There seems to be a branch in contemporary classical music. On one there are the atonal composers carrying on from what Shozzy started and on the other there are the tonal composers like Einaudi. Which one is acceptable, or more importantly, which do you prefer?

Both are acceptable. A composer should compose what he/she wants hear.

Which do I prefer? Either, or neither. Depends how good it is.

It depends what a composers goals are. If he wants to make a living and be famous, film and television music are the way to go.

If he writes truly what he "wants to hear", he may be relegating himself to eternal obscurity, because there is no demand for new works for the sake of art.

A good compromise is to compose small scale works for solo instruments, in whatever idiom you choose. Take Hindemith for example. He wrote sonatas, sometimes several, for every single wind instrument, and they are played by hundreds of conservatory and university students every year.

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I think a composer should compose from their heart, create something they truly love...and not be limited to a certain style or practice

I wasn't aware that Shostakovich wrote any, or much, atonal music. He wrote mainly in neo-chromatic style. Atonal music was started by the Second Vienese School (Shoenberg et al): "just a load of notes bunged together", as suggested by one poster here recently.

As for what style modern composers should write, if they want to make a living they should write in the style for which there is a demand and for which they have a comparative advantage. Pretty obviously there's no point writing in a style for which for which there is no demand, or for which they have no comparative advantage.

I would have thought that the biggest demand these days is for film and other incidental music, which is mainly tonal.

"if they want to make a living"

But surely, that should not at all be the primary motive behind a composer's work?

Both Kurkikohtaus and I have made the same point.

If composers simply write material they like or which they are good at, regardless of what the market wants, the resulting works may not be successful. If so, neither the composer nor audience will be satisfied.

A necessary condition for a good composer is that they meet their audiences' requirements, and maybe lead them to some extent. But he may not be successful. A sufficient condition for a successful composer is one who is/was very good at composing the type of music that audiences wanted.


Topaz

Composing today is surely not like it once was, but I can`t help thinking of all those composers, famous now, but who were neglected, underappreciated, often poor, sometimes even having their works booed... Composers such as Schubert. Here`s a quote from wikipedia about him - 'Yet, during his lifetime, public appreciation for his work was for the most part, limited at best. He was also never able to secure adequate permanent employment and for the majority of his career, relied on the support of friends and family. However, interest in Schubert's work increased dramatically following his death in 1828.'

Some composers suffered for their art...

Anyway, I think people who are mostly interested in being famous and successful go into some line of work other than composing, maybe music oriented but certainly in some other genre than classical, because the really big payoffs these days are not in classical. Unless perhaps if one counts John Williams as a classical composer...

Am I naive in thinking that composers mainly compose to express something (an idea?) Some of them surely do. If so, the composer is surely the only one who knows how he/she should express it. I don`t know how many, nor which concern themselves with other issues, nor which issues; there are surely many issues involved, some maybe to a greater extent than others.

As to atonal vs tonal, I can only judge by my own personal taste. I like composers who stray as far as possible from tonality without losing it entirely. Generalizing there, but that`s what I tend to like the most from composers.

Btw, the one work I heard by Einaudi consisted of the same four chords, broken, on the piano. I`m afraid I got bored, and did not finish listening to it. Maybe I`d like some of his other works better, I don`t know. Maybe he`s a minimalist...

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Not that "rojo" was actually saying this, but any suggestion that Schubert was some kind of recluse who simply did his own thing is plain wrong. You have to read a bit more than a quote or two from Wikipedia to get the correct picture.

1. The experience of Schubert fits exactly the description I gave: he composed the kind of music he was good at, and for which there was a demand. He had a particular gift for song-writing and melody, and some of his greatest admirers were singers for whom he wrote a lot of material to meet that demand (lieder). He also wrote three symphonies by the age of 19, and completed the fourth shortly after. So any notion that he only wrote music to please himself is complete nonsense. Moreover, no-one is saying this formula for writing music will lead to guaranteed or instantatenous success.
   
2. Although he was generally content with modest public success, there is evidence that he was occasionally disappointed that he did not enjoy rather more. He sometimes used to get very depressed about the lack of it, especially over the failures of several operas due to poor librettos.
   
3. Remember too that Schubert's life was very short. He died at 31. His composing career (about 13 years) is by far the shortest on record among any of the greats. If he had lived a few years longer (after the memory of Beethoven had died down) it's likely his reputation would have grown considerably in his own lifetime.
   
4. He also lived in the shadow of the great Beethoven - who enjoyed a strong reputation - for most of his life, which must have had a negative effect on anyone else's reputation.
5. In addition, Schubert knew about 5 years before he died that he had an incurable disease from which he would eventually die at an early age. This must have affected his outlook, so the usual motives of seeking lifetime fame and glory were, to say the least, less striking in poor Schubert's case.

In other words, I don't think the case of Schubert affects the validity of my view at all. On the contrary, it is fully consistent with it. Indeed, I would not have written it were it not for this and other similar examples of successful composers.


Topaz

Good thing for us Schubert didn`t switch profession in search of more success and fortune!

A few posts ago, Topaz wrote:
I didn't remember what exactly he was reacting to, so I went to the original post and discovered the sentance that I must have missed the first time.

This is a little bit off-topic, but I simply cannot NOT react to that statement. Shostakovich is one of the few "major" composers in history who started absolutely nothing. I can't think of a single thing that Shostakovich "invented" or even "furthered". I'm not saying that he is un-original, as his melodies, themes and sounds all bear a very deep Shostakovichian stamp, but the tools that he used to create his pieces are all borrowed... no, that sounds derogatory... his tools are inherited from earlier traditions. This is not in any way a bad thing, but on the other hand, one should not say that Shostakovich started anything.

