I think it’s because music of modern composers is usually the result of temporary inspiration and some talent which then manifests itself only for a limited amount of time. The classical composers are generally far more knowledgeable about the technical aspects of music, skill in conjunction with raw talent which allows for a consistent production of quality music as opposed to temporary inspiration. Some modern musicians are similar to classic composers in that sense, such as Pink Floyd.
All the members of Yes were well aware of the technical aspects, being either classically trained, and/or from musical families.
I used to think it was my perception - that I was stuck in a particular form of music and just didn’t like where the band was going. But I think there are objective reasons why late Yes, is poorer that early Yes.
The loss to the world of Prog Rock seems more like a fashion victim - a sort of global dumbing down.
The other thought was about what people in their late and mid twenties were capable of doing in a GROUP context, where internal rivalries and problems with intra-band communication fucked the friendly co-operation. Or maybe 30+ was too old for original work .
Classical composers never co-operated.
As for Pink FLoyd, their sell-by date ran out 20 years ago. Not so for Beethoven and Wagner. Floyd’s apogee was Dark Side of the Moon, 1974, I say that Meddle was getting there, but by the time of The Wall, band dynamics were starting to crack up the band. THe later stuff without Waters was not as strong as the 1970s golden period.
Have you heard their 2014 album? BTW.
You guys!!! Recorded sound has diminished the selective pressure to compose in the head!!! Now, to make it even worse, we have computers for it!!!
I do not think we respond to pressure for our heads to compose, which happens regardless. Pressure does not help.
You might as well say that writing has robbed us of our ability to tell stories or give accounts; it has not.
In pre-literate societies, accounts are poor in fact and limited in content and stories tend to resort to traditional formulae.
Since writing, arts and science have exploded.
Musical notation also massively improved music, and other means of recording have offered the composer freedom from the drudgery of the quill and parchment.
Musical notation is one thing, but I think recorded sound has dulled the part of the brain which creates the selective pressure for composing and composers… I think the comment that the old composers only got better with age is a perfect analogy here, in these days people are flashes in the pan, old composers kept improving their music for what 60 years? Who in modern music can claim that?
Yes obviously that is in fact the question, but you do not have the answer.
And,btw, I can’t think of any composer that actually composed for 60 years. Life expectancy was less than now.
If you assume active at 20, then this list of mid-classical composers had short sell-by dates, with one or two exceptions.
João José Baldi (1770–1816)
Ludwig van Beethoven (1770–1827)
Ferdinando Carulli (1770–1841)
Édouard Du Puy (1770–1822)
Peter Hänsel (1770–1831)
James Hewitt (1770–1827)
Anton Reicha (1770–1836)
Christian Heinrich Rinck (1770–1846)
Jan August Vitásek (1770–1839)
Adam Valentin Volckmar (1770–1851) ([11])
Friedrich Witt (1770–1836)
Johann Baptist Cramer (1771–1858)
Mme Delaval (fl. 1791–1802)
Ferdinando Paer (1771–1839)
Ján Josef Rösler (de) or Johann Joseph Rösler (1771–1813)
Antonio Casimir Cartellieri (1772–1807)
Lucile Grétry (1772–1790)
Louis Ferdinand, Prince of Prussia (1772–1806)
Maria Frances Parke (1772–1822)
François-Louis Perne (1772–1832)
Josef Triebensee (1772–1846)
Johann Wilhelm Wilms (1772–1847)
Sophie Bawr (1773–1860)
Pietro Generali (1773–1832)
Wenzeslaus Matiegka (de) (1773–1830)
Joseph Wölfl (1773–1812)
Bartolomeo Bortolazzi (1773–1820)
Pierre Rode (1774–1830)
Gaspare Spontini (1774–1851)
Václav Tomášek (1774–1850)
Christoph Ernst Friedrich Weyse (1774–1842)
Johann Anton André (1775–1842)
François-Adrien Boieldieu (1775–1834)
João Domingos Bomtempo (1775–1842)
Maria Brizzi Giorgi (1775–1822)
Bernhard Crusell (1775–1838)
Sophia Corri Dussek (1775–1847)
Margaret Essex (1775–1807)
François de Fossa (1775–1849)
Sophie Gail (1775–1819)
Nicolas Isouard (1775–1818)
José Ángel Lamas (1775–1814)
Maria Hester Park (1775–1822)
Ernst Theodor Amadeus Hoffmann (1776–1822)
Hyacinthe Jadin (1776–1800)
Joseph Küffner (1776–1856)
