Who Killed Classical Music?

[Serial_Apologist]

Ah not the cherry/methol cough sweets then?

I was waiting for that: had to be you ams!

[ferneyhoughgeliebte]

Detractors of atonality might well argue that the rise of atonality per se was a direct symptom of serialism, which makes Schoenberg and the 2VS an all-too-easy target.

Yer wot?

"The rise of atonality per se was a direct symptom of serialism".





"The rise .... of atonality per se ... was a direct symptom ... of seialism".


Nope - still can't make head nor tail of it.

[Serial_Apologist]

Yer wot?

"The rise of atonality per se was a direct symptom of serialism".





"The rise .... of atonality per se ... was a direct symptom ... of seialism".


Nope - still can't make head nor tail of it.

Possibly an arsy-varsy attempt at explanation?

[ferneyhoughgeliebte]

"a direct symptom".

"atonality" "was a" "symptom" of "serialism"


Well, can't be that because it's "the rise" of atonality.




"Symptom" = "a sign of the existence of a condition".


So (possibly) "The rise of atonality per se was a direct sign of the existence of Serialism"





Or (perhaps)

"Serialism was a direct sign of the existence of the rise of atonality per se"



I wish these detractors would express what they meant more clearly!

[amateur51]

I was waiting for that: had to be you ams!

You betcha, Red Rider!

[Gordon]

It's all getting a bit, er, Post Modern? As in Sokal et al. Or even Yes, Minister, "would that be the adminsitration of Policy, Minister, or the Policy of Administration?" or is it that Wednesday's child [woe] is wearing Thursday's child's [has far to go] clothing?

[Boilk]

what people find 'difficult' is NOT the tonality or lack of conventional 'melody' in music but rather the lack of continuum .... If one takes a piece of rhythmic and tonal music and then randomises the pitches people are more than happy to listen and enjoy it.

This rhythmic continuity is exactly what has allowed more and more commercially successful artists, armed with cheap sampling technology, to become far more experimental than their predecessors in their use of sound. A whole array of seemingly totally disparate sounds (instrumental, concrète, environmental, etc.) becomes perceptually conjoined above a 'unifying' rhythm track. The presence or absence of that all-important rhythm track is what often determines the pigeon-holing of the piece (trance, jungle, musique concrète).

I suspect if you put a rhythm track underneath electronic music by Francis Dhomont or Milton Babbitt, you'd find a whole new audience willing to part with its money. Come to think of it, whenever I've introduced people to Morton Subotnick's Silver Apples of the Moon (1967), they've tended to immediately warm to part 2's "dance" section, but have been left stone cold by the relative rhythmlessness of the rest of the piece. Small wonder that more people like Philip Glass than Morton Feldman!

[ferneyhoughgeliebte]

I suspect if you put a rhythm track underneath ... music by ... Milton Babbitt, you'd find a whole new audience willing to part with its money.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6qg6f9jbLd4

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s11zaVuqzlE

[Richard Barrett]

Whether it's true or not that there's something about modern music that makes it inaccessible to all but an educationally privileged few (and my experience is that this is not true), there's still no excuse for the kind of sloppy writing that fills the BBC's blurb on this upcoming programme.

[burning dog]

Reverend Green in the library with a candlestick.

[gradus]

The absence of opportunity to hear classical music could kill it but it doesn't seem very likely that such an absence of opportunity will occur, nor do I think that the death of music would have much to do with the compositional methods of modern or 'difficult' composers. I have no idea why music means so much to me but as I suspect may be true of others, it has absolutely nothing to do with music teachers.

[Quarky]

There must be a very reactionary soul lurking somewhere in Radio 4, with very restricted musical tastes.

A little while ago there was a programme in similar vein: Jazz is Dead:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b01phg6m

[Serial_Apologist]

Just a reminder: the programme is on in just over half an hour (11.30 am)

[MrGongGong]

Tansy gets down to Prince again

I predict Phil Cashian talking about Zappa next

[Richard Barrett]

Tansy gets down to Prince again

I predict Phil Cashian talking about Zappa next

(sigh)