Why is has it become this way???

Question

Classical music is such an amazingly large range of emotion and expression and yet many people only know certain peices and regard them as the best or their favorite and I am confused as to why that is? If you claim to like classical music I believe you should expand you library.
These are the common pieces that I have found over-rated and/or over used by people as their "favorite":
Eine Kleine Nachtmusik
Pachelbel's Canon in D
Fur Elise
Moonlight Sonata

Know I realize these are regarded as masterpieces, but honestly If you listen to classical music then you would generally get tired of these same 4 pieces when you've heard them 8 billion times.

I just want some of your opinions on why this is how it is in today's society, why classical music has fallen by the wayside so much that about 75% of people will say 1 of these 4 as their favorite classical pieces.

Thanks :D

Addition: I am 17, I am a High School Senior and a prospective BME, I love classical music and I know many of my peers regard me as strange and weird because I enjoy the music that I do, and I wish people would broaden their horizons and listen to composers like Shostakovich, Borodin, Rimsky-Korsakoff, Stravinsky, Boccherini, Dvorak, Sammy Nestico, Barber, Britten, Copeland, Brahms, and many more rather than giving all the accolades that coincide with classical music to Beethoven, Bach, and Mozart.

I put Nestico up there because we have played some of his orchestral music over the past couple of years and learned while out in California from an adjudicator(and peer of his) that his one regret in life was that he was never recognized for the stuff he wrote for orchestra. Which by the way is gorgeous.

I really appreciate the support of this question by all of you. I would like to personally thank all of you for sharing your insight and give your opinion.Of course as a human being, I too have an opinion...I think we as modern people have let classical music in all its forms fall by the wayside for a few main reasons:

1) The simple and stupid pressures of peers to like what everyone else likes. I saw the other day a girl talking about people making fun of her because she's 15 and black and loves Opera, that to me is absurd and ridiculous. We should not allow others to govern our opinions and tell us what we should and shouldn't enjoy.

2) Mindless, inane bable that gives instant gratification(one-hit wonders). Classical composers rarely have a huge spectacular premiere, but their music becomes more evolved and expressive. It tells a story and conveys emotion.

3) We have not had a musical genius surface in quite some time and I think that has caused the genre to suffer dearly.

Answer 1

When your choice of favorite classical music piece is limited to those four pieces, what would you expect such people to pick - after all they can only pick a favorite out of the pieces that they know. Of course many of the people at your school think that you are strange because you listen to classical music, for the most part they are culturally stunted - I have a seventeen year old son, so trust me - I am well acquainted with the problem. To them you do not conform to their concept of what a person from their generation should "like." By that definition you are strange... but don't feel too bad because the rest of us who have similar tastes are "strange" too.
However, because these pieces are rather overexposed does not lessen their value as masterpieces - rather you have to limit your exposure to such work in order to maintain your appreciation of them.
One further comment - I am curious why you would include Nestico in such august company. He was an arranger for Basie and wrote a ton of advertisement jingles - hardly in the league of a Shostakovich or Copland.

Answer 2

I've read everyone's answers. Some people made some very good points. I personally think it comes down to one, single four letter word: LAZY. Yes, we are lazy! Lazy, lazy lazy! Everything (at least here in the US) seems to be about instant gratification. We don't really have to actually THINK about music. We can just turn up the volume and feel the THUMP, THUMP, THUMP. We can kick back, turn on the TV and let the sounds and images fill our waste receptacle brains with more and more junk. On those rare occasions that we accidentally come across true beauty and depth (i.e. the Moonlight sonata or some such), we latch onto it like a newborn baby latches onto it's mother, afraid to let go and try something else.

It's so refreshing to hear a young person that's P-ed off about it! Keep that passion!!


If you haven't heard of From the Top (NPR show that's now on PBS), check it out. There may be some hope for us yet!

P.S. Uh...gee "Whippers", I hate to burst your bubble, but those pieces are all standard repertoire. Get over yourself, dear.

Answer 3

In part it depends on how the question is asked and I mention this because I must plead guilty to quoting two of the pieces you list in response to a question asking for suggestions for 'romantic' piano music. As other respondents to your question have noted, it does depend on individuals' taste, knowledge and experience with classical music and I certainly agree with you that some pieces are overdone to the point of boredom, especially for me Pachelbel's canon and Beethoven's 9th.
I don't agree that classical music has fallen by the wayside. The genre is very healthy, especially in Europe, as the vast recorded repertoire and the wide array of live concert and recital performances show: far more than was available 50 or even 30 years ago. I find today there is a wider selection of classical and jazz on radio than there was in the past, so much so that I now find it difficult to decide what to add to an already extensive recorded music collection.
Even if some peoples' knowledge and experience of classical music is limited to the old chestnuts, it is probably good that they have that exposure, given the audio pollution of endlessly repeated pop and rap on commercial radio. Some do tire of it and I have found they do eventually choose to explore other musical genres. As a young person doing your own exploring, I hope you can take your peers along with you! Good luck!

