Piano World Home Page Forums Our Most Popular Forums Pianist Corner Do you think there will ever be another great composer?

Well, not classical (because "classical music" indicates a certain genre, including of course music which is not of the "classical period"), but it certainly won't be "new" any more...

Imagine bringing them forward in time to hear the pop music in the charts today- they'd be sick!

They would be happy not to have been born in our time!

But not Erich Wolfgang Korngold. He always did his own orchestrations, and if you listen to his deliciously scored soundtracks, there is no way anyone else could have accomplished that.

What a pity the most talented composer after Mozart was reduced to a mere Hollywood hack, though I suppose he enjoyed the sunny climate.

Korngold knew Max -Gone-with-the Wind- Steiner of course, and there is an anecdote:

Steiner: Ah Erich! Why is it that my music is getting so much better, though your music is getting worse?

Korngold: That is because you have been copying me, and I have been copying you!

Little bits of compositional genius exist, like Glenn Gould's cadenzas for Beethoven's PC 1.

Indeed - being born outside of one's own time must be so jarring.

OTOH, their medical issues might not have been so devastating...

And perhaps Schnittke's cadenza to the Beethoven violin concerto?

Could be, though one could argue that neither is particularly relevant to musical matters at hand, though I am not adverse to cadenzas 'out of the sound world' of the concerto. I guess it depends how far out we go.

For that matter, Beethoven's 3rd cadenza to his first concerto (admittedly unedited by the composer) is too over-the-top with its excessive diminished 7th chords and general empty rhetoric, though it is certainly a technical tour de force. No wonder pianists like it, though the 2nd cadenza makes the most musical sense, given context.

But of course I seem to be alone on this board in preferring the more modest cadenza in Rachmaninov 3. The BIG one screams a lot -must be where the money is- but neither the composer, Horowitz, Weissenberg or Argerich ever used it.

Sorry for OT!

I don't know.
Shocked because of their old ears, but probably not any more sick than hearing the contemporary popular music being sung at the local biergarten.

Okay, okay... so obviously the maestros of the past would most likely be sick to hear the noise that passes off as music these days, but what about before music got horrible? (<-- my opinion of course)

What do you think some of the great composers from the 1800's and prior would think if they heard In The Mood by Glenn Miller's Orchestra? I think we can all agree that's a pretty darn good tune...

Nice!

I disagree ... and vigorously!

As do I.. another example of grafting your personal tastes onto another person, who may not share the same view at all. Was it not Wagner who said, "Make it new!"?

*Ach

I said no such thing.

I haven't read all the posts in this thread but I think it's safe to state that the language of music is well established and that only new dialects might be created from time to time.

I'm not sure that this is necessarily true. English was thought well-established when Chaucer was alive. It's changed since then. English was thought well-established when Shakespeare was alive. It's changed since then. English was thought well-established since Poe was alive. It's changed since then. Heck, colloquialisms today are far different than they were during the Roaring 20's. And English in Europe is far different than English in America.

Similarly, music was thought well-established when Mozart was alive. It's changed since then. I won't do this all again, but you can see clearly how music has changed during each period.

Now, if you mean to say, specifically, that the language of "classical music" is well-established, then I would have to say I agree with you. It would be like saying Middle English is well-established. Of course it is. It's several hundred years old. Nobody speaks that way anymore, though we recognize it when we heareth it. But language has moved beyond such a narrow scope and definition. And so has music.

Honestly, I don't think the language analogy is valid because even if the English language has evolved over the course of the past 500 years, the basic structural elements (vocabulary, grammar, punctuation, etc.) are still very much the same and people can still easily understand and relate to the English of centuries past.

However, the bulk of contemporary art music has moved away from the modal/tonal foundations of music that prevailed for almost a millenium. Many composers of the 20th century have therefore lost the vital connection with the general public which cannot make sense of their new musical language and constructs.

I think it is safe to say that virtually all contemporary music that is loved by the general public today (whether jazz, rock, pop, film music, ...) is tonal in nature and features recognizable melodies that anyone can sing along with after a few listenings.

Not to mention that English language has actually deteriorated in recent years - or rather its common use has. Anyone who works with children and teens knows that their ability to write coherent sentences and even have a vocabulary of words that are 3-syllables is much less than in previous years. This is a huge problem that universities face with incoming freshmen and they've had to respond with "Writing emphasis" courses in the hopes of assigning more written assignments and requiring student to enroll in a certain number of these courses it will help get them up to speed of what they should be able to do at that age. Sometimes change isn't for the better.

As for film composers, I would like to mention Jerry Goldsmith who composed great music (some of it semi-atonal and quite avant-garde) for Aliens, The Omen, Poltergeist, and a lot of other movies.

I also think that John Williams has composed some extraordinary music for movies such as Jaws (possibly the best and most effective movie theme ever) and E.T. (with the incredible use of the Stravinsky chord).

I challenge you to read Beowulf without a translation into modern English.