthwhile...

[j_menz]

400 years from now, do you think people will still look back at Mozart and Bach and Beethoven and consider them the greatest composers of all time?

Among, no doubt, but, one would hope, not alone.

where is the line between experiment and artistic profundity?

They are not the same thing, nor a continuum. Experiment is experiment and artistic profundity is artistic profundity. Experiment may, but does not necessarily, create new avenues for artistic profundity. Even when it doesn't, it may have passing interest.

where you guys think we're headed as a cultural institution,

Wherever the future takes us.

and whether pursuing a career in composition is at all worthwhile...

Only if you think you can contribute to that journey.

[m1469]

400 years from now, do you think people will still look back at Mozart and Bach and Beethoven and consider them the greatest composers of all time?

No, but they will still be known, honored, "played", and considered some of the most important composers of all time.  They are foundational, fundamental, and will always be an essential part of the musical fabric.

[pianoman1800]

If enough people hopes there will be a future. All the world's "entertaining" is based on hope and demqnd.

[islandboi8o8]

This is fascinating video from one of my all time favorite YouTubers.  It stands to say that if we have a finite number of possible tunes and an 'infinite' amount of time eventually music will start to sound the same and turn into beeps and bops and then into utter crap, but its not to worry about.  I cannot say that our music is going to stay how it was now, dub-step sounds like my computer on crack.  But think about it from another perspective.  Think about four-hundred years ago.  Did they think the music was going become what it is today?  Just some food for thought.

[kakeithewolf]

I sincerely do not believe humanity will last 400 more years. Idiocy will reach critical mass long before then. That is all.

[khantallis123]

No, someone like U will be considered the greatest

[erick86]

Personally I feel like "classical composition" has gone totally sideways in the last 60+ years.  The majority of contemporary music that I've heard is absolutely awful and utterly forgettable.  It will not be played in 100 years because we will no longer feel obliged to play it.  This atonal, chaotic theme which has dominated the last few decades of composition is a desperate attempt to stay cutting edge, progressive, and relevant.  But I don't see it working. 

There are distinct meaningful themes in many works in the 19th and early 20th century pieces.  But can you imagine anyone getting this piece stuck in their head and singing it gleefully while preparing supper in the kitchen:

It sounds like a mess.  (even though, it's very well played...) 

I attended a contempory piano music gala a number of years ago where one of the pieces finished off with a series of small light nonsense disconnected notes, followed abruptly with the pianist SLAMMING the sh*t out of the keyboard cover with the pedal depressed to give this horror sounding hum out of the entire piano.  What the ***, people.  That is pure trash, and I find it a pity that we even pretend to appreciate it as a cultural institution. 

If you want to stand out as a classical composer, make music that people can connect with.  Chaos is by nature forgettable.  It's going to be the blimp in musical history that people will look back on in 400 years and say, "what were they thinking". 

Call me boring and old-school...

Thoughts? 

Does anyone actually look forward to learning anything massively atonal and chaotic?  Or do you ever throw some on at the end of the day to unwind after a hard day's work? 

Eric

[j_menz]

Call me boring and old-school...

  OK.

More importantly, though - your exposure to "modern" "classical"  music seems to be missing the vast amount of stuff that is tonal (or tonish), tuneful and rather enjoyable - both for the listener and the player. 

[ted]

As an outsider pianist I find it best not to worry too much about these general issues. Just play to create the sounds you enjoy, and which stir your own psyche without too much regard for genre, immortality or greatness. I really think these considerations are a waste of energy better applied to the creative process itself. Aside from that, I am not sure any more precisely what "classical" music is. I think the world of music has grown beyond such classification. Play, create, listen, enjoy, and thankfully leave the philosophical wrangling to everybody else. It's a damned sight easier.

[outin]

Does anyone actually look forward to learning anything massively atonal and chaotic?  Or do you ever throw some on at the end of the day to unwind after a hard day's work?  

Yes to both, although I wonder if I will ever be ready for the first.

I probably would not be able to sing the Messiaen piece in my head anytime soon, but I'd love to listen to it in the kitchen

Hmm...maybe if one has a chaotic mind, atonal music just seems normal and predictability ("distinct meaningful themes" as you put it) seems boring

Thanks for the other link, I have not heard that before...