Answer 4

Being in the classical music business, this has been driving me crazy for years and makes me despair. I have lost count of the number of times I have seen stupid questions in this forum such as 'what is your favourite piece?' and 'who is your favourite composer?' and the answers come time and time again like 'Moonlight Sonata' (which I can hardly listen to now), Pachelbel's Canon (a second-rate piece by a third-rate composer and which now makes me cringe), Für Elise (a lovely little trifle but hardly a work representative of Beethoven's greatness ).

I wonder how many works these people actually LISTEN to, rather than just scooping up the stuff they pick up from commercial radio and TV channels and such like? I also despair at how narrow-minded people are. They seem content to listen to the same pieces over and over and over again and not to take the wonderful adventure that discovering new music can provide. I hear ridiculous comments like 'I like what I know'. Well, correct me if I'm wrong but no-one was actually born knowing Vivaldi's Four seasons, that outrageously overrated Bruch First Violin Concerto or Beethoven's Moonlight Sonata (or, rather, the first movement only of it) - they all had to hear all these pieces for the first time once. So that's why I can't understand why people aren'y hungry to hear more. Do they have such tiny intellects that their poor brain can only take half-a-dozen pieces? I doubt it.

The media are partly to blame. Here in the UK Classic FM churns out the same bite-sized bleeding chunks of classical music time after time and do very little to encourage listeners to take the plunge and discover more. The use of 'popular' classical pieces in film, television and the advertsing world also help make this problem worse.

It's also true that, for cultural reasons that go back hundreds of years, the English-speaking countries are, generally, much more closed minded about 'art' than, say, their mainland European counterparts where people have a much healthier and open-minded approach to music. And - shock, horror - FAMILIES actually go to classical music concerts together.

I fear that we are fighting many generations of cultural stultification, exacerbated by the 'cheapening' of classical music when it is used for the latest Twix advert or as background music in whatever context.

I will continue fighting against this to my dying day and, in my positions programming music for orchestral concerts, will never pander to the small-minded by playing all the same pieces all the time - I ALWAYS include the rare, the slightly odd and the beautiful-but-unknown in my programmes.

I welcomes this question. Thank you for asking it. If only one 'Moonlight Sonata' person thinks about broadeneing their musical horizons it will have done some good.

Answer 5

Well Fur Elise is one of my least favorite popular pieces and I love moonlight sonata. but the general public who don't have a sense of musical thoguth and knowledge aren't exposed really to the great works of many coposers other than Mozart or beethoven. It has always been his way. ow would I kno, I am only 16? But I see it. Play Fur elise, play the entertainer. No. I am tire dof it. Classical, Romantic, 20th Century music, even baroque doesnt get the full exposure it should. They should regard Chopin as the best, or Liszt, Rachmaninoff, Schubert, Schumann, gershwin, debussy are some oof my favorties to listen and to play to. It jus has to do with tehir exposure to other composers and pieces and Their lack of knowledge of the musical language, i guess you can say. This type of music isnt what or how it was regarded long times ago. Therefore, they regard Fur Elise as the most downloaded song ever. I am saddened as a fan and composer of ragtime that people do not kno thew first song to sell 1 million copies, Maple Leaf Rag. I figured it out. The Sting. That dam movie played the Entertainer like 20 times

Answer 6

Well if it makes you feel any better, I am a music major being classically trained and some of my favorites, you've probably never heard of.

Chaconne - Bach

Symphony 6, Appassionata - Beethoven

Te Deum - Paert

Cantata 80 Ein Feste Burg - Bach

Swan Lake - Tchaikovsky

Music of John Rutter

Well Tempered Klavier - Bach

Piano Concerto No. 2 - Shostakovich

Piano Concerto No. 1 - Tchaikovsky

Liebestod - Wagner

Der Ring des Nibelungen - Wagner

Amahl and the Night Visitors - Menotti

Tosca - Puccini

Molly on the Shore - Grainger

Music of Ronan Hardiman, Libera, Robert Prizeman

Answer 7

yes, I agree with you but most people's exposure to classical music is by what they hear on television or radio and advertising agencies choose these same pieces over and over again. It is the same with cell phone ring tones.
I am not sure what you can do about it except grit your teeth and put up with it.
(I am totally puzzled about how people can listen to mindless drivel such as rap or techno for hours at a time.)
Have a look at youtube : Bob Paravonian. He has some interesting things to say about Pachelbel's Canon LOL.

Answer 8

People often learn how to play Canon in D before they learn how to read notes or even play their instruments!!!! lol.

Well, you can't expect somebody who reviews Byonce's biography everyday and spends his/her time gossiping or chatting 24 hrs on MSN to go and search for new classical composers!!!

You have to condescend yourself a bit here because they are never going to broaden their horizons unless they abandon 'rap music' and try to explore a whole new jurisdiction. Somebody who mistakes an ipod with a stereo and listens to loud banging rap music all day cannot possibly have the ability to understand Borodin or Copland!! You make me laugh. Really. Do you think a normal high school student is ever going to listen to Lamentation?

GOOD LUCK!!!