His orchestration stems from Korsakov and Tchaikovsky, but is much less "advanced" and original than Strauss and Mahler...

His harmonic language is a feeble echo of the "Tonal Pan-Chromaticism" introduced by Wagner and Strauss and developped to the extreme by Stravinsky...

His forms are based on Classical conventions, but he does nothing towards the unification that Sibelius and even Beethoven sought for...

What Shostakovich did was take a little bit of this and a little bit of that and mixed it all together in a big loud bang that we hear as the "original" Shostakovich that we know and love...

But he didn't start anything.

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I take your point but I don't think he would have succeeded, even if he had felt obliged to try something else.

He first trained as a schoolteacher but spent only 2 miserable years at it.

His formal training as a musician was limited. I should have added that at the age of 18 he had also composed two Masses, the second of which (D 167) was a staple of the R.C. Liturgy for much of the 19th C. Also, one of his most famous songs, "Erlkonig", was written when he was 18. Thus, by his 20th birthday he had composed some 500 musical works including these 2 Masses, 5 operas, several sonatas, a wealth of Lieder, several string quartets, and five symphonies!

Not surprisingly, by the age 21 he had in fact achieved some notoriety among Viennese musicians, so much so that he was proposed as the music teacher to the noble Esterházy family. He gave piano lessons to the two daughters. But he didn't last long there, and returned to Vienna after a few months to resume composition. All the time he knew his real calling.

Fortunately, Schubert kept at it for many years after he discovered his incurable disease in 1823, even though knowledge of the inevitable result made him depressed, and ultimately very inward-looking. He only found solace in his music and among his friends. It was this disease that killed him in late 1828, but the story is that he didn't really believe that the end would be that quick as he was, in his last few weeks, looking forward to making a recovery and improving his knowlege of counterpoint.

His "opportunity cost" - i.e. what he could have earned in his next best occupation - was probably quite low too, as he would never have been happy. This often happens with very highly gifted artistic people, namely outside of their chosen career they are like fish out of water relatively.



Topaz

Agreed: In general, Shostakovich is just about the least innovative, and least influential major composer there is. He has, however, been credited - if that is the right word - for having some influence on Schnittke.

I have just listened to the Viola Concerto of Schnittke. It's the first piece I have had the courage to listen to. I just knew somehow I wouldn't like it, but I approached with it weaing my post positive hat. I found it disappointing: dark, depressing, lacking in anything meaningful, meandering, pointless. A bit of a nightmare actually.

So, if Shotakovich had any influence on this, he has gone down even further in my estimation. To me, a lot of Shostakovich's material sounds like cheap B Movie soundtrack, even including chunks of his so-called greatest works like S5. I agree some of his works are OK, but most of the symphonies contain too much mixed material. I always find the "whole" disappointing: either too long in general, too disjointed, or just plain boring. I'm not denying his greatness or brilliance; just that he doesn't work for me in creating a strong impression, only a moderate one.

To me, the last decent (I won't say "great") symphonist was RvW. The last great one was Sibelius. I think we've now had it! Make the most of what we have. Back to Haydn? Not for me. Mozart S 29 et seq.



Topaz

I don`t really find it matters whether he (Schubert) would have succeeded with something else or not, although it may be amusing to speculate. I could be wrong, but I don`t think he composed in order to be successful. Maybe he composed simply because that`s what he wanted to do as opposed to anything else. I could have used other composers as examples as well, or instead, I suppose.

Maybe Elgar could have chosen better representatives of tonal and atonal music composers, but I read his question as meaning- which do you prefer, tonal or atonal compositions.

Probably composers all have their own reason, or reasons for composing. And reasons for how they choose to compose, be it tonal, atonal, or whatever.

There were many composers who were not successful, perhaps even misunderstood in their own time, but who are celebrated as brilliant and/or revolutionary now. I think I`m trying to say that some composers composed simply because that is what they wanted to do. I don`t know how many of them were concerned with fame, fortune or success, nor to what extent. Were some of these composers composing for a future audience? Who knows. Maybe. Perhaps today`s composers compose for the same reasons, or other reasons. It probably varies from one composer to the next.I find this comment to be rather generalized; I have heard works by him that I would not describe as being stuff mixed together in a big loud bang.

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Trying to bring this back to the original question, on reflection I think it's irrelevant what motives individual modern (classical) composers may have for choosing the style in which to write. They can be varied and we needn't speculate further as it won't get us anywhere in deciding the most likely future path of preferred music from this specific modern era. This will not be determined by what composers want to write but ultimately by what the public wants to hear. I think generally that supply doesn't create its own demand. It's usually the consumer who is sovereign, and suppliers follow.

Only those composers who, for whatever reason, select the "correct" market-determined style and produce good work will succeed. It's up to them whether they wish to succeed, and obviously whether they have the capacity to succeed by their own abilities. Still just looking at music from the present era, I don't reckon atonal music (or mainly atonal music) will become the predominant form. There is no sign of it from my observations of current trends.

As for the future focus of all classical music (i.e. across all eras and not just this one) it depends on how far into the future we are speculating. In the near future (say next 10-20 years) my money would be on a continuation of the present focus on the period 1750-1950. Hence, it matters very little indeed what type of music the present set of composers produce, as only relatively few customers will be listening to it anyway. Longer term (20-50 years) it's more difficult to guess but I still can't this centre of gravity shifting forward in time by very much. It may stretch a bit to embrace some of the post 1950 period, but the latter will still remain the tail end of the overall market in terms of vintage and size. In other words, however it is looked at, I see the contribution of atonal music remaining marginal for many moons yet. I may be wrong, but I think this addresses the main question in the first post of this thread.


Topaz