Where have the Great Composers gone?

[Monsieur Croche]

It seems to me, to say that Bob Dylan, The Beatles etc...are the true heirs of the Western Classical Tradition is to ignore the unique qualities of either. Classical Music is very different from pop/rock. The latter is not heir to the former simply because both use tradic harmonic structures and somewhat regular rhythmic structures.

This may be redundant in that I may have put it in an earlier post in this thread....
"If a literary man puts together two words about music, one of them will be wrong." ~ Aaron Copland

'Nuff said :-)

[violadude]

This may be redundant in that I may have put it in an earlier post in this thread....
"If a literary man puts together two words about music, one of them will be wrong." ~ Aaron Copland

'Nuff said :-)

Kind of ironic considering how good Copland was at writing about music. 

[jochanaan]

In response to no one in particular:

A related question might be: Where have all the good listeners gone?

Are you curious about new music? 

For me, this is crucial - it is all about simply being curious about what living composers are writing.  I suspend judgment all the time and simply listen to new music, a lot of it - and then go back and listen again to those works which tickled my aural imagination.

But if you have no curiosity about new music and are interested in mainly listening to music you already know you enjoy or music recommended to you that is similar to music you already like, then it is hard for a new composer to have a chance with you.

+1!

[Monsieur Croche]

Kind of ironic considering how good Copland was at writing about music. 

Umberto Eco said Copland was a better writer on music than a composer of ;-)

[violadude]

Umberto Eco said Copland was a better writer on music than a composer of ;-)

Well...I wouldn't go THAT far.

[Ken B]

Umberto Eco said Copland was a better writer on music than a composer of ;-)

That's ironic, considering Eco was a better composer than writer.

[Chronochromie]

That's ironic, considering Eco was a better composer than writer.