Is there too much old music?

[Florestan]

But what about that original question, is there too much old music?

The original question is formulated in such an abstract manner that it makes any meaningful response impossible.

If we take it at face value, then we have to ask ourselves: what constitutes old music? Is it music composed 500 years ago? 150 years ago? 50 years ago? 25 years ago? Last year? Last week?

Furthermore, let's say we can draw the line and decree: any music composed before the year XYWZ is old. Then the obvious answer is that there is as much old music as has been composed prior to that date, no more and no less. "Too much" in this case is completely meaningless.

To make the question answerable, one has to put it in a specific context, as for instance: Is there too much old music on recordings? (my answer: no) or Is there too much old music in concert programs? (my answer: no) or still: Is there too much old music of certain composers in recordings and concert programs? (my answer: yes). These are far more pertinent questions than the abstract and unanswerable original question.

[karlhenning]

Whether there's too much, I don't know. There's more than I personally require ; )

[Florestan]

There's more than I personally require ; )

This is a very apt comment not only about music old or new, but about everything else under the sun.

[Elgarian]

It doesn't matter whether you conceive of it as "There are no more masterpieces" or "I just don't like modern music". We all have our reasons. It's what the reasons add up to that concern me. We have lost the ability to be inspired by what we do now, so we retreat to a Golden Age when people supposedly had the secret of greatness. There is no secret. It's all in the open. If anyone has a theory for why it's a fact that 18th century music is better than 20th century music let's hear it. We've waited long enough, let's have some proof! Either that or a frank admission is in order, that qualitative judgments are not facts of that kind. They are dependent on but not limited to objective criteria which are freely and even arbitrarily chosen, and ultimately the same is true about Golden Ages. We decide what they are, and we can change our minds, and probably ought to therefore just so we don't get rusty.

Not sure about the use of the word 'ought', there, but otherwise I think I'm with you all the way, and even couldn't resist highlighting a particularly important bit.

You've set me thinking about Golden Ages these last few days. I suppose they're necessary illusions that we retreat into, in the teeth of Eliot's 'human kind cannot bear very much reality'. Or rather, they're an example of a particularly identifiable kind of illusion - a temporal one. They seem to be endemic in human culture, in that we actually see them layered in among each other. So when we look at a Claude Lorrain landscape and ache for the artistic Golden Age of the 17th century, sighing at its late Sunday afternoon sunshine among the classical ruins, we're actually enjoying a retreat into a Golden Age that was enjoying a retreat into a Golden Age! That's OK in itself, I think. We all need our forms of escape.

It only becomes a potential problem if this is all we do; that is, if we come to believe in the illusion, and try to live it. But, like a holiday, the retreat into the past can become an inspiration for the present. Blake didn't want to build an Antiquarian Jerusalem - he wanted to build a new Jerusalem in the present, and ride his chariot of fire into it. Ruskin and Morris retreated into Medievalism, but emerged from it with a vision that inspired Gandhi and the founder members of the British Labour party.

So I don't think the problem lies in the existence of great heaps of old music; it lies in the use we make of that old music, and whether it truly helps us to live more richly, here and now, making the best use of the present moment as it flies. If 'modern' music doesn't help John Smith to do that, but 'old' music does then, for the moment at least, John's better off with his 'old' music. But Golden Ages, like any obsessively attractive illusions, have a tendency to suck us into them and keep us there, and I suppose therein lies the danger to which both Drogulus and Some Guy are alerting us.

[Elgarian]

The original question is formulated in such an abstract manner that it makes any meaningful response impossible.

Just to clarify: it wasn't a real question so much as a headline, inspired by the passage I quoted from the English Musical Renaissance book I was reading. I wasn't anticipating 'yes/no' answers; rather, reactions to the passage like the ones we're getting.

[secondwind]

Oh, good, if I'm not tied to a "yes" or "no" answer . . .   I did think it was a bit of a silly question.  I mean, how can there be "too much" old music.  There is what there is, however much that is, whatever has already been written, which is far more music than any of us will ever be able to hear in our lifetimes. 

The truth is, I love exploring "old" music, and especially old, obscure music, music by little-known or unknown composers, sometimes music that has never been recorded (gasp!), music that probably hasn't been performed publicly in 100 years or more. . . that kind of thing.  I like to dig moldy old copies out of libraries and estate sales and wherever they've been hiding for decades, and play the things, or get someone else to play them, and see what they're like.  It gives me a unique thrill.  I guess it is like musical archaeology--oh, this is what music was like then. . . and there. . .

That said, I also like to explore new music.  I like to listen to it, and, given the opportunity, I like to play it (or try to).  I say "try to" because some contemporary music is in an idiom that is unfamiliar to me.  I have trouble, initially at least, getting my brain or my fingers to go where the music is going!  But that only means it takes more time to explore, and I usually feel that the time has been well spent and in the end well rewarded.

[Franco]

If I need a commentary on today I read newspapers or watch TV. "Old" music was not social or political commentary but the free expression of a creative personality.

Well, you misunderstood me.  I certainly don't mean that music written by a composer alive to day is like social or political commentary, it is just that he is a product of the same world that I am.  This is no different than Mozart reflecting the world he lived in - but our worlds are different.  In either case a composer can capture something universal in his work, no matter what time period was his.

[Florestan]

Well, you misunderstood me. .

So it seems but now you cleared the matter and I have no objection anymore.

[Marc]

Whether there's too much, I don't know. There's more than I personally require

Yeah.
I recognize that.
I experience it with 19th century stuff.

[starrynight]

Well, you misunderstood me.  I certainly don't mean that music written by a composer alive to day is like social or political commentary, it is just that he is a product of the same world that I am.  This is no different than Mozart reflecting the world he lived in - but our worlds are different.  In either case a composer can capture something universal in his work, no matter what time period was his.

Yeh exactly they can capture something universal, so that isn't a cliche.

All music really requires some effort of understanding from a listener anyway, and that includes modern classical music as well even though it is from the same time frame as the modern listener.