Is it obligatory to have a stance, rather than keeping an open mind and just trying composers out?
They're mostly better educated, but they're quite unlucky to be born so late, after so much developmental history. What's to be done today? There's so many pitfalls.
I think the realities of life now are against composers. Unless you are wealthy enough to support you and yours, and also to put plenty of money into support of your career, even your chances of getting to the starting line are poor. I'm amazed that some people find it possible to be a composer, but they do.
The realities of life have never been favorable to artists, except for those who could find patrons or employers among the aristocracy or in the church. If it's "classical" music we're speaking of, the difficulty now is less the realities of life than the realities of music itself and the composer's relationship with his audience, if he can find one. Most of those who would have been his public in past eras are now probably listening to music of quite another sort. Luchesi's point is well taken.
I went into media in the 1980's, one of the few avenues in which a composer can make a sustained living outside of academia. Then the competition was stiff but one had to be at least a part way decent musician to even get a chance at playing the game. These days with DAWS, any kid in their bedroom has a shot at making a career for themselves in media by simply moving blocks of digital sound around on their computer screen and publishing their tracks online. The upside of this is that many more people get to express themselves. The downsides to this are that music has been cheapened creatively and financially because of the democratisation on creativity and how easy it is to seemingly achieve it musically. The sheer volume of (free) music on the internet that has resulted from aspiring DAW composers wanting validation and work, plus the lack of any real aesthetic discernment (but plenty of monetary discernment), on behalf of duplicitous producers in particular and directors who have grown up with the ubiquity of music online, has created a business model that rarely favours the composer.
..because they can....
On the other hand, concertos are still quite popular I think, at least for established composers - possibly commissioned by famous soloists. But indeed, I have the feeling (maybe wrong) that contemporary composers may focus more on chamber and solo music, which would be easier to get performed.
You are right, I hadn't considered that. Yet we're talking about established composers mostly, which also rely on famous soloist to get public. Chamber works sadly get less attention, as chamber music is seen by many as "background music". Since I am discovering chamber music myself in these days after years passed overlooking it, I cannot say if today's composers are as good as past ones in that genre. Also, of course, the difficulty to get the music performed is a huge problem. But there are a lot of possibilities with technology. As I am approaching a little of composition myself, I discovered softwares, samplers to be more precise, which can allow to produce orchestral music with a good PC and a midi keyboard! The sound libraries get more realistic every year, now there are super realistic ones like this, it's really like having an orchestra in your computer: https://www.spitfireaudio.com/shop/a-z/spitfire-symphony-orchestra/ but as you can see the problem is the high price and the technologic competence required, but that would totally solve the problem of performance. Of course, real instruments are always better but technology give composers more opportunities.
Technology within a DAW could well be the future along with self-publishing online for the more serious composer. I have pretty much all of the sample sets and they are indeed getting better. However they are restrictive, their articulations in particular are geared to their market of media composers and are in fact the dominant influence in that genre because they dictate the type of music (via restricted articulations, dynamics and techniques etc.) that can be convincingly written.
Is this a symphony? (I don't know what a symphony is in fact -- but I noticed that it's played by something called a "symphony orchestra")
It sounds like a hodgepodge of some kind. The problem for a lot of contemporary composers in my view is self-inflicted. They write for their own satisfaction and according to their own standards, and so they end up being pretty much their only audience. As much as I love him, I blame Beethoven. Beethoven had the genius to pull that off. Not many others have, certainly not in the modern era.
Yes it is! The composer obviously took inspiration from the great Berlioz, as this composition is clearly the result of a bad trip.
You must be thinking of this. A chamber symphony maybe? (This is a great favourite of mine.)
No. This is more like a hall symphony rather than a chamber symphony. A concert hall symphony, to be more specific. Anyway, this is my favourite symphony:
