New Sub-Forum: Composers

[RichardB]

I thought her waltzes were of a comparable standard to many from the Strauss family.

Johann Strauss jr died in 1899, and of course his music is still played now. If on the other hand he had been writing music in a style that was current 120 years previously, say in the style of Haydn, he would have been regarded as an eccentric anachronism in the late 19th century. Now the "eccentric anachronisms" are touted as being in some sense contemporary. This is pretty tragic if you ask me.

[Ein Heldenleben]

Johann Strauss jr died in 1899, and of course his music is still played now. If on the other hand he had been writing music in a style that was current 120 years previously, say in the style of Haydn, he would have been regarded as an eccentric anachronism in the late 19th century. Now the "eccentric anachronisms" are touted as being in some sense contemporary. This is pretty tragic if you ask me.

Unless you are writing Wozzeck I guess.

[smittims]

Another aspect of the Siena article that struck me on reflection is that its own attitude is anachronistic. Booming 'stand-out ' composers with 'potential to shape...' is a bit like Schumann's write-ups of Chopin ('Hats off, gentlemen, a genius') and the young Brahms: expecting a new composer to have an 'impact' , as Beethoven did.

But then , new (as in 'recently-composed') music had a different place in civilisation, when so few people listened to 'old' music' compared with today. Music composed to appeal to people whose existing listening is largely old music cannot be 'new' inn that way. It's as unlikely as any poet today having the same 'impact' as Shakespeare or Dante, or a new novelist the same influence as Scott or Austen. Music, and literature, have a different status now from then.

In any case , Ms Siena probably knows that most Classic FM listeners would prefer Tchaikovsky, Bruch in G minor or 'The Lark Ascending' to any of the music she mentions, so any 'impact' is unlikely, however interesting a social phenomenon 'kitsch' is to discuss.

[JasonPalmer]

Unless you can get your music in a film....... dance with those wolves....and get spinning on movie classics, noticed radio 3 and classic fm both have programs devoted to film music.

[ahinton]

Johann Strauss jr died in 1899, and of course his music is still played now. If on the other hand he had been writing music in a style that was current 120 years previously, say in the style of Haydn, he would have been regarded as an eccentric anachronism in the late 19th century. Now the "eccentric anachronisms" are touted as being in some sense contemporary. This is pretty tragic if you ask me.

I didn't ask you but of course didn't need to as you're absolutely correct! - although I cannot help but wonder if anyone seriously regards Alma non Mahler's effusions as in any sense "contemporary" other than that they've only recently been written? If they do, that WOULD be tragic! Verklärte Nacht was the new Austrian music in the year of the death of Johann Strauss II's whom its composer much admired him (JS Jr.) and indeed made at least one chamber arrangement of one of his waltzes (Kaiserwalzer, perhaps ironically!) but that's obviously a very different matter to turning out watered-down Mozart / Mendelssohn / whoever...

[ahinton]

Booming 'stand-out ' composers with 'potential to shape...' is a bit like Schumann's write-ups of Chopin ('Hats off, gentlemen, a genius') and the young Brahms: expecting a new composer to have an 'impact', as Beethoven did.

Except that, in these particular instances, Schumann happened to be right!...

[RichardB]

new (as in 'recently-composed') music had a different place in civilisation

Nevertheless I wonder whether the proportion of the population listening to Schumann's music in the 19th century was so different from that listening to living composers now. What has changed is that the music surrounding Schumann and his like, the folk and popular musics that weren't considered worthy of inclusion in the music history narrative, or, more precisely, its contemporary equivalent, has now taken over the foreground, so that anything not explicitly populistic can be marginalised as obscure and inaccessible, although actually it's no more so than the music of very many composers of past centuries whose work constituted the "classical music" canon.