Classical music or art music?

[karlhenning]

Seems we can always count on you for common sense, Jo. 

(* frappant la table avec les chaussures plusieurs fois *)

[Dr. Dread]

I'm reading a book where the author divides music into three categories:

Elite music (classical and jazz)
Popular music (the stuff you hear on the radio)
Folk music (the other stuff)

[ChamberNut]

I'm reading a book where the author divides music into three categories:

Elite music (classical and jazz)
Popular music (the stuff you hear on the radio)
Folk music (the other stuff)

That's just terrible! 

[Guido]

Who are these mythical beasts, the 'sterile avant-gardists'?

We're waiting...

[Harpo]

(* frappant la table avec les chaussures plusieurs fois *)

Are you old enough to remember Khruschchev at the U.N.?? 

[karlhenning]

Are you old enough to remember Khruschev at the U.N.?? 

That incident was either just before my time, or when I was still in infancy. So I remember the rumor of it 

[karlhenning]

Hah! It was the week following my birth!

[DavidRoss]

Are you old enough to remember Khruschev at the U.N.?? 

The Disney company really should have used that footage in their "I'm going to Disneyland" campaign.

[Mark G. Simon]

Who are these mythical beasts, the 'sterile avant-gardists'? I'm not sure I've even heard one. When one actually listens to the music and doesn't just soak up lazy cliches, one discovers quite how false they are.

I dunno. I think "sterile" pretty much sums up the Darmstadt thing.

Of course that's not avant-garde any more.

[sul G]

I dunno. I think "sterile" pretty much sums up the Darmstadt thing.

Of course that's not avant-garde any more.

Exactly. Because how much of this Darmstadt stuff do we actually hear? The cliche would have it that such music is polluting the airwaves at all hours of the day, I think. But in actual fact, what we do hear of it, what survives, is as is always the case the pick of the crop - music that transcends Darmstadt; Pli Selon Pli, Kontakte, Il Canto Sospeso etc.. Which is why, in my CD collection, a large percentage of which is made up of post-war music of all sorts of varieties, I honestly can't say I have a single piece of this 'sterile avant-garde' stuff of which I'm always hearing.

[Franco]

I experience a certain nihilistic beauty in the sterile avant-garde stuff.

[karlhenning]

Kind of a Sinead O'Connor vibe.

[karlhenning]

Cage, Feldman & Carter have written some of the most original & amazing music of the last century.

[Franco]

Any Babbitt takers?

[karlhenning]

Any Babbitt takers?

There's one piece of his I liked a good deal . . . many years since I was in the proximity of a recording, though.

[Diletante]

karl is this you? 

-------

On topic, a term I've heard quite frequently is "música de cámara" ("chamber music", but applied to all classical music), which I don't like at all. I have had actual exchanges like this:

Me: I like classical music.
Guy: Ah, you mean chamber music?
Me: Yeah, but not only chamber music, also symphonies, concertos...
Guy: *blank stare*

Other terms I've heard in Spanish are "música académica" ("academic music", which I find cringeworthy) and "música docta" ("scholar" or "erudite" music).

[karlhenning]

On topic, a term I've heard quite frequently is "música de cámara" ("chamber music", but applied to all classical music), which I don't like at all.

No, that won't fly.

[Mark G. Simon]

Exactly. Because how much of this Darmstadt stuff do we actually hear? The cliche would have it that such music is polluting the airwaves at all hours of the day, I think.

It's hard to know whether people who use terms like that have actually heard any modern music. It's applied indiscriminately to Stravinsky and Bartok as well. People can't articulate why they don't like something, or why they think they might not like something, so they repeat a convenient phrase they've heard, and for many of them that phrase is "sterile avant-garde" which, my guess would be, was coined during the Darmstadt period.* The image of the composer as a wannabe scientist in a lab coat or mathematician dies hard.

* (it would be interesting to track down the first instance of this in critical writing though, as well as the frequency of its usage through time)

[jochanaan]

OK Carter has put out some good ones (though he's as dry as a fart IMO), but Cage & Feldman?? trivial musical neophytes with very VERY little thats musically truly great & amazing compared to the best of either Boulez, Stockhausen & even Carter.

That's your opinion.  What do you base it on?  As it happens, I've heard several pieces by Cage and thought a couple of them lovely and hypnotic, and exactly one by Feldman and was blown away!  Given that number of "hits," I'm willing to believe they were among the great masters.

[Guido]

Don't listen to James - Cage and Feldman are both major composers. And as to Carter being as dry as a fart - some farts can be very wet, n'est-ce pas?