Were Bach, Mozart, or Beethoven to have lived another 10 years, would they not have produced that many more masterpieces? Where are these masterpieces????? Who took up where they left off? Certainly Brahms, Mendelssohn, Tchaikovsky, Rachmaninoff, etc. extended classical music, but relatively little has been added in depth to the original masters.

IMHO, orchestral film music is the true descendant of classical music. It is tolerable to listen to and actually connects with people other than musicologists or drugees while still occasionally being sophisticated. Most modern music is heresy and appeals to people on a totally different level than real classical music. I believe that to extend the heritage of classical music is to write music that Bach, Beethoven, or Mozart would be pleased with.

The true spirit of classical music lives on as Bach organ bass lines burst my car speakers.

I read an article recently about the Final Fantasy concert in Chicago and the musicians were talking about this same problem — no young people come, everyone dresses nicely, they listen quietly, then leave. The Final Fantasy concert, on the other hand, had everyone from well-dressed adults to teenagers with died hair and video game t-shirts. And every song ended in clapping and even screaming. Obviously, the orchestra enjoyed themselves much more too. Hope to see more of this.

Wish I still had the URL.

The Editor of the journal is something of a grumpy bitter old man. But that’s half the fun.

I think the music is still relevant at the edges, though, in the current day. Stuff like Copeland and Orff and Gershwin keeps churning up, both within and without (if they are considered outside the genre, call them gateway drugs). Mahler is popular with my tiny sample size of kids these days, as is (oof) GÛrecki. A particular piece that has been making strides as of late is Barber’s Adagio; in addition to taking on the mantle of American mourning, it has popped up on the dance floor, remix’d under the fingers of William Orbit. Little bits are leaking out.

It may turn out that Classical may be largely relevant as source material for a while, but hopefully that will not be a permanent state. I don’t think it will be; if nothing else, western culture is beyond adept at rediscoving all that it has set aside (if only to set it aside again). My present problem is the discovering; where do I go looking?