4 ms·

Why there are no Bachs, Mozarts or Beethovens of today is to me one of the world's greatest mysteries.

by Tycho 12y ago

JoeAltmaier 12y ago
They're not writing classical music. But I'm sure they exist. David Bowie was amazingly inventive. Other examples?
- Tycho 12y ago
  David Bowie is great, but if you were to catalogue his output, abilities, and achievements I think they would pale severely in comparison to Mozart. I can believe that music is overall just as great as ever, with the millions of contributors globally, but where are the towering geniuses?
  - JoeAltmaier 12y ago
    I think that's not true. Its nice to extoll Mozart but their catalog might be commensurate, you'd have to do the legwork. I say, geniuses are all around us but we're acculturated to say 'the old masters can't be beat' without actually adding it up.
    - Tycho 12y ago
      The 'Complete Mozart' collection is like 180 discs. And he died age 35!
      - vidarh 12y ago
        And most of it is not remembered by even most of those who likes his music. The reason his output is so huge is of course because he for several periods was employed as a composer and had to churn out large number of compositions. That's not to say that there's not lots of good material there, but it's not like his entire output is of sufficient quality to keep most people interested.
        Tycho 12y ago
        Still, I'd wager that if you pick a random Mozart piece it's got just as high a likelihood of quality as a random Bowie track. Secondly, I suspect that the situation whereby musicians these days aren't expected to pen a large quantity of compositions is one of the prime reasons for the mysterious shortage of Mozartesque prodigies.
- jballanc 12y ago
  "Thick as a Brick" by Jethro Tull is the first thing that comes to mind. It has the length and variety of style that you'd expect from any classical symphony.
crazygringo 12y ago
Nobody writes in that style of music anymore. It's "already been done". Even if someone wrote something as good as Beethoven's 5th, nobody would care. The classical music world has been there, done that. Mozart, Beethoven and Mahler aren't remembered just for their music on its own, but the fact that their music pushed the envelope, invented new forms of expression. They didn't just do it, they came up with it. Classical composition moved in a kind of academic, atonal direction in the 20th century which was completely inaccessible to most of the public, and essentially died, in terms of a popular artistic movement. After Stravinsky, there just wasn't really much left to do. (Composers still write movie scores, but these basically just rehash what was already done in the late 19th and early 20th centuries.) Instead, the world moved towards rock, pop, hip-hop... and there's a lot of exciting stuff there. Unfortunately, it's mostly based around 5-min songs, which limits its complexity. No matter how genius something like Brian Burton's "The Gray Album" might be, or certain Led Zeppelin songs, the format doesn't allow for even 5% of the kind of complexity that a symphony can embody. So the Bach's, Mozart's and Beethoven's are surely out there -- but they're not doing the same kind of music, and they're harder to recognize as equivalents because we've abandoned musical structural complexity for sonic complexity instead (it's more about the sound or flavor or texture of a track, its hooks, and so on).
- Tycho 12y ago
  In these other types of music the talent seems much more dispersed. Like there's a lot of great stuff, but no dominant creative figures.
  - jerf 12y ago
    I think it's the other way around. There's lots of great stuff, and lots of dominant creative figures, such that it's impossible to pick through all the geniuses to find just "one" to be the "best". Part of why the Classical composers loom so large in our minds is that they were the only "genre" of music available (by the rich modern standards of the term "genre"). We look backwards, and they are all there is to see. Now there's a bajillion genres, and many of them are full of very smart, experienced people plugging away. I do not mourn this turn of events. I celebrate it. (And yes, I am well aware that "Western" music is not the only kind and there's rich traditions of music in all ethnicities, etc etc. Still, Western music of the Classical era was something special and I don't think it's amiss to observe that. In the end, what they created was for all humanity, as evidenced by how quickly it has spread to all, and it is not surprising that when we look back, what we see is Bach and his progeny, which includes Beethoven.)
adamdavis 12y ago
But there are. That is to say, if you mean exceptionally talented composers of classical music. See Gyorgy Ligeti, Arvo Part, John Adams, George Crumb. Phillip Glass, and Nico Muhly. Everyone except Ligeti (RIP homie) is still living last time I checked.
rawdeegee 12y ago
It's too soon to tell. You would need 200-300 years to go by to know. And among the countless contemporary artists today, a tiny handful will be recognized for their enduring contribution to music.
- Tycho 12y ago
  I don't know about that. I think every major composer up to the mid 20th century gets a fair shake - and are undoubtedly not in the same league as the aforementioned 3. Composers from the last 70 years are harder to evaluate owing to the 'post-melodic' trend.

