A big controversial question.?

Question

Classical music is over.

Do you agree or not?

Here's what i mean:

We started with masters such as Bach and Vivaldi. With pioneers such as Hildegard von Bingen. Then, classical music began to evolve. It took shape. We had certain structures, certain criteria. But they did not suffice. How many Fugues can you eventually write? The structures got old and tedious. New composers came with bright new ideas. Debussy. Beethoven the Bridge. Romanque composers. Step by step, a bunch of those criteria got eliminated. However, it got even better. Then, some weird composers stepped in. They wrote beautiful but weird music, still classical. But that weirdness should not have continued. Classical music was over. New composers were bursting with ideas, but were encumbered by criteria. We MUST have started a whole new era of music. Continuing classical music was utter stupidity. Jazz came. And then eventually rap. (I am continuing. Out of room. )

We consistently say 'rap music is a bastardization of sound' But why did it even start? Because we were late. It was out of control. Just like Newtonian physics is over. Newtonian physics can NOT explain 1/100 of the new phenomena discovered. We needed a whole new branch of music. Just as sophisticated, but different.

The is NO room for creativity left in classical music. We exhausted it.

We brainwashed ourselves into liking music that doesn't make any sense anymore. Such as....hmmmm....Pascal Dusapin. I like his music. But does it make sense to an intact ear? NO. NO. NO. We're all brainwashed. We overanalyzed classical music.

Gershwin and Joplin seemed like outlaws at their time, but they were open minded. Jazz is a style that has so much room left to explore.

We need a new Einstein. But this time, in music.

A new way of expression.

And I forgot this one:

Different performances are over too. We exaggerated everything. Seriously?

AT LEAST COMPOSE!!!
It's so over. If you really want to express yourself, compose. Why should you express yourself throughout somebody else's expression and music?

Music appreciation courses are absurd. You can't possibly force yourself into liking something. or even appreciating it.

You have to delve into any type of music but NOT overdelve into it.

i am not sure if I expressed my point of view very clearly.

I don't hold any grudges against classical music. I adore it. These are thoughts.

but still what I said doesn't mean don't perform any classical music. it just means that some of it is overplayed. to have the experience and knowledge and STILL performing others' music is absurd. horowtiz and cziffra were genius BUT i think they made a grave mistake. They lost their opportunities. They could have composed.

I know what atonality is and I enjoy that 'weird' music. The term just popped up in my head when i was writing. It doesn't make that much sense. I know:))) THANKS FOR ANSWERING.

I agree with the audience satisfaction thing. But still it changed. And I think it changed badly.

YES. I did email that to you. You ARE a dull character. And that's not a sneaky email. Now, I think you should be even more embarrassed. You made it even worse. Because you simply have nothing to say.

BTW, what opinion? Because you obviously don't have any!!!

Your childish behaviour reminds me of 4 years old children snitching on each other. LOL.

Immature.

Answer 1

I disagree with you on most of this. But it is opinion and you are certainly entitled to it. A few things I would like you to think about though.

1. Music certainly does "evolve" over time as you suggest. However, I would encourage you consider though that the laws and rules were not really changing, these are things we created later to explain and describe music that came from earlier periods. When Bach was writing a fugue he never stopped and thought, "oh, I better not put a parallel 5th in here, that would be breaking the rules." What composers went by were the expected performance practices of their time as well as what their audience expected to hear. Now of course there is an aspect of expanding and even breaking those expectations which keeps things fresh and keeps people guessing about what will come next. This is of course where progress in music comes from.

2. The "weird" music you speak of is the atonal music of the modern era. I would not really group this in with the rest of classical music as the composers of atonal music really strove to distance themselves from what had come before. They had the same idea that you do, that everything that could be done with the "rules" of tonal music had been and that any further compositions in that style would be redundant. Now, were they right? In my mind the fact that we don't hear atonal music regularly in the mainstream it would suggest to me that they were not.

3. Finally, I teach a music appreciation class, this is what I tell my students at the beginning of class: My purpose here is not to make you like the music we will be looking at. The reason we will study these pieces is that they are important to people and I will attempt to help you see why.

Answer 2

What an odd set of comments. Firstly, the term 'classical' music in its most general sense is sometimes hard to define in the 20th and 21st centuries. Music has been evolving from the very beginning and still evolves today. To suggest that all ideas are exhausted is stupid - especially when you then contradict yourself by saying more people should compose. What's the point in composing if all ideas are exhausted? I'm not sure what you have against jazz (or rap for that matter) as you do not explain this. Therefore, it is difficult to answer meaningfully.

I think your ideas come from a closed mind and very little real experience. I suspect you do not listen to music widely and form your opinions on just a few pieces you stumble upon along the way.

As for music appreciation classes, all they do is try help people to understanding something better - a bit like someone helping you with the meaning of a complex novel.

Open your mind, listen to as much as you can and glory in the unprecedented variety of music we can enjoy nowadays.

Answer 3

If you say so.

Black is white in your eyes, but in mine it is just a mixture of all the colours I know.

Did Newton realise his laws would eventually be corroded by something as hazy as the Theory of Relativity? I guess so, because after publishing his Principia, he pretty much stopped contributing to the science world and focused on occult stuff. Maybe he thought that someone might be able to stoke a few more burning coals in later years from what he had formed. The same pretty much goes for classical music.

If the masters had stopped writing music, does that mean the end? I digress. Your points, replete they were with truths, were however half-truths. Joplin was a sort of an outcast, but he did compose an opera (Treemonisha) in a very much classical style. And as for Gershwin, most of his musical structure were also based in the age-old sonata form. Heck, he even wrote a piano concerto.

And all of the pop songs we know, hear,being written, love and/or hate are also based on that same sonata form - theme-exposition-transition-development-recapitulation-end. No matter how advanced, real or original a piece of music can be, it still owes its existence to the classical music. I may be stretching things too far, but even the current hip-hop phenomena is also owing much from the classical music. How do you compose a beat that is constant throughout but also will not bore your audience to death? That alone harkens back to Ravel's Bolero, where the beat stays the same, but the melody and the volume intensifies. And in the heart of Stravinsky's frightening Rite of Spring, the extraordinary change of beat after every few staves is the reason why that particular music is so effective. And when he went to America and heard a jazz session, his remark was, "Hey, I invented those sounds!"

As for the atonal music, I think it's simply a brief diversion. And you can deny all you want, but even in the most atonal of them all you can still find structures coming from the simplest, oldest form of classical music. Try to listen to Berg's Wozzeck. These acts in the opera are actually arranged around classical forms, such as passacaglia, preludes, inventions and fugues.

So, no. Classical music is not dead. It is evolving. The Red Queen says that you need to do all the running you can to stay in the same spot, and I have to say classical music has run a long way to be denied of its existence and influence by those few words.

Answer 4

O.K. perhaps you are overanalysing the subject. I can't say as a classical music lover that I suffer from the problem. I take each work that I listen to a face value. If you have read any of my other answers to questions related to this subject you will notice the common thread. In my layman's opinion - classical music is, at least for the time being, done. Nobody has added anything of significance to the classical canon since shortly after WWII. We had 3-4 hundred years of classical music - an evolving process, followed by a de-evolving process until we reach the middle of the last century. At some point pop music took up the baton and essentially superceeded classical. Now art music, other than a small trickle of stuff that is for the most part unlistenable is all that is left. This opinion has led some to say that I am the curmudgeon of the classical forum. I'm o.k. with that. Beethoven was a bit a curmudgeon. The bottom line is... its o.k. There is so much in the canon that it is a lifetimes worth of study.
A new era of music you say... I think you are right! This new era began by classical composers creating new music that broke all the established rules - and ultimately the breakdown of music. The works of the likes of Schoenberg surely signal the end. It takes the devolution to the extreme. Further extrapolation leads from music to just noise. The reaction to this leads to pop music... a form with the most simplified rules... usually 4/4 time ABA structure and a minimal amount of musical training to be able to perform and compose. This of course is a vast generalization, but nevertheless typifies most music from the latter half of the twentieth century. The other form of modern music is completely the opposite... jazz is a form that has the most complicated structure and the highest level of musicianship required to perform it as much of it is created "in the moment." Pop music gained the mass appeal, jazz the minority appeal because many people could not and still can't really understand it... it is to some degree musician's music. Recent classical music is mostly an attempt to continue a development from the first half of the century which really is a dead end and is exemplified by Cage's work much of which is simply noise or the lack of same. Rhythm is gone, harmony is gone - melody difficult to descern.
I disagree with your opinion of music appreciation classes. Not everyone can be a musician, but everyone can learn to appreciate music. Else where would we get critics? I am purely a layman and student of music. I have through listening and learning, learnt to appreciate even music that I do not like.
Beauty, in musical terms has all but gone. Replaced by a new aesthetic that is neither inspired or inspirational. Art music has been steamrollered by the behemoth that is popular culture - to the point that most of the people on the classical forum probably could not name a dozen pieces (how many times does Canon in D, Fur Elise or the Moonlight Sonata get mentioned in questions or answers).
Those of us who love classical music can but try to draw the attention of the likes of young people like yourself, to what is great from those bygone periods of history, in that way continuing an appreciation of these great works. I like to compare classical music with art - how great was Rembrandt, how NOT great was Andy Warhol.

Edit: Your question certainly elicited response. I think you need more time to consider the ramifications of some of the statements that you make. Remember, a few fortunate souls have both the talent, drive and good fortune to spend their lives immersed in the artform that you so glibly condemn as pointless. There is more great music in existence than you can cover in several lifetimes. Because a piece is not "new" does not devalue it - its value grows with the time that it survives and it is not forgotten. As I have pointed out - none of the music that I love so dearly was created during the half century or so that I have been on this earth. It is tragic to me that so little has been created in my lifetime that merits comparison with the great music of the past. I wait for the day when someone can show me something to change my mind. In the meantime I delve into all the treasure that has been left as legacy.

Answer 5

I understand what you are saying except

1. I don't believe that there is no expression left in classical music. I for one get the extreme pleasure of hearing a piece of music and watching the hairs on my arm stand up. I enjoy playing my cello and hitting that high note and feeling the chills roll down my spine and experiencing that. It's orgasmic(no immaturity please) it's the sensation of expressing your feelings through your instrument regardless of who the author of the piece is. I apologize in advance, but if you cannot find a way to express yourself through pieces like Adagio for Strings(sorrow, guilt, pain) or Shostakovich's 8th Quartet(anger, rage, hate, dismay, etc.) then maybe you aren't looking within far enough.

2. We may have lost the shape of traditional composers(fugues&canons) but we have not lost the expression that lies within. Composers now, as much as ever, have reason and inspiration to write the music that they do. Just because it is atonal does not make it non-classical. It is true that pop music and rap music have ruined the soul that is classical composition, but there are some who still thrive to be different, who fight to be who they are, and struggle to compose the music that they draw inspiration from. I am one of these people. The fact that you say that we have lost any ideas to write new melodies is intensely unsettling for if that is true many of us are wasting our time. It is true that my compositions stray slightly from that mould that you insist is essential for all classical music, but I write melodic lines that transfer between instruments and octaves, I write harmonization that IS tonal, so I disagree with what you have said.

I understand the predicament we face, but all hope is NOT lost for there are many of use striving to be that Einstein you have called for....who it will be? No one knows, but eventually...we will find that person and then you can be settled.

Answer 6

oh you expressed your point of view perfectly, and I agree with you on all but 2 points:


1. Yes, composing your own music is WONDERFUL, but what can you use as a base for your compositions if you haven't meddled, so to speak, in others' music?

2. No, no one can MAKE you appreciate music, for *"a man convinced against his will is of the same opinion still," but a good music appreciation teacher can show you music that you DO like.

Answer 7

It's a curious thing, Al., when the questioner supplementaries to a Q by far exceed either in length or frequency the responses -- where's the focus actually placed?

Just one thing:

"The is NO room for creativity left in classical music. We exhausted it."

You just rubbished my life and those of my colleagues who have put everything on the line for many years, without flinching at the ardours. I could take that from another veteran, with the battlescars to show for it that might regrettably have driven him/her to that conclusion, but believe you me, you have no idea how much I resent it coming from a pipsqueak with no track record of any kind. But, as you said. you courted controversy and controversy brings forth, shall we say, 'direct' responses. This was mine. :-/

The good news, of course, is that great music will outlast all of us, so what's the worry. We just serve Her and do our best.

Answer 8

Riddle me this M Debussy ....... how do we know what is classical (in our own time) until it becomes a classic? Was Mozart and Haydn considered "classical" or were they just working for their paycheck? Is Verdi really not classical but just old pop because he suppressed "La Donna e Mobile" until the debut of Rigoletto? much like "artists" do today? Are the film scores of today the new "classics"? Is John Williams the new Meyerbeer? ..... this a question I remember doing in my teens ..... we couldn't answer it then and still can't answer it

Answer 9

Three cheers for Kevin, hip hip hurrah:).

And, three more loud cheers for CubCur: HIP HIP HURRAH!


I just received an e-mail message from debussy. Obviously he is entitled to an opinion but the rest of us are not...so instead of commenting online, he resorts to sneaky e-mails. Here is the message for all to enjoy:

"Subject: Such a dull character!!! You don't even have an opinion of yours!!!

Message: You just cheered for other people. Very dull. Very trivial. "

Answer 10

Newtonian physics is over!? Then I just wasted 2 years studying it in college :P