Does it make anyone else almost upset that classical music is no longer a major institution...

Does it make anyone else almost upset that classical music is no longer a major institution? Classical music used to have so many big names, even leading up to the early 20th century, with artists like Ravel, Stravinsky, and Bela Bartok. Classical music has essentially died, there are no great works of modern classical being made anymore. No, I don't consider minimalism great, I consider it very weak and uninspiring.

Classical music is...classical.
It can't be modern if it's classical.

You may look into 900 composers like Nono, Maderna, Berio, Stockhausen if you like hard stuff.

It's classical music because it's not modern? That's fucking bullshit, your logic is bad.

>No, I don't consider minimalism great, I consider it very weak and uninspiring.
Meh, there's been people like you who felt the same way about every new wave of art music. It wouldn't be art music if it wasn't pushing what we consider palatable. You'll more than likely be on the same side of history as the people who thought that the Stravinsky was bringing music in the wrong direction and in 50 years or so with the likes of Glass and Reich will become more widely accepted in the same way Stravinsky has.
You wanna listen to popular new neo-classical music? Go listen to a good film score or something. That's where your "big names" are at nowadays.

Further proof that Carter is underrated.

You're basically saying that because minimalism is new, and because I dislike it, I will be on the side of luddites and people conservative about music. This is another stupid and actually sort of frustrating argument for me to hear, it's just nonsense.

Demise of the European nobility means there can be no grand style anymore. Death of Stravinsky in 1971 signified the end of the tradition.

>No works of great modern classical being made
That's because it's creatively bankrupt. Atonality and minimalism were a last wind for it as the genre pushing the envelope.

Most modern classical nowadays is written for soundtracks, and that's it, since it's the only way to make the genre lucrative. Musicians who really want to play with things like atonality, timbre instruments, and extreme dissonance are more likely to flock elsewhere now.

>Who is Alma Deutscher? – The Thread.

Classical music hasn't died.

>classical is so easy even a11 year old girl can do it

really.......makes......you......think

No one is saying its dead altogether, just that its sad it's not as popular as genres like Hip Hop or Rock.

gud jok m9

Sure, but it's not like the great classical music was readily available for the masses back when it was written.

Actually it really is. By modern technological standards you can compose a classical piece easily in an Audio program, print the sheet music and let it play by an orchestra, it sounds the same as any stuff by well known composers. Most of the stuff you know isn't really complex.

The "great classical music" was written for the nobility first, the haute bourgeoisie second, church hierarchs third. None of these groups exist or have any significance today.

>it sounds the same as any stuff by well known composers. Most of the stuff you know isn't really complex

No and yes. You can definitely tell the difference.

How do you want to tell the difference If I took a very skilled orchestra and professional recording methods? Honestly, you would throw at least bach to the trash.

Classical music IS the music you listen to now. It just evolved. Without classical music, we wouldn't have headphones.

Not all classical music is as formulaic as Bach, are you seriously saying that one could computer-generate a violin concerto that somebody would mistake for, say, Prokofiev? Seems inconceivable to me.

why are people responding to this retard?

Why not? He was absolutely right in what he wrote, classical music is a style not a period.

I agree with you on minimalism, but there are many great composers today.

I know that, that's why I said at least but Bach is an easy one to compete with.

Not computer-generate, but compose it with the help of a computer program, including a midi controller. It's still composing if you record midi layered, writing sheet music is the same thing as using a pre WW1-Engine in your car: A waste of time and energy.

Once the program has registered your composition, you got to export it to sheet music and hand the papers to an orchester and they'll play it for you so it sounds like a genuine classical piece and you surely would fail to distinct such a piece from other, older ones in a blindfold test.

Yes.

The only big names I can think of are the Finns and minimalists. Minimalism feels like it was pushed by orchestras to lure people back into new music after serialists scared everyone off. It's a trendy time we're living in, stuck with Arvo Pärt and John Luther Adams worship because it's convenient.

You're not completely wrong, but classical music has always been a genre pushing itself forwards.

It's not hard to write like Bach because Bach's music isn't complex by modern classical standards. Any old schmuck who wants to try their hand at writing in Debussy's or Bartok's style will find it much more difficult and even with computer aided composition it will sound completely different.

The problem isn't that it's easily imitated, the problem js most people who can compose like that or the people that want to experiment with sound aren't going to do it for orchestra or even solo instruments when they can just get a computer to do it. At that point it stops being "classical" in the classical sense.

>but compose it with the help of a computer program, including a midi controller
That's just more convenient than writing sheet music but if you suck at one you suck at the other too.

>Bach
>formulaic
pls kill urself.

>classical music is no longer a major institution
Have you been living under a rock? classical music is a massive institution, probably always will be.

>writing sheet music is the same thing as using a pre WW1-Engine in your car: A waste of time and energy.
It has 3 very important uses:
-A way to communicate with professional performers - ie. get them to play your music.
-A way to store your music so it lasts forever (at least as long as the score lasts) look at renaissance music - we can still hear it 500 years later
-A way to analyze what's going on in the music. This is more for musicologists and other composers to learn from you, you probably dont have to worry about that.

Maybe you're not familiar with how composers operate, but they pretty much always use written scores. You want to score a film and use an orchestra and choir - you have to use written score. You want to have a string quartet part for your [insert popular music genre] piece? you need to use written score. You want to ave a piece played at a concert by a classical performer? you need a written score.