Why there are no Bachs, Mozarts or Beethovens of today is to me one of the world's greatest mysteries.

by Tycho 12y ago

Why there are no Bachs, Mozarts or Beethovens of today is to me one of the world's greatest mysteries.

JoeAltmaier 12y ago

They're not writing classical music. But I'm sure they exist. David Bowie was amazingly inventive. Other examples?

Tycho 12y ago
David Bowie is great, but if you were to catalogue his output, abilities, and achievements I think they would pale severely in comparison to Mozart. I can believe that music is overall just as great as ever, with the millions of contributors globally, but where are the towering geniuses?
- JoeAltmaier 12y ago
  I think that's not true. Its nice to extoll Mozart but their catalog might be commensurate, you'd have to do the legwork. I say, geniuses are all around us but we're acculturated to say 'the old masters can't be beat' without actually adding it up.
  - Tycho 12y ago
    The 'Complete Mozart' collection is like 180 discs. And he died age 35!
    - vidarh 12y ago
      And most of it is not remembered by even most of those who likes his music. The reason his output is so huge is of course because he for several periods was employed as a composer and had to churn out large number of compositions. That's not to say that there's not lots of good material there, but it's not like his entire output is of sufficient quality to keep most people interested.
      - Tycho 12y ago
        Still, I'd wager that if you pick a random Mozart piece it's got just as high a likelihood of quality as a random Bowie track. Secondly, I suspect that the situation whereby musicians these days aren't expected to pen a large quantity of compositions is one of the prime reasons for the mysterious shortage of Mozartesque prodigies.
jballanc 12y ago
"Thick as a Brick" by Jethro Tull is the first thing that comes to mind. It has the length and variety of style that you'd expect from any classical symphony.

crazygringo 12y ago

Nobody writes in that style of music anymore. It's "already been done". Even if someone wrote something as good as Beethoven's 5th, nobody would care. The classical music world has been there, done that. Mozart, Beethoven and Mahler aren't remembered just for their music on its own, but the fact that their music pushed the envelope, invented new forms of expression. They didn't just do it, they came up with it. Classical composition moved in a kind of academic, atonal direction in the 20th century which was completely inaccessible to most of the public, and essentially died, in terms of a popular artistic movement. After Stravinsky, there just wasn't really much left to do. (Composers still write movie scores, but these basically just rehash what was already done in the late 19th and early 20th centuries.) Instead, the world moved towards rock, pop, hip-hop... and there's a lot of exciting stuff there. Unfortunately, it's mostly based around 5-min songs, which limits its complexity. No matter how genius something like Brian Burton's "The Gray Album" might be, or certain Led Zeppelin songs, the format doesn't allow for even 5% of the kind of complexity that a symphony can embody. So the Bach's, Mozart's and Beethoven's are surely out there -- but they're not doing the same kind of music, and they're harder to recognize as equivalents because we've abandoned musical structural complexity for sonic complexity instead (it's more about the sound or flavor or texture of a track, its hooks, and so on).

Tycho 12y ago
In these other types of music the talent seems much more dispersed. Like there's a lot of great stuff, but no dominant creative figures.
- jerf 12y ago
  I think it's the other way around. There's lots of great stuff, and lots of dominant creative figures, such that it's impossible to pick through all the geniuses to find just "one" to be the "best". Part of why the Classical composers loom so large in our minds is that they were the only "genre" of music available (by the rich modern standards of the term "genre"). We look backwards, and they are all there is to see. Now there's a bajillion genres, and many of them are full of very smart, experienced people plugging away. I do not mourn this turn of events. I celebrate it. (And yes, I am well aware that "Western" music is not the only kind and there's rich traditions of music in all ethnicities, etc etc. Still, Western music of the Classical era was something special and I don't think it's amiss to observe that. In the end, what they created was for all humanity, as evidenced by how quickly it has spread to all, and it is not surprising that when we look back, what we see is Bach and his progeny, which includes Beethoven.)

adamdavis 12y ago

But there are. That is to say, if you mean exceptionally talented composers of classical music. See Gyorgy Ligeti, Arvo Part, John Adams, George Crumb. Phillip Glass, and Nico Muhly. Everyone except Ligeti (RIP homie) is still living last time I checked.

rawdeegee 12y ago

It's too soon to tell. You would need 200-300 years to go by to know. And among the countless contemporary artists today, a tiny handful will be recognized for their enduring contribution to music.

Tycho 12y ago
I don't know about that. I think every major composer up to the mid 20th century gets a fair shake - and are undoubtedly not in the same league as the aforementioned 3. Composers from the last 70 years are harder to evaluate owing to the 'post-melodic' trend.