Music Banter - Is classical music still relevant today?

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Quote:

Originally Posted by Quality Cucumber (Post 1550631)

The thing that makes classical music classical music is that it has a tradition. I agree that there are certainly popular "classics" that get played out more (or at least get funded more), but not every program is so conservative. Maybe it's because I live in a major metropolitan area (Los Angeles), but I can find entire concerts consisting of music written in the last decade on any night of the week. I rarely go to the LA Phil's concerts, but Jacaranda, Green Umbrella (the LA Phil's "new music" program), People Inside Electronics (PIE), and various ensembles, festivals, and groups that I follow are extreme;y active with new music programs during the regular season. The art is far from stagnant. The general public usually doesn't get Franco Donatoni, though. Instead, the institution of classical music thinks that music that was relevant in 1794 would be similarly relevant today.

Evidence of the geo-cultural gaps that exist in the US, I'm sure. It's not to say that new music absolutely never gets performed where I'm from in the Midwest, but in my experience, if it does, it's largely by college ensembles. But then, my experience is limited, so maybe I'm just missing something right under my nose. Either that or I'd be better off not living in the Midwest.

Every place is different. However, I think you are correct that most of this kind of music is guarded safely behind the walls of academia. While there are real enthusiasts in my neck of the woods, the classical music scene is made possible by rich, old, artsy-fartsy liberal white people with unusual hair styles. I know quite a few of this type. One of them, a lady in her 60's, drunkenly grabbed my friend's succulent 19-year-old ass at Stockhausen concert in a private villa on top of a mountain in Pacific Palisades (unthinkably posh community). It was perhaps the most entertaining concert I've been to. Where this demographic does not exist in high(ish) concentration, you'll probably only find classical music in schools, community orchestras, and privately funded orchestras, and it is unlikely that they will be playing anything but "the hits" (Mozart, Beethoven, Schubert, Mahler...).

Now that I can finally post links (Don't know why a good chunk of my posts weren't showing up in my post count anyway... I count 24, including this one.), here are some relevant thoughts from someone who cares much more than I do:

Classical isn
Accessibility is a Dead End | Aaron Gervais, composer
Classical concerts are great. Stop apologizing for them.

Classical music is still relevant today. For example you will hear it in the background of your favorite Disney movie and has a subconscious effect as to what you listen to. Films like Brave and Frozen all include classical music in the background as well as Tchaikovsky's Sleeping Beauty. I doubt it will ever stop being relevant.

It'll never stop being USEFUL. If "relevance" is measured by whether it resonates with an [average] listener, whether they feel it expresses certain things better than they themselves can, -it's relevant in a way that contents of a museum of old fine art are relevant in a very large city. Sometimes enthusiasts visit it to study/appreciate, sometimes people go there because their school made them go, some are glad it's there & "one day they should really go check it out". Similar thing has happened & is happening in jazz.

Quality Cucumber had some great points; I'd like to add that music (IMHO), in any shape or form, has to be needed in order to be relevant. It needs to offer anthems-of-times within a given society or its circles. Random example would be: people discussing the news & someone voicing their reaction via a quote from a song/composition.

Yes I listen to bach all the time

One special characteristic of classical music is that it has the ability/potential to be relevant anywhere it exists. It relies on not the performer but an art that can be learned by anyone who puts their mind to it. Pop songs today are popular because of the people who perform them. The whole art of today's music relies on the performer instead of the actual music. For example, if someone wants to listen to the Moonlight Sonata, it will matter very little who performs it. If someone wants to listen to Thriller, however, the sound quality that is expected is that of Michael Jackson, and any performance by another will be met with great disappointment. So as long as people have the music and the means to reproduce the intended sound quality (piano, violin, etc.), classical music will be relevant in today's society as long as people put forth the effort to create the music themselves and also as long as people appreciate that effort.

Its always relevant at the BBC proms.

Hello everyone! IMHO classical music matters now and will always matter, because it touches the deepest feelings in our souls. I've got goose pumps every time I listen to Tchaikovsky!:o:

Music will always matter, no matter what genre it is, simply because it will always touch SOMEBODY. It will speak to someone, and that's what music is for. As long as that is met, it will always matter. They feed each other.