I wonder which "former age" is the one that Music for 18 Musicians, a minimalist work from a movement once seen as avant-garde, harks backs to. The '60s?

 

I guess you have a point. The music does sound very melodic and tonal though, I'd say.

 

YouTube counts listens >20 seconds (I seem to remember) certainly not performances! I've read that 99% of the works premiered by orchestras each year never get a second performance.

 

Wow - 99% - you don't happen to know the source?

 

BTW if we're taking YouTube views as a meter now, you'll find pieces by Ligeti (not just those that appeared in Kubrick films either), Penderecki and Xenakis with a million views in there.

 

That is interesting.

Xenakis's Metastaseis has been performed 48 times since 1955.

 

The "exceptions" are really the rule. "Classical music" as a whole isn't well received by today's audiences. The popular composers tend to be those born in the 19th century; outside that, on either side, it comes down to a relatively small number of individuals.

My own composer polls reveal that, of the 100 most popular composers, 61 were born in the 19th century. 22 were born before 1800, and 17 after 1899. Looking at the top 50, some 37 of them were born in the 19th century, 5 in the 18th century, 4 in the 17th century, and 4 in the 20th century. So perhaps we also need to ask "why is the music composed in the time of Bach and Mozart often so poorly received by today's audiences?" ?

 

Interesting - thanks.

 

Go back to great music written in mid 20th century:

Why aren't Schuman's Symphonies 3,7,8,9 and 10 ever performed today. Great stuff!

What about Persichetti's 12 Piano Sonatas?

How about Mennin's 7th Symphony?

The reason is pure economics. Classical music concert goers as a group are dwindling, not expanding. If you were a member of an orchestra's board of directors, you need to collect money as in grants and ticket sales. Your subscription audience is predominantly conservative and you cannot afford to lose them. Soooo....schedule the Beethoven and Brahms Symphonies, season after season, ad nauseam and survive.

In a perfect world we would all be dancing to the latest atonal hit. But people lean conservatively tonal in their musical preferences. They prefer what they perceive as beautiful, easy to comprehend, tried and true patterns of sound. They will never be sold on atonalism.

 

Go back to great music written in mid 20th century:

Why aren't Schuman's Symphonies 3,7,8,9 and 10 ever performed today. Great stuff!

What about Persichetti's 12 Piano Sonatas?

How about Mennin's 7th Symphony?

The reason is pure economics. Classical music concert goers as a group are dwindling, not expanding. If you were a member of an orchestra's board of directors, you need to collect money as in grants and ticket sales. Your subscription audience is predominantly conservative and you cannot afford to lose them. Soooo....schedule the Beethoven and Brahms Symphonies, season after season, ad nauseam and survive.

Classical music and especially contemporary classical music is music that get performed because people should be exposed to it not because they want to hear it and that is fine.

 

I remember hearing a conductor saying once that there has never been a time when composers are so out of touch with their audiences. The reason modern music isn't performed is that for most people it is simply unpleasant to listen to. I do not like listening to unpleasant music. Heard some the other day and switched it off. I simply don't like it.
Why is John Rutter performed? Because people like his music

 

Of course composers are in touch with their audiences! They may not be writing the sort of music that the general classical audience wishes to hear, but they know their particular audience.
Given that the music most people seem to wish to hear is the sort that was composed in the past, but that both the audiences and composers of today are living in the present, wouldn't it be more reasonable to say that the audience is out of touch with the composers?

 

There seem to be a lot of nasty comments on youtube:

Pierre Boulez is like a woman with a boyfriend that keeps telling her she's smart, faithful, cooks well, yet never tells her she's beautiful. That woman is Boulez and her boyfriend is Boulez's fans. Has anyone here heard a fan of Boulez saying that he creates beautiful music? 

 

There's a billion idiots on YouTube always making nasty comments about everything.

 

Schuman and Persichetti are hardly contemporary, and their music is fairly conventional. But like all relatively newer music, it has to compete with the warhorses that sell concert tickets.

But I believe it's a bit of a misconception to think most contemporary music is not welcome by audiences. Chamber music fares much better than the large orchestral works that require rehearsal time and larger budgets. And there are hundreds of recitals happening every week around the country.

 

I think if a contemporary piece is to survive there has to be something viscerally that connects with the audience. When Arvo Part started his "holy minimalism" phase, he connected in with the spirit of the times, of those looking to the coming millineum and being attracted to some form of spirituality, to the degree that he even had Michael Stipe from REM commenting on his music. The same with Philip Glass; his first minimalist concerts were "classical" but rooted enough in the language of popular music that they attracted people immediately, despite their length.

If a composer of a new piece just puts things together just for music's sake, it will only be appreciated by connoisseurs. If he/she steps back and asks why would someone want to hear this, there might be a spark to put something in that draws people in.