Philipp Jakob Riotte (1776–1856)
Ignaz von Seyfried (1776–1841)
Ludwig Berger (1777–1839)
Pauline Duchambge (1778–1858)
Johann Nepomuk Hummel (1778–1837)
Sigismund Neukomm (1778–1858)
Fernando Sor (1778–1839)
Joachim Nicolas Eggert (1779–1813)
William Knyvett (1779–1856)
Louise Reichardt (1779–1826)
Luigi Antonio Calegari (1780–1849)
Conradin Kreutzer (1780–1849)
Louis François Dauprat (1781–1868)
Anton Diabelli (1781–1858)
Mauro Giuliani (1781–1829)
Anthony Philip Heinrich (1781–1861)
Sophie Lebrun (1781–1863)
François Joseph Naderman (1781–1835)
Karl Stefan Aichelburg (1782–1817)
Daniel Auber (1782–1871)
Carlo Coccia (1782–1873)
John Field (1782–1837)
Niccolò Paganini (1782–1840)
Charlotta Seuerling (1782–1828)
Friedrich Dotzauer (1783–1860)
Teresa Belloc-Giorgi (1784–1855)
Martin-Joseph Mengal (1784–1851)
Francesco Morlacchi (1784–1841)
George Onslow (1784–1853)
Ferdinand Ries (1784–1838)
Louis Spohr (1784–1859)
Alexandre Pierre François Boëly (1785–1858)
Bettina Brentano (1785–1859)
Catherina Cibbini-Kozeluch (1785–1858)
Isabella Colbran (1785–1845)
Karol Kurpiński (1785–1857)
George Pinto (1785–1806)
Fanny Krumpholtz Pittar (1785–1815)
Marie Bigot (1786–1820)
Henry Rowley Bishop (1786–1855)
Friedrich Kuhlau (1786–1832)
Pietro Raimondi (1786–1853)
Le Sénéchal de Kerkado (1786–1805)
Carl Maria von Weber (1786–1826)
Alexander Alyabyev (1787–1851)
Michele Carafa (1787–1872)
Johann Peter Pixis (1788–1874)
Simon Sechter (1788–1867)
Elena Asachi (1789–1877)
Nicolas Bochsa (1789–1856)
Frederic Ernest Fesca (1789–1826)
Maria Agata Szymanowska (1789–1831)
Harriet Browne (1790–1858)
Carl Czerny (1791–1857)
Louis Joseph Ferdinand Herold (1791–1833)
Giacomo Meyerbeer (1791–1864)
Franz Xaver Mozart (1791–1844)
Carlo Evasio Soliva (1791–1853)
Jan Václav Voříšek (1791–1825)
Gioachino Rossini (1792–1868)
Hedda Wrangel (1792–1833)
Gertrude van den Bergh (1793–1840)
Bernhard Klein (1793–1832)
Caroline Ridderstolpe (1793–1878)
Amalie, Princess of Saxony (1794–1870)
Ignaz Moscheles (1794–1870)
Saverio Mercadante (1795–1870)
Franz Berwald (1796–1868)
Helene Liebmann (1796–1835)
Carl Loewe (1796–1869)
Mathilda d’Orozco (1796–1863)
Giovanni Pacini (1796–1867)
Emilie Zumsteeg (1796–1857)
Luigi Castellacci (1797–1845)
Gaetano Donizetti (1797–1848)
Franz Schubert (1797–1828)
Annette von Droste-Hülshoff (1797–1848)
Antonio Rolla (1798–1837)
Olivia Buckley (1799–1847)
Maria Frederica von Stedingk (1799–1868)
Fromental Halévy (1799–1862)
Oscar I of Sweden (1799-1859)
Liszt: (October 22, 1811 – July 31, 1886)
Although the peculiar thing about Liszt is that he didn’t see recorded music coming, so he spent most of his career (much to the admonishment of his lovers) transcribing other composers’ music rather than writing his own, but even these are masterpieces. Beethoven tried for one of his benefactors to transcribe the 7th symphony for piano and couldn’t, we just have some of his notes left, but Liszt wasn’t just a genius composer, he was a genius transcriber… he did all 9 symphonies, and it’s spectacular. The only thing Liszt couldn’t formulate in the 9th symphony was the choral part, which he just left to a chorus to sing. Liszt older work was more profound than his younger work.
Have you any evidence that recorded music dulls the brain? no.
One thing moderns have in abundance that Classical composers never had. They had scant opportunity to hear music, of the maount we do today.
I have no scientific proof if that’s what you mean. It’s a theory I generated, because in the old days, you got one shot to hear something, so if you didn’t have an eidetic memory, you weren’t going to make it as a composer… and it put more selective pressure to work that part of the brain if you really set out to become a composer.
That’s a far cry from recording music “dulling the senses.” Theories still need syllogistic and evidentiary support. Most listeners to recorded music aren’t listening to record the music, they’re listening for the aesthetic pleasure. And if perception for aesthetic pleasure dulled the senses, so too would eating haute cuisine, looking at beautiful paintings, and watching television or film. There is no evidence any of them inherently dull the senses.
Music of the sort you mean was actively listened to.
In other words people would attend a recital in order to specifically sit down and listen to the performance. The music was carefully written, rehearsed where possible, and performed with fidelity to the manuscript.