Written scores are the language of the classical world, an integral part. You may not understand if you're not part of that world.

>It's not hard to write like Bach because Bach's music isn't complex by modern classical standards
I would disagree, it will always be hard to write like Bach, because none of us are Bach. We can study his scores and emulate his style all we like, but he wrote all that stuff from his heart and brain. It wasn't based on just chords and counterpoint, there was a base creativity behind it that few have.

>are you seriously saying that one could computer-generate a violin concerto that somebody would mistake for, say, Prokofiev?
Yes it is possible, the question is the overall complexity of algorithms.

>tfw you're the dreamer that remains

Name 5

M
I
N
A
L

Aerbach, Lachenmann, Ferneyhough, Tavener, Psathas.

>Ferneyhough
eughhh

Of course not, music moves on, just like all things do.

You can only keep people interested with the same things for so long. It's like saying there are no more great blues artists... it had it's day, let's instead look at the types of music that might soon be going into their pinnacle era of creativity

Yeah actually, I was. Based on the trend of every other movement in modern music from romanticism to serialism that's gone through the same process where fans of art music gradually become acclimatised and the form becomes accepted.
However, after considering the fact that the argument is both "stupid" and "nonsense", I've changed my opinion. Nobody will like minimalism in 5 years.

That's bullshit because I grew up after all of these movements have passed, and I got all of them at once. I didn't grow up with Modernism and then decide that I hate minimalism because it was too new and strange. I discovered them all on my own, and I decided after listening to things like the baroque period, the romantic period, and the modern period, that minimalism is just lazy crap and doesn't even hold a candle to what music was hundreds of years ago, with vivaldi and bach, nor does it hold a candle to the biggest names in modernism. Hell, I listen to fucking Le Sacre Du Printemps all the time, and I didn't go "hey, this is too new and different" and then come around, no that's my favorite and I determined through observation that minimalism like music for 29 musicians or whatever the fuck it was called is BS.

I hope you have a degree in composition before forming that opinion.


Ferneyhough is great, you just have to listen for micro details. each listen reveals new details in different areas or layers. Its like a fractal. His premises for his pieces are also very interesting. Smart guy.

>I hope you have a degree in composition before forming that opinion.
No. I'm a nobleman. I don't need your stinking degrees to detect a case of rotting decadence.

If you understood classical music, you would begin to understand Ferneyhough. He's not for the philistines.

Geners go in and out of mainstream consciousness all the time. Can't see clasical coming back in style anytime soon though.

It's still big in certain countries.

Just certainly not America, that's for damn sure.

I don't think it's a matter of "we've run out of ideas" or whatever, I think it's a matter of funding and changing interests. Classical music is (and has been) dependent on the patronage of the wealthy and powerful, much more than other genres. And that support has waned, especially compared to when churches and nobility were huge supporters.

Wealthy and powerful just use classical to launder their money now desu

not really user. These days classical composers utilize grants, take up composer-in-residence positions, get commissions, and many even work day jobs as professors at colleges or universities. There's still plenty of support for creating new classical pieces, and new pieces are being premiered every day.

>That's bullshit because I grew up after all of these movements have passed, and I got all of them at once. I didn't grow up with romanticism and then decide that I hate modernism because it was too new and strange. I discovered them all on my own, and I decided after listening to things like the baroque period, the classical period, and the romantic period, that modernism is just lazy crap and doesn't even hold a candle to what music was hundreds of years ago, with vivaldi and bach, nor does it hold a candle to the biggest names in romanticism. Hell, I listen to fucking Tristan and Iseult all the time, and I didn't go "hey, this is too new and different" and then come around, no that's my favorite and I determined through observation that modernism like Le Sacre du Printemps or whatever the fuck it was called is BS.

Wow, it's almost like if you took the text of your post and switched around the names, it'd fit with any initially controversial movement/piece.
Give a concrete reason why your disregard of minimalism is any different from people disregarding impressionism or any other movement that was historically rejected when it first emerged.
You may not of "grown up" with art music but you almost certainly heard plenty of it and listened to popular music that's been informed by overall trends in modern music. That stuff is bound to have affected your palate which is why, people who haven't listened to classical music ever can enjoy Debussy but most reviews 120 years ago were very critical of stuff like Prélude à l'après-midi d'un faune that has gone on to be considered a landmark work.

What you're talking about is the modern day equivalent of patronage, and I'm well aware of it (governments and nonprofits are the biggest "patrons" now).

But those grants, residencies, etc. are also extended to many people outside of classical music, like jazz, "world" (for lack of a better term), musicology, musical theatre, and even popular music. The "plenty of support" you're talking about is much less than what it was a hundred years ago.

Can you write me something as good as Mass in B Minor user? You surely owe it to the world if you can

Churches and nobility/rich people are still huge supporters of classical music though. Possibly even more so than 100 years ago. Combine that with governments and corporations and classical is pretty well supported. Its not as well publicized as popular music, so those not in the know tend to believe its not happening, but its happening. Like I said before, new works being premiered all the time, many many performances every day.

>nobility today

Do you have anything to back that up? Older classical musicians I know have said the exact opposite, that things have only waned over the years and it's harder to find grants and support than it was. Some of the things you're claiming just sound unrealistic, but maybe it's different where you are.

Also I think you're mistaking my "not as much funding as it used to" argument for "no funding at all" because you're just pointing out things that demonstrate existence, not improvement.