The laughably naïve idea that classical music can be killed :)

[ComposerOfAvantGarde]

http://assets.gcstatic.com/u/apps/asset_manager/uploaded/2016/33/what-is-killing-classical-music--1471272138.jpg

Despite centuries of ruthless attacks on music since the middle ages, classical music simply is going as strong as ever

(I have a hunch that the quote from 2013 is referring to Krystian Zimerman but I could be wrong)

[ComposerOfAvantGarde]

This thread didn't seem to attract much attention, but I just read this from lovely member arpeggio which might belong nicely here

A problem that I have with the classical music is dead crowd is that it seems that most of them are American.  They may be correct concerning the status of classical music in the United States.  But I rarely hear a non-American claim that classical music is dying.  Maybe some of out non-American friends can clarify that status of classical music in their countries.

I haven't heard 'classical music is dead' in my city in Australia, which has at least three opera companies, a symphony orchestra, a plethora of new music ensembles and opportunities, and I'm not even in Europe where in some opera houses you need to apply for tickets and be able to purchase them if you are lucky. A lot of demand for classical music is what I notice, sometimes verging on too much that organisations can't supply enough tickets to cater for everyone.

Also, I sometimes enjoy talking to strangers, and music tends to be some kind of nice small-talk topic. Most people I talk to have listened to and enjoyed classical music, or have even studied it or sung in choirs or have had family members perform classical music. There is just a sense to me that this 'dead' art form is a part of many peoples lives.

[Alek Hidell]

We hear "jazz is dead" here in the U.S. too, and for very similar "reasons." Of course, the rumors of its demise are greatly exaggerated as well.

[some guy]

Well, the first six items on the list are from before the term "classical music" was coined.

It is instructive to reflect that most of the music in the so-called "classical era" was composed before the term "classical music" was coined. Or could be instructive. And all of it had been written by the time that the term had really caught on.

So we could dispense with the term, I think. People make music. Always have; always will. Not all of it will please everyone. As has always been the case, though in the times before the term was invented, people were generally a lot more tolerant of different kinds of music, or so it appears from concert programs with glees and arias and string quartets and movements of symphonies all jostling for attention.

[71 dB]

There never was "ruthless attacks", only challenges. The music of Elvis Presley is in much bigger danger than classical music. 

[amw]

"X is killing Proper Music + modern culture sucks" is almost always just code for "my preferred version of the white upper class has less power in society than it used to".

In fifty years, upper-middle-class white academics who grew up on Kendrick Lamar, Young Thug and Chance the Rapper will be writing articles about how "X is killing hip-hop, proof of the degeneracy of contemporary culture", etc, where X is a form of culture preferred by a new generation of upper-middle-class white people who have more money than them.

[Maestro267]

The people who keep saying classical music is dying probably want classical music to die.

[RebLem]

Well, the first six items on the list are from before the term "classical music" was coined.

It is instructive to reflect that most of the music in the so-called "classical era" was composed before the term "classical music" was coined. Or could be instructive. And all of it had been written by the time that the term had really caught on.

So we could dispense with the term, I think. People make music. Always have; always will. Not all of it will please everyone. As has always been the case, though in the times before the term was invented, people were generally a lot more tolerant of different kinds of music, or so it appears from concert programs with glees and arias and string quartets and movements of symphonies all jostling for attention.

Duke Ellington said something to the effect of, "We have good music and bad music.  No other kind."

[Cato]

We hear "jazz is dead" here in the U.S. too, and for very similar "reasons." Of course, the rumors of its demise are greatly exaggerated as well.

Those claims usually are based upon sales of CD's and paid downloads: barely above 1% for both Jazz and Classical.

https://www.statista.com/statistics/310746/share-music-album-sales-us-genre/

c. 35 years ago, the percentage was between 3% and 6%:

https://www.nytimes.com/1983/11/29/arts/classical-record-sales-are-surging.html

A positive counter to the negative claims:

http://www.fredericksymphony.org/blog/is-classical-music-a-thing-of-the-past

[king ubu]

Here's the article about Zimerman - just read it an hour ago, by coincidence (was looking for write-ups about his Bacewicz-disc):
https://www.theguardian.com/music/2013/jun/04/krystian-zimerman-youtube-protest

[Monsieur Croche]

The people who keep saying classical music is dying probably want classical music to die.

or conversely, and I think much more the truth of the matter, it is those classical devotees who really really don't care for music post 1900, excepting a bit of Rachmaninoff, i.e. anything much past romantic or late romantic era rep is, to them, 'no longer music.'

Well, send them to the museum / hall for older rep, and don't let them know whats been going on in classical music for the last 100 years or so, and their comfort zone - gated community insular minds will be happy -- though they will also then be relieved of their pleasures of moaning about how classical music 'died.'

