Will classical music ever die?

[bwv 1080]

its better to fade away than burn out

[Chosen Barley]

That's a rather peculiar attitude.  How does smartening up have anything to do with human extinction, or making human extinction a good or bad thing?  Also, do you have similar attitudes with respect to the extinction of other species? 

I've never thought about it too hard, not smart enough.  Maybe it's only folk like me who need to go extinct.    I guess what I meant is that we seem to be unable to get it right, there is so much misery, so maybe we are better off leaving this poor planet to the "lesser" species.  Every time we try to solve a problem, we create several more for someone else.  It is like digging up dandelions on the lawn; a whole bunch more spring up before you've finished the job!  Therefore, at this point, extinction looks like a positive thing.  Maybe I'll be proved wrong!

Species of various kinds have been going extinct since Day 1, as far as I know.  It's not necessarily good or bad;  it just occurs.  It would've been nice to keep all those animals around, though. 

[karlhenning]

Boulez.

You understand, Dave's remark was in support of my thesis 

[Dr. Dread]

You understand, Dave's remark was in support of my thesis 

[Valentino]

So was mine. You Americain... 

[Brian]

Well, it's all gone downhill since Bach, hasn't it?  

Mantovani. 

[ChamberNut]

Karl Henning - The Last of the Mohicans Composers

[Sergeant Rock]

Well, it's all gone downhill since Bach, hasn't it?  

No, but it has gone downhill since Shostakovich kicked the bucket...present company excepted of course 

Sarge

[MishaK]

Yes, classical music will die, when humans go extinct. 

No, some sentient species out there will find the Brandenburg Concertos on the golden discs on the Voyager spacecraft and the whole thing will start again. 

[ChamberNut]

No, some sentient species out there will find the Brandenburg Concertos on the golden discs on the Voyager spacecraft and the whole thing will start again. 

Gosh....at least they could have gone with the Cello or solo violin suites! 

[DavidW]

Gosh....at least they could have gone with the Cello or solo violin suites! 

Unfortunately the aliens can not do it HIP, Human Informed Performances since we'll be gone.

[ChamberNut]

Unfortunately the aliens can not do it HIP, Human Informed Performances since we'll be gone.

Let us then cryogenically freeze Karl right now so they'll have a mentor to learn all the ABCs of classical music! 

[Sergeant Rock]

well dont expect the composers of today to wait for you to catch up sarge!  

I don't expect them to...my pace has been slowing dramatically lately. If I didn't know better, I might think I've turned into an old fogy. Wait a minute...just knowing what a fogy is probably means I am one  

Nonetheless, I am as certain of entropy as I am certain of anything. Classical music will die. You can bet your life on it.

Sarge

[karlhenning]

well dont expect the composers of today to wait for you to catch up sarge!  

But he has, which is why he excepted present company.

[Sergeant Rock]

Nah, **music** will never die as long as humans are around.

But humans won't be around forever. And besides, you actually think music is going to stay the same? The question is about classical music. I really doubt the Cleveland Orchestra and the Berlin Philharmonic are going to exist 500 years from now. What we know as classical music will have a short life span relative to the life of the universe, or even human history.

Sarge

[karlhenning]

To me the term "classical" is pretty useless. I tend to think of all music as ONE

Now, the term "classical" may or may not be useless;  but the idea that music is all ONE, is assuredly useless.

[Superhorn]

 There's absolutely no way to know what will happen to classical music as we know it in the future. It's already changed in ways that people from past centuries could never have imagined .
Mozart never conceived of the idea of recording music for posterity .
Nor could he have predicted that Arnold Schoenberg and other composers would abandon tonality in the 20th century.
  Schoenberg could never have imagined composing music with the help of a computer; nor the idea of downloading music from one.
  Wagner could never have conceived of the idea that someday, performances of his masterworks would be streamed over the internet
from Bayreuth. Brahms could never have conceived of electronic music made with computers by Hiller,Luening ,Ussachevsky or Babbitt.
  100 years ago, no one anticipated groups which would perform the music of such ancient masters as Dufay,Machaut, Byrd, Gesualdo and others. Great condiuctors such as Furtwangler,Walter,Klemperer,
Toscanini, Beecham, Monteux,Koussevitzky, Knappertsbusch, and others never imagined that performances of the Beethoven symphonies on period instruments would be commonplace.
  But as some catastrophic and cataclysmic events do not reduce mankind to a state of barbarism , classical music will endure.

[Josquin des Prez]

It will die as soon as white people will die. Technically, it is already dead, at least spiritually, it's only time until it disappears altogether.

[Chosen Barley]

It will die as soon as white people will die. Technically, it is already dead, at least spiritually, it's only time until it disappears altogether.

I recall reading somewhere that white people are definitely going for the high jump:  they/we are only 8% of the population today, and within 30 or so years, we will be a minority in Europe & N.America.  Then we - or our children - will  be walking the plank for purported sins of the past against everybody else!     And, yes, our great music will go, also. 

Anyway, as far as classical music goes, we aren't the only ones who have it.  There's Indian and Chinese classical music, too.  And it's been around forever.  What about traditional African songs?  I never thought I would say this, but I have heard African village children spontaneously singing songs that are among the most beautiful sounds I have ever heard in my llife.  They do this without training, it comes out of their very being.

[Josquin des Prez]

They do this without training, it comes out of their very being.

Actually, i believe they do receive training, just not in a form that is recognizable among so called "civilized" men and women who seem to think knowledge can be imparted by the inculcation of arbitrarily chosen information. No matter, this is all besides the point. Other then the fact there is really nothing in the world that compares to the spark of European genius, the fact of the matter is that even those traditions are being dismantled in favor of the rotten fruit of our decadent civilization. Because the influence of western civilization has spread to a global level i believe our decline may actually result in a planetary dark age which will envelop all cultures and nations and bring us all back to the stone age.