We forget that there were thousands of mediocre composers in past centuries who have, surprise, been forgotten. Only the greatest have survived, leaving us to think that only our era is awash in mediocrity.
The problem in the arts is not that good art is no longer produced, it is that the world of "high art" has been taken over by a cult of unaesthetic garbage for whom pretending to like contemporary "art" is a status symbol. The average DeviantArt page probably has more artistic merit than the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art.
In architecture the problem is much more severe because unlike the visual arts and music, you need a huge budget in order to build a building.
It's very effective for generating certain types of atmosphere. "Candyman" would not be the same movie if someone other than Philip Glass had scored it.
Is Phillip Glass atonal? I'm not at all expert so I genuinely ask. The atonal music (labeled as such) that I've heard seemed awful to me but I've always enjoyed Glass, especially the soundtrack to Powaqqatsi.
I looked into it further. I had heard his music described as "atonal before," but apparently he is heavily influenced by atonal composers, but isn't considered one himself. His style is usually described as "minimalist."
The St. Louis Symphony Orchestra has a program where they screen a film as the orchestra performs the soundtrack along with the film. We recently attended How to Train Your Dragon with our children and it was wonderful. Every seat was full.
Movie soundtracks have been an important stepping stone for introducing our children to instrumental classical music more broadly. If a child enjoys Star Wars, it’s not a big stretch to introduce them to Holst’s The Planets. And from there to Beethoven’s Fifth. And so on.
What about Philip Glass and Steve Reich? Those two are consistently ranked as among the top 5 living classical composers, and they don't make atonal music. They are even direct descendants of the classical tradition, in terms of their student/teacher relationships.
Does this come down to the definition of "atonal"? When I think of atonal music, I think of Schoenberg- composers who wanted random tones and sounds so as to not convey any sense of harmony. Philip Glass and Steve Reich write music in terms of chords and harmonies and harmonic progressions as much as any pre-atonal composer.
The terminology is somewhat muddled. "Tonal music" can either refer to any music that has a tonal center, or it can more narrowly refer to music that follows the rules of "functional harmony" (which includes most Classical and Romantic music as well as lots of jazz and most pop music). So if you have a tonal center, but you break some of the old rules of how harmony is "supposed" to work, that can be tonal in the former sense while not being tonal in the latter sense. This describes the music of lots of 20th and 21st century composers' music, like Glass and Reich, but also earlier examples like Debussy and Stravinsky, lots of more complex jazz, and lots of film scores.
Atonality has never been a defining feature of all "modern" classical music, and later tonal music should not be lumped in with Romanticism. Schoenberg was a ground-breaking composer twice over - his early works, before he invented 12-tone serialism, were already a break from Romanticism ( https://youtu.be/yw6HK5X6tW8?si=ROOfST5H26SvfwTC ). Much of "modernism" (the good stuff, imo) follows in the footsteps of early Schoenberg as opposed to late Schoenberg.
Part of the problem with later Schoenberg, to my taste, is that he threw out harmony and rhythmic groove at the same time - in many of his atonal works he started deliberately obscuring where the beat is. Atonal music that you can tap your toe to can be a lot more appealing (one of my personal favorite examples: https://youtu.be/tnuC5o_Iwn0?si=trroKwNezOkYO6yV )
As a performing musician, a lot of my favorite classical music is the good 20th century stuff (Shostakovich, Stravinsky, Copland, Debussy, Britten, Ravel). So I get a little touchy about any simplistic classification that implies all "modern music" is that icky unlistenable atonal stuff, and anyone newer who writes anything good is just a "Late Romantic."
Great post! I think that it's also true of philosophical-political Romantic era: the Pandora's box Rousseau opened not only has not been closed back, it still expels utopian dreams, that is, collective autocratic experiments...
A few more I'd recommend that fall squarely into stylistic Romanticism: El Cid (Rosza), Star Trek 2 (Horner), The Count of Monte Cristo (1990s) (Ed Shearmur), Conan the Barbarian (Basil Poledouris), Dances with Wolves (John Barry), and Scent of a Woman (Thomas Newman)
I'll give you Lawrence of Arabia--a definite Rimsky-Korsakov tinge. Though R-K is not high up in my pantheon. And I like the Good, the Bad and the Ugly. Otherwise, I would hope never to be caught in an elevator playing the any of the others.
We forget that there were thousands of mediocre composers in past centuries who have, surprise, been forgotten. Only the greatest have survived, leaving us to think that only our era is awash in mediocrity.
A couple of great composers barely survived oblivion too - Bach and Vivaldi for a start.
The problem in the arts is not that good art is no longer produced, it is that the world of "high art" has been taken over by a cult of unaesthetic garbage for whom pretending to like contemporary "art" is a status symbol. The average DeviantArt page probably has more artistic merit than the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art.
In architecture the problem is much more severe because unlike the visual arts and music, you need a huge budget in order to build a building.