I remember St. Augustine's instruction to preachers, whose duties were not only probare, to instruct and prove, but also delectare, to rivet and delight, and flectere, to stir and move people to action.

I think the problem with many contemporary composers is, they know the probare part but forget about the delectare and even the flectere.

 

I would agree that much modern/contemporary music is not enjoyable to the majority of orchestral listeners. But that's likely not innately true. Almost everyone I know who does enjoy modern/contemporary music spent a significant amount of time listening over and over to many works before they came to enjoy them. At first the musical "language" is enough different that listeners find it too unfamiliar to enjoy. After a suitable period (years for me), one becomes accustomed to the "language", and it becomes possible to like those works. Most people do not spend the time necessary to overcome the familiarity hurdle and continue to dislike the music.

To me the interesting question is why music of this past century seems to take listeners longer to appreciate than new music of past centuries did. We've had a number of threads where that question was discussed briefly. The answer that I favor was suggested by a young composer student friend. He said that while composers in past centuries wrote relatively similar music, modern/contemporary composers seem to almost be unique in their own styles. In the past listening to some works allowed one to appreciate many other works. In this century one must almost listen to each composer separately before coming to appreciate their music. That doesn't fully explain the phenomenon, but perhaps it sheds some light on the answer.

 

My position is simplicity itself. I believe that, in an era of instantaneous communication and almost total freedom of access to music, every genre is getting exactly the audience, the exposure, the support it deserves. If you are not hearing enough of the music you want to hear, then you are not trying very hard. If you think that I am not hearing enough of the music you want me to listen to, that's another story.

 

My position is simplicity itself. I believe that, in an era of instantaneous communication and almost total freedom of access to music, every genre is getting exactly the audience, the exposure, the support it deserves.

To paraphrase Shaw, it would seem more to the point that every listener gets the music they deserve.

 

It is often bad and arbitrary and trivial music, from the concerts I have been to at least.

 

It is often bad an arbitrary and trivial music, from the concerts I have been to at least.

What is arbitrary music? In my experience contemporary works often get strong ovations and sometimes standing ovations. Of course, I assume our collective experiences are rather small.

It does depend a bit on what is considered contemporary. If it's music from the past few years, one would not expect the quality to be as good as music that has been selected as the best of whole centuries so the premieres one hears are likely to be average (i.e. not exceptional) works.

 

Standing O's, perhaps because the audience is elated their ordeal is finally over and they can get back to their beloved Beethoven & Brahms.

 

Perhaps someone can point to a modern, atonal work that has achieved popular appeal?

 

Alban Berg, anyone? Lulu, Lyric Suite

But ultimately, popular appeal shouldn't be the end all for great works of art. Diffucult works will never be very popular because most people aren't willing to listen enough times to become familiar with a piece.

 

That is regularly performed?

 

Seems to me, that everytime a discussion about contemporary music comes up, it always gets saddled with the 'derogatory' (not to me) term "atonal".

Correct me if I am wrong, but isn't the majority of 20th century and contemporary music tonal?

 

Correct me if I am wrong, but isn't the majority of 20th century and contemporary music tonal?

Yes! And people still complain about it.

 

Regarding the music that can be labelled as "contemporary classical", it is mostly atonal indeed.

 

What composers do you particularly refer to?

 

Going back to the Babbitt v. Britney thread (and every other thread involving Milton Babbitt), the Princetonian was quoted complaining bitterly in an article in one of the Princeton local papers that nobody wanted to financially support concerts of his sort of music. He also complained that nobody showed up at free concerts of suchlike. It's clearly Just Not Fair!

 

Maybe because it died last year?

 

Because it's degenerate art

 

"Pure and simple."

 

That Ades piece is overtly tonal, and quite pretty - odd example for you to use there.

 

You have a point there.

 

Perhaps it is possible that lovers of modern classical (i.e. the type that isn't tonal and isn't popular) have had a particular life experience so that they can relate to such music?

 

What life experience would that be?

 

The briefest answer I can think of is this: classical audiences today are primarily older, and their perception of 'contemporary music' has been thoroughly trashed due to the Darmstadt era.

Meanwhile younger audiences are totally unaware that contemporary classical music exists, but would probably be pretty into most of the post-minimalist and neo-romantic schools.

The sign of hope for me is that the more immediate 20th century composers are really being embraced recently - Prokofiev, Shostakovich, Janacek, and even Britten, Adams, and to some extent Ligeti. If you can get on board with those last three, you've pretty much got your bases covered for new music today.

 

I think it's received better than thirty or more years ago. The world's a more threatening place, and much of contemporary music accurately conveys this. Soundtracks are an important messenger in this regard, opening doors for more formal presentations. :tiphat: