Chess, Sweden, and Diversity

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Are you inviting me out on a date duckie?

@kmax87 said
But back to the discussion, do I hate classical music. No. There's a lot of it that I dearly love. However do I think that the classical music scene suffers from an overwhelming sense of snobbery and privilege that in part is hard-wired into its DNA, due to the way the rich and powerful in Europe patronised the art form and in stark contrast to that, the standing of the greate ...[text shortened]... ow cost that rivals the quality found in some of the best concert halls in other parts of the world.

Sure, and on the other hand, there's plenty of popular music that I like.

While patronage by the rich and powerful was, historically, a fact (for classical music as for many art forms), I'm not sure it necessarily mars the actual output of the great composers. Mozart, for instance, sometimes wrote under commission from the Habsburg Emperor; but The Marriage of Figaro (based on a play banned by the imperial censor) is a devastating satire on aristocratic presumption, and squarely on the side of the outraged servants (nevertheless, the Emperor approved the libretto, mildly toned down from the original play, and requested a command performance). Verdi had a significant mass following; like Dickens or Hitchcock, he produced works of art which were accessible to a broad popular audience.

In mainland Europe, I think the "artform became more democratised" a long time ago - it was really part of the idealistic vision of postwar governments, whether Christian Democratic or Social Democratic, or indeed, in the Eastern bloc, Communist, that high art should be readily available to ordinary people. State subsidies for the arts in Europe have been commonplace since the early postwar years. So there's been "an everyman experience of it available at a reasonable price" for decades - though recently, as Western governments have begun to find themselves strapped for cash, the subsidies have begun to decline and prices to creep up accordingly.

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It depends on the kind of music they write. Most audiences find most modern classical music - basically the atonal tradition that has been the most critically respected kind of classical music since Schoenberg! - very harsh on the ear and very alienating. If Chinese composers could start writing music that was committed to old-fashioned melody, they might well take over Western concert halls.

Actually we did see in London, four or five years ago, a Chinese Western-style opera, Thunderstorm by Mo Fan (based on the famous 1930s play by Cao Yu). The Shanghai Opera Company brought it on tour. Since the original play owes a debt to Ibsen, it was appropriate to approach it in a Westernised musical idiom (albeit with an orchestra supplemented by traditional Chinese instruments, the pipa and erhu). And it was very tuneful. By the same token, I must admit I thought the score was a little derivative of Puccini and Janacek... Still, it was superbly sung, and I'd be glad to see the Shanghai Opera again in the UK, either with another new Chinese work, or in traditional repertoire.

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I think classical music is likely to retain its practitioners and its audience, at least in the immediate future, in Germany, Austria and especially in the former Eastern bloc. Prague has four opera stages, and it's hard to count the number of concert venues, given how many churches and palaces double as such!

@teinosuke said
It depends on the kind of music they write. Most audiences find most modern classical music - basically the atonal tradition that has been the most critically respected kind of classical music since Schoenberg! - very harsh on the ear and very alienating. If Chinese composers could start writing music that was committed to old-fashioned melody, they might well take over Wes ...[text shortened]... Shanghai Opera again in the UK, either with another new Chinese work, or in traditional repertoire.

Isn't this the basic problem with classical music. All the good tunes have already been written, and all the forms have been exhaustively explored. Anything 'new' will to some extent sound derivative, if it conforms to traditional tonality and harmony. Isn't this the paradox of classical music. It only lives while its long dead past is glorified.

@kmax87 said
Isn't this the basic problem with classical music. All the good tunes have already been written, and all the forms have been exhaustively explored. Anything 'new' will to some extent sound derivative, if it conforms to traditional tonality and harmony. Isn't this the paradox of classical music. It only lives while its long dead past is glorified.

Well, the reason classical music is "classic" is because it survives. Mozart is not a representative of the long-dead past but of the still-living past. Just like Shakespeare, Tolstoy, Dante, Vermeer, Utamaro, Rumi, Li Bo...

Schoenberg himself, when he pioneered the atonal system, said that he thought there was still plenty of good music to be written using traditional key signatures. Any work of modern classical music will, of course, be influenced by what exists (like, actually, any work of art - nothing is entirely original), but there is a difference between music that is derivative and music that is a creative response to and a creative participant in existing traditions.

@teinosuke said
Well, the reason classical music is "classic" is because it survives. Mozart is not a representative of the long-dead past but of the still-living past. Just like Shakespeare, Tolstoy, Dante, Vermeer, Utamaro, Rumi, Li Bo...

Does it survive naturally, or because it has a dedicated life support system keeping the body of work alive, even though the creative head has been brain dead for a very long time? The times and societies that gave rise to the music are long gone. The extent to which the past lives on, seems to be a function of how well it can be preserved, and how well the fringes of its special-ness can be protected.

To the Duchess' point, can the Asian phenomenon keep the body alive? I think that depends on the next couple of generations, whether that singular focus of playing an instrument proficiently and achieving well academically is maintained. Who knows what will happen with increased wealth and increased comfort and distraction, whether the motivation and discipline required to be actively upwardly socially mobile, will still be as urgent and widely felt, to produce the players and audience required to keep the whole enterprise alive and thriving? Who knows right?

Maybe the past will always live on and people will always cling to it because of the certainty and clarity it represents. Maybe the preservation of a world rich in meaning and texture is preferable to the unvarnished reality of this one. Maybe classical music with all of its structure and well defined forms and norms provides the best escape for minds troubled by uncertainty and doubt in an anxious world. Or maybe they just dig the music....

@kmax87 said
Does it survive naturally, or because it has a dedicated life support system keeping the body of work alive, even though the creative head has been brain dead for a very long time? The times and societies that gave rise to the music are long gone. The extent to which the past lives on, seems to be a function of how well it can be preserved, and how well the fringes of its spec ...[text shortened]... or minds troubled by uncertainty and doubt in an anxious world. Or maybe they just dig the music....

I think the best of the art of the past survives because it skillfully reflects the emotions and experiences of human beings, and expresses valid truths about the the human condition... (which is also what can be said of the best of the art of the present). Times change, societies change - but human nature doesn't change much - and that's why great art stays relevant.

I think this certainly what many artists in most media until very recently aspired to. "I have made me a monument more lasting than bronze [...] "I shall not wholly die", wrote Horace, more than 2000 years ago. Poets, composers, painters through the centuries thought they were creating with eternity in mind. They would probably have thought our present-day artists very unambitious.

But yes, by the way, I also just do dig the music!

Not all threads created by Duchess were deleted. Or were some restored?

@Metal-Brain
I think it was just her posts that were deleted.

@eladar said
@Metal-Brain
I think it was just her posts that were deleted.

I guess so. Somebody said her threads were deleted. Obviously an error.