Scott Alexander has been arguing about "taste" in arts like architecture for that reason:
https://www.astralcodexten.com/p/friendly-and-hostile-analogies-for
While I’d enjoy being pretentious on this issue, I love Copland.
Atonal and other modern music has definitely found a home in film as well.
It's very effective for generating certain types of atmosphere. "Candyman" would not be the same movie if someone other than Philip Glass had scored it.
Is Phillip Glass atonal? I'm not at all expert so I genuinely ask. The atonal music (labeled as such) that I've heard seemed awful to me but I've always enjoyed Glass, especially the soundtrack to Powaqqatsi.
I looked into it further. I had heard his music described as "atonal before," but apparently he is heavily influenced by atonal composers, but isn't considered one himself. His style is usually described as "minimalist."
The St. Louis Symphony Orchestra has a program where they screen a film as the orchestra performs the soundtrack along with the film. We recently attended How to Train Your Dragon with our children and it was wonderful. Every seat was full.
Movie soundtracks have been an important stepping stone for introducing our children to instrumental classical music more broadly. If a child enjoys Star Wars, it’s not a big stretch to introduce them to Holst’s The Planets. And from there to Beethoven’s Fifth. And so on.
Great points.
I would also add that access to the greatest works of music are far more easily accessible to the masses than in previous eras.
We mustn't forget Morricone's "The Mission"
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s7w-IeNR9ko
What about Philip Glass and Steve Reich? Those two are consistently ranked as among the top 5 living classical composers, and they don't make atonal music. They are even direct descendants of the classical tradition, in terms of their student/teacher relationships.
Does this come down to the definition of "atonal"? When I think of atonal music, I think of Schoenberg- composers who wanted random tones and sounds so as to not convey any sense of harmony. Philip Glass and Steve Reich write music in terms of chords and harmonies and harmonic progressions as much as any pre-atonal composer.
The terminology is somewhat muddled. "Tonal music" can either refer to any music that has a tonal center, or it can more narrowly refer to music that follows the rules of "functional harmony" (which includes most Classical and Romantic music as well as lots of jazz and most pop music). So if you have a tonal center, but you break some of the old rules of how harmony is "supposed" to work, that can be tonal in the former sense while not being tonal in the latter sense. This describes the music of lots of 20th and 21st century composers' music, like Glass and Reich, but also earlier examples like Debussy and Stravinsky, lots of more complex jazz, and lots of film scores.
Atonality has never been a defining feature of all "modern" classical music, and later tonal music should not be lumped in with Romanticism. Schoenberg was a ground-breaking composer twice over - his early works, before he invented 12-tone serialism, were already a break from Romanticism ( https://youtu.be/yw6HK5X6tW8?si=ROOfST5H26SvfwTC ). Much of "modernism" (the good stuff, imo) follows in the footsteps of early Schoenberg as opposed to late Schoenberg.
Part of the problem with later Schoenberg, to my taste, is that he threw out harmony and rhythmic groove at the same time - in many of his atonal works he started deliberately obscuring where the beat is. Atonal music that you can tap your toe to can be a lot more appealing (one of my personal favorite examples: https://youtu.be/tnuC5o_Iwn0?si=trroKwNezOkYO6yV )
As a performing musician, a lot of my favorite classical music is the good 20th century stuff (Shostakovich, Stravinsky, Copland, Debussy, Britten, Ravel). So I get a little touchy about any simplistic classification that implies all "modern music" is that icky unlistenable atonal stuff, and anyone newer who writes anything good is just a "Late Romantic."
Great post! I think that it's also true of philosophical-political Romantic era: the Pandora's box Rousseau opened not only has not been closed back, it still expels utopian dreams, that is, collective autocratic experiments...
Good Bad and Ugly
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=enuOArEfqGo
Some of these are new to me. Duly earmarked!
A few more I'd recommend that fall squarely into stylistic Romanticism: El Cid (Rosza), Star Trek 2 (Horner), The Count of Monte Cristo (1990s) (Ed Shearmur), Conan the Barbarian (Basil Poledouris), Dances with Wolves (John Barry), and Scent of a Woman (Thomas Newman)
I made a Youtube Playlist of all the songs Bryan highlighted in this post: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLXh4UKFYpwB2Ugrt7T5JKe2JNFWi9acMO
Fuck I love Cloud Atlas.
And (as you probably know) the sextet isn't just relevant to that particular story, it's the central thing that ties the 6 narratives together.
Two of my favorites that are rarely talked about are how to train your dragon and bridge to terabithia.
Bryan and all, <a href="https://www.youtube.com/@FrankWilhoit">My music</a> will interest you.
I'll give you Lawrence of Arabia--a definite Rimsky-Korsakov tinge. Though R-K is not high up in my pantheon. And I like the Good, the Bad and the Ugly. Otherwise, I would hope never to be caught in an elevator playing the any of the others.
But, tastes differ and I won't quibble.