What you are missing is the masses of forgotten “folk” music, or "traditional- music performed in church, the home, around the hearth, marching to war, at festivals, in taverns - all live performances. Most tunes never written down, but passed down by common memory, slowly changing.
Today there is more new music produced each year than in an entire generation of, say, the Classical period. We can hear it at anytime of day, and it is often forced upon us on TV, in ads, in shops, even in elevators.
But there is still a minority of carefully scripted and written music, but the reception of music is so different that comparisons are hard to make.
I’m not sure ‘selective pressure’ is the right way to understand it. The main problem is a claim that one piece of music can be “better” than another.
It seem to me that Led Zeppelin did their best music in their first four albums after which they faded away. But is that ME? I mean - had I heard what I thought was the best and in making that the type specimen for LZ decided that more was not better?
By contrast I did not receive Beethoven with the same contemporaneity. In fact all his work was available to me instantly. Do I think the 9th is the best - well actually not. My personal favorite is the 7th, I love aspect of the 5th, but still think the earlier ones stand up to scratch.
If I had lived in 1800 then maybe I’d not have liked his later work thinking he’d been superseded by other composers? Who knows?
By the same token I’ve known kids who heard a band’s later work, first who thinks the early stuff crap.
For example people younger than myself head ELOs “New World Record” before ELO 1, ELO 2 and “On the Third Day” and hated them with a passion - stuff I consider far superior; innovative, less commercial.
Take David Bowie. His last album was possibly the best he had made since the early 1980s. Is that just me, or are there objective criteria we are able to bring to bear?
His best is often agree to be Ziggy Stardust, Spiders and Alladin Sane. In a culturally hot society orignality and the shock of the new the most important qualities. Beethoven never had that sort of pressure.
That’s not just you, Bowie’s work fronm the early 80’s on has been pretty poor, and his last album was practically a lazarus album. I was actually talking to a friend–who is still trying to convince me Tin Machine is actually good–about how Bryan Ferry, the inferior artist to Bowie, actually made a more successful move into the 80’s partially because he understood the decadent nuances of the decade better than Bowie did.
Beethoven never had that sort of pressure? Are you kidding me? Before Beethoven the Catholic Church was still telling composers which notes they could and could not hit together… Beethoven destroyed that completely and completely revolutionized music history in the process. If it weren’t for Beethoven and his patrons, we’d still be living in the dark ages of music. Even the church was like, “Wow, holy shit, this is good music” Beethoven changed everything about western music. He paved the way for the Liszts, Chopins, Alkans, and Godowsky’s (Godowsky revolutionized polyphony)… all because of Beethoven. Bach and Mozart were still writing for the church… Beethoven changed the world, 50,000 people attended his funeral.
Fuck, the guy whop invented the 12th note on the scale was murdered for it because it was considered unholy.
Here’s a sample of Godowsky’s revolution in polyphony…
youtube.com/watch?v=LuEa1XLEVSw
He wrote the whole song for only the left hand… (it’s a famous Chopin piece called “The Revolutionary Etude”)
It wasn’t enough for Godowsky to write the Chopin etudes for the left hand… he actually took two etudes and played them over each other (both hands), two of them are completely lost to history, but two still survive. Alkan was the first post-modern composer, and the only person who made Liszt (of all people) nervous in his presence… when Liszt stepped down from Weimer as the head he offered the post to Alkan who refused, Alkan was a hermit, he composed these crazy songs for 4 pedaled organs that nobody can play, and that are obsolete now… but Alkan wrote some really crazy piano music back in the day as well… If you’re interested, I can give more links.
The Bee Gees cannot read or write music. They compose completely in their heads.
Many people don’t know that Beethoven died penniless, and a lot of his music wasn’t even played until 50 years after his death… Liszt was the first rock star! He was the first person they attached -mania after his name… Lisztomania, long before Beatlemania… women would scream and pass out at his concerts. But for Beethoven, Liszt would have been nothing.
It’s important to understand our music heritage and lineage. Liszt knew this, that’s why he transcribed all of Beethoven’s 9 symphonies for piano (most people’s favorite is the 7th symphony)… but Liszt was always transcribing orchestral music for piano, trying to make it more accessable to the public… little did he know, that recorded sound would soon emerge and make his art archaic. His transcriptions are some of the most beautiful pieces for piano, he was the best piano transcriber in human history, but maybe his girlfriends were right in always getting on him about writing his own music instead of transcribing others’ music. Personally I’m glad for the Beethoven transcriptions, I like them better than the symphonies.
In this song… Liszt took a dirge that was thousands of years old and turned it into a virtuoso piece…
youtube.com/watch?v=emb0oBC8hhY
Cohen’s version is considered the best…
No - its just that you don’t understand what I mean.
HINT: “different pressures”.
And I no longer think you are worth explaining it to, after the thread on “evil”.