Maybe it's time to run through this again.
Maybe we should just never talk to each other again.
Contemporary "art" music, modern classical, avant garde, however you want to refer to the various musics of the past hundred years, are all fine. That there seems to be an endless string of posters who report contemporary music as being incomprehensible, crap, difficult, worthless is beside the point. The music is fine.
Do I mean that it is just as good as Beethoven or Bach? No, I do not. "Just as good as" is a meaningless string of words. It is fine, meaning it is worth listening to. It repays repeated listening as well. It is enough.
When I was about nine, I discovered classical music. It was love at first hearing. And I still love it.
When I was 20, I discovered twentieth century music. It was love at first hearing. And I still love it, even though the first piece was Bartok's Concerto for Orchestra, and I'm now listening to Emmanuelle Gibello.
There are tons and tons of individual pieces from the 15th to the 20th century that I do not like. That has, however, never led me to conclude that something is wrong with classical music generally. There isn't.
There are tons and tons of individual pieces from the past hundred years or so that I do not like. That has, however, never led me to conclude that something is wrong with modern or contemporary music generally. There isn't.
I have to accept that there are people who reject it, who do not like it, who take every opportunity to attack it. That's a great pity, but it doesn't change the rock solid fact that there's nothing really wrong with "art" music in the twentieth and twenty-first centuries.
Start by assuming that there's nothing wrong with it. See where that leads you.
Maybe we should just never talk to each other again.
Contemporary "art" music, modern classical, avant garde, however you want to refer to the various musics of the past hundred years, are all fine. That there seems to be an endless string of posters who report contemporary music as being incomprehensible, crap, difficult, worthless is beside the point. The music is fine.
Do I mean that it is just as good as Beethoven or Bach? No, I do not. "Just as good as" is a meaningless string of words. It is fine, meaning it is worth listening to. It repays repeated listening as well. It is enough.
When I was about nine, I discovered classical music. It was love at first hearing. And I still love it.
When I was 20, I discovered twentieth century music. It was love at first hearing. And I still love it, even though the first piece was Bartok's Concerto for Orchestra, and I'm now listening to Emmanuelle Gibello.
There are tons and tons of individual pieces from the 15th to the 20th century that I do not like. That has, however, never led me to conclude that something is wrong with classical music generally. There isn't.
There are tons and tons of individual pieces from the past hundred years or so that I do not like. That has, however, never led me to conclude that something is wrong with modern or contemporary music generally. There isn't.
I have to accept that there are people who reject it, who do not like it, who take every opportunity to attack it. That's a great pity, but it doesn't change the rock solid fact that there's nothing really wrong with "art" music in the twentieth and twenty-first centuries.
Start by assuming that there's nothing wrong with it. See where that leads you.