[aleazk]

Who cares what they say. If there's in history any general rule at all, it's that at any time there will be a lot of people saying a lot of all kinds of idiotic things. Meanwhile, the world keeps rolling, and they are the ones that inexorably die.

[Cato]

This arrived today in my e-mail's "Spam" folder:

"Topic: Classical music's biggest problem is that no one cares "

From a writer named "Belovic":

Why should anyone care?
I played in community orchestras for much of my childhood and adult life, and finally quit due to the stultifying snobbery of the participants. The obsessive and ridiculous emphasis on robotic 'accuracy' that denied any effort at actual self-expression. Go into Classical Music, you will never, NEVER, be anyone but a member in a mediocre cover band. It is a creative Dead End.

The 'genre' totally deserves what it is getting.

Good riddance to all of it and everyone of it.

It's my truly honest opinion. Classical has made its own fate, and is just failing due to its own ossification and rigidity.
I don't miss it, and rarely even listen to anything Classical anymore. I would rather step on a rather large nail than suffer through a concert.

The whole thing is stupid

I would hope that such is not a typical experience!

https://www.overgrownpath.com/2017/10/classical-musics-biggest-problem-is.html

[jess]

I've heard similar things said by other professional (and former professional) orchestra players. However, having chamber music and other creative outlets like that is usually more than enough to convince them to continue doing what they do.

[Daverz]

This arrived today in my e-mail's "Spam" folder:

"I played in community orchestras for much of my childhood and adult life"

You have to wonder why someone would keep playing as an adult if they hated it so much.  Something else is going on here.  And did this creative free spirit become a musician playing original music or did they become an accountant?  (Not that there is anything at all wrong with being an accountant.)

And he complains about the push to be accurate.  Does he think approximate playing is accepted everywhere else?  I think of James Brown fining his musicians when they missed a beat. 

[Andante]

This arrived today in my e-mail's "Spam" folder:

"Topic: Classical music's biggest problem is that no one cares "

From a writer named "Belovic":



I would hope that such is not a typical experience!

https://www.overgrownpath.com/2017/10/classical-musics-biggest-problem-is.html

I wonder if he/she actually ever played in a classical ens, interpretation is what makes it so addictive and you can't get a position in an orch if you are not a first rate musician, I think this was the rant of a rambling idiot probably not able to even play Ba ba black sheep on a mouth organ.   

[jess]

I wonder if he/she actually ever played in a classical ens, interpretation is what makes it so addictive and you can't get a position in an orch if you are not a first rate musician, I think this was the rant of a rambling idiot probably not able to even play Ba ba black sheep on a mouth organ.   

Doesn't explain why I've heard similar things from other professional orchestral (and former orchestral) musicians.

[Roasted Swan]

Doesn't explain why I've heard similar things from other professional orchestral (and former orchestral) musicians.

Its very simple.... the frustration for many professional orchestral musicians is that they spend many years working on a skill and then have to follow the direction of a conductor they do not respect.  To perform to an audience is an egotistical occupation.  It has to be - if you don't believe you have anything to "say" when you perform all you are left with is the fear of performing alone!  So in an orchestra you will have 80 very good musicians all of whom have a fairly clear idea about how the piece they are playing should go.  If there is an inspirational 'leader' in front of them that's all well and good and the results will be spectacular.  If instead its an "emperor's new clothes" conductor the result is frustration and discontent.  Of course the assumption that somehow in the world of chamber music you are your own master is equally false.  Ask any long-standing chamber group about the intensely magnified disagreements that go on there!

But the OP seems to come from someone who has the ego of wanting to do their own thing (why participate in a collective endeavour I find myself asking) but without the technical address to do it well - no serious musician is ever seeking anything except as technically as perfect a performance as possible.  Implying that fallibility is in some way artistically liberating is an excuse for not having done enough practice!

My own experience of many years of playing professionally in orchestras is that the remarkable - and for me unique - experience of a large group of very different people coming together with an astonishing degree of unanimity is simply thrilling and you can have those moments with even the least inspiring person on the stick.  Conversely, my experience of conducting amateur groups is that can often be a certain kind of complacency often based on the idea that they are not as good as they think they are - its more important to say you've played a Mahler symphony than worry about how well you played it!

[steve ridgway]

I don't think any music that gets digitised will ever completely die as long as the computer storage systems survive, and there's always a chance someone will discover it in the future. There are certainly MP3s around for all kinds of obscure recordings in the non-classical world.

[steve ridgway]

Amazon have MP3 downloads and will even make you a CD-R of Rikki And The Last Days Of Earth - I rest my case .

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