[thorn]

I think there's a fixed view of what is and is not "good" composition. What we are conditioned to find pleasurable to listen to. Unspoken laws in which these composers are the height of perfection and others are rendered forgettable. Absolutely no difference to children raised under a religion being taught from day 1 how to uphold the tradition. Every generation that dies, there is a new generation that has been bred to replace them.

There will always be people breaking away from that and creating new things and gaining their own little bands of followers (for example the Emperor's New Clothes culture prevalent in modern visual/performing arts), but the traditional Classical world we know today will last forever- though probably the "followers" will diminish over time, as is happening with religion.

[outin]

I think there's a fixed view of what is and is not "good" composition. What we are conditioned to find pleasurable to listen to.

Some seem to have been more easy to condition than others...

What you see as a fixed view has never really been agreed on. Classical music has always been full of controversy and "subcultures". One will easily get an illusion of such a fixed view if one only is exposed to superficial music history/study that is based on a few "great composers" of their time.

A composition may sound good because it follows a set of rules that are previously familiar to the listener. But a composition may also have an internal logic that does not follow any such rules. That doesn't mean that the internal logic is somehow inferior. It may just demand a little more form the listener to find it. If the logic is not there at all or is failing to be consistent, one could say the composition is not good.

Different music is suitable for different purposes. A good composition should be suitable for the purpose it is composed for. I might agree that an atonal composition is not good if it is composed to please an audience full of people, who only like to listen to Mozart

Another matter is whether it's necessary or useful to make comparisions on HOW good compositions are, whether one is better than the other. I'd much rather just say it's a matter of taste.

[inverted]

I hope some kind of return to polyphony and tonality. We have both in "modern" composition - Reich is a staunch opponent of atonality, but tonality isn't accessible when the same idea is repeated with only practically imperceptible modification for 10 minutes. On the other hand a lot of atonal music is very polyphonic, Shoenberg wrote some marvelous polyphony and certainly knew how to cleverly and effectively develop a theme in several voices, but the themes were of course atonal and are difficult to appreciate minus the context of their whole piece.

Basically we have boring harmonies vs energetic dissonances. Ideally we will find a middle-ground. Some composers have already found that ground but they are not the mainstream of contemporary classical. There was a wonderful etude written by Stephen Hough I heard which struck me as the best of modern classical music: irregular metres, complex rhythms, tasteful chromaticism, inventive modulations and harmonies.

Bartok said his aim was to synthesise Debussy's developments in harmony with Beethoven's developments in form and Bach's mastery of counterpoint. Nobody has acheived that yet, nobody ever will, but in my ideal world that would be the summit to which all composers would aspire.

[beethoven_ii]

I've been looking around for good classical contemporary music, but I haven't really turned up
much. Classical music today seems to me to have hit a dead end in terms of new content. Composers have to walk the fine line between originality and musicality, and all too often you hear those who have gone too far to one side: The jarring , atonal style which has proliferated over the last century, and more recently the blase, four-chord pop songs which you hear in every mall and restaurant.What's happening now with pop music is similar to the galante movement at the end of the baroque period. People at the time became tired of the complex, contrapuntal style that proliferated then and for a relaxing evening tune turned instead to galante composers ,whose music was characterized by simple, well defined harmony and an attractive melody as the focus of the piece.Eventually this kind of music was developed by composers like Mozart and Haydn into the Classical style, which reincorporated counterpoint and rhythmic irregularities into something both involvingly complex and attractive.Perhaps a similar transition is underway in today's music. Fingers crossed!

If anybody finds good examples of classical-contemporary music, please share a video or link on this thread, so we can all appreciate it.Perhaps I just haven't heard the good ones. Thanks.

[awesom_o]

I hope some kind of return to polyphony and tonality.

I love composing tonal, polyphonic music!

[pianoman53]

I love composing tonal, polyphonic music!

Praise the lord. Our humble hero is here.

[awesom_o]

Praise the lord. Our humble hero is here.

  This is pianoman53, one of my faithful serving trolls! He's actually a great guy once you get to know him .

