04-19-2018, 02:45 PM
(04-19-2018, 07:49 AM)pbrower2a Wrote:(04-04-2017, 11:54 AM)Mikebert Wrote:(04-02-2017, 06:17 PM)Warren Dew Wrote: I think movie music and broadway music often qualifies as "modern classical". Think Webber and Williams.
I agree. Formal classical music fell into an academic track mid 20th century with becoming increasingly technical (e.g. Schoenberg). Movie music was one of the few ways a classical composer could write stuff that people would hear and could come to love.
We talked a bit about it at fish fry last Friday (my wife plays in a community orchestra and we met a couple of orchestra members for dinner). And Dave the timpanist remarked how after sixty years writing music no one wants to listen to (or play), modern composers are starting to write stuff that's listenable again. I then mentioned Barber and how we was a 20th century guy who wrote a great piece I really like. And Dave replied--Barber, here's a guy who when everyone else was writing atonal stuff, continued to write in a Romantic-sounding style, but with clearly modern elements.
But classical musicians can turn to folk traditions to regain melodic coherence. The folk traditions typically do not lack melodic coherence. They may lack the sophisticated counterpoint and may not have enough variation in expression for creating a work of considerable length (an opera, a Romantic symphony, or something like Bach's Goldberg Variations or Beethoven's Hammerklavier sonata), but they have the needed turn of phrase.
As I say, I will start believing in twelve-tone music when I start to hear people sing it on the street.
Like like to all that