[gyzzzmo]

It would be great to know what music remains over 400 year and what hyped music is officially 'crap' by then

[j_menz]

It would be great to know what music remains over 400 year and what hyped music is officially 'crap' by then

Best eat your vegetables and look out for buses then. 

[g_s_223]

Last week I had the privilege of hearing John Adam's Harmonielehre, composed c.1985, at London's Cadogan Hall and it was stupendous. I don't fear for the future of classical music while people of his talent are around. However, the pithy phrase "many are called, but few are chosen" does rather apply...

[beethoven_ii]

Cool. I liked this

[sean528]

I do agree that some of the 20th century music try too hard to shout it out loud "we are different". I mean music is about emotions. Can atonal composition give u the feeling of happiness? I think a mix and match between simple major, minor, atonal should give more color and emotions to music. I think the best development in music belongs to late romantic. I am working on my compositions and I am very much going in this direction.

[visitor]

modern 'classical' (tradition) composition is probably just fine. there is still incredibly deep, moving, beautiful new music being composed and performed. I gave Lauridsen's masterpiece o magnum mysterium, my nod for 'favorite classical piece' of all in that thread.

he continues to quietly put stirring, meaningful, and enjoyable music out. here is one of his latest (i believe just first recorded ever in 1/14), composer himself on the piano

'January of 2014, internationally renowned composer Morten Lauridsen served as composer-in-residence at Wartburg College in Waverly, Iowa. During his visit Lauridsen requested to have the Wartburg Choir record his most recent composition, "Prayer." '

[sevencircles]

400 years from now, do you think people will still look back at Mozart and Bach and Beethoven and consider them the greatest composers of all time? Our culture is advancing exponentially, and we can't predict the future of many concert halls, let alone the entire institution of music. It seems to me that in music there is a constant pressure to innovate, but isn't there a finite amount of innovation before you get to experimental bs?

I believe that the legacy of Bach and also the most important composers before Bach will be considered more important then Mozart and most of the 18-19th century composers (that composed the majority of  the standard repertoire).

There are countless of instruments and electronic possibilities to create groundbreaking music that sounds  great and always will be considered great.

I do believe that itīs important to write pieces that have some kind of connection to famous themes that are currently popular if you want to reach out to a significant audience.

A piece that I really like that might have been a lot more popular if it was released 1985 is the following fugue based on Axel F from Beverly Hills Cop. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6XtuPiSboh8&list=UUfMrlrQdntlUFB5p-bnvZgg

I have never heard about the composer, but I really love his sense for counterpoint and the theme as well.

[nanabush]

I was wondering this too... there are so many variables in the 'fabric' of society, it's really tough to tell where trends will take us in a few hundred years from now 

One thing I find interesting: if you look at composers from 400 years BEFORE Beethoven's time - I don't think I know of any that are household names.  I'm not saying that I don't know of any, I've done quite a bit of music history; but I'm saying for the average person who knows of Beethoven and Mozart, they probably don't know Hildegard von Bingen, or Leonin and Perotin.

Also, I kind of find that 'classical contemporary' is a bit of an oxymoron - and that popular pieces that fall in this genre tend to be super cheesy.  Either that, or it is extremely obscure to the general public.  I played Vox Balanae by Crumb, which was not written long ago.  My god, what an amazing piece... that is some otherworldly stuff, and makes good use of the sounds someone can conjure up with the piano.  My friends/family that came to see us perform it really enjoyed it too.  They said it was 'weird' but in a good way, and that the extended techniques on all three instruments sounded like 'seagulls, whales, wind, etc'.  Like, I think that's pretty cool that a very experimental piece can have an effect like that on the popular audience.

I think that composers from today who will have a profound effect are those who compose for film and game.  300-400 years ago, other forms of media in this genre were not existent.  People can deny it all they want, but there are some extremely promising composers who devote their time into 'lesser activities' like video games haha.  It's just a new form of media (well not super new now... but it's overtaking the movie industry), that old folk don't understand lol. 

==

Before I end up turning this into a rant and end up pointing fingers at random people:  I think the 300-400 years of incredible classical music (I'm gonna say right up until 20th century) was a special thing.  That period in time for music won't go to waste as far as I know.  But I think the names will be less 'household' than they are today...