Why isn't classical music more popular?

[JonathonWally]

I'd argue that making the performer the focal point aides in popularity. It gives people a point on interest, Such as Yo-Yo Ma and Andrea Bocelli.

And yes, a performer makes a huge difference. Anyone who practices can replicate a piece, it's a true artist who can take a piece and "own" it. The beauty is in the nuance. If the focus is just "the music" than it's just generic classical music.

 

[Nerdius Maximus]

I like "wanky" guitar instrumentals anyway. I'll never understand why musical skill is so frowned upon in our culture.

There's a difference between "skill" and self indulgence. Often times, players can get carried away.

I suppose that's true when the solo drifts into territory that doesn't really fit the confines of the song it's in.

 

[JM1776]

In short, classical music is, generally, an acquired taste, and most won't devote time to its acquisition. Considering the abbreviated attention spans most sport today, is this surprising?

 

[Goliath]

And yes, a performer makes a huge difference. Anyone who practices can replicate a piece, it's a true artist who can take a piece and "own" it. The beauty is in the nuance. If the focus is just "the music" than it's just generic classical music.

But the thing is, most of the people who play this music are so talented, they all "own" it.

To take just one example: I'm pretty sure I have five different versions of Shostakovich's String Quartet No. 8 on disc. They're all excellent. Every one of those ensembles "owned" it, and there's nothing generic about any of their performances.

Similarly, one of my very favourite pieces of contemporary classical music is the slow second movement from Philip Glass's Concerto for Violin and Orchestra. I've heard three different perfromances, including two featuring big-name violinists, Gidon Kremer and Robert McDuffie. But my favourite is still a bargain-price disc from Naxos featuring Adele Anthony playing with the Ulster Orchestra. Adele who? The Ulster what?

That's why I said it takes a lot for any one performer to stand out from the crowd. If there's such a thing as a "generic" performance, I have yet to hear one on disc.

 

[Paxil]

I think the smug sense of superiority of those who enjoy it over those that don't isn't helping to make classical music any more popular. And don't deny many classical music fans have that attitude. Much of it is on display here. Music is a highly personal taste and people can like it or not, as they wish, for whatever reason.

 

[A beaker full of death]

I think the smug sense of superiority of those who enjoy it over those that don't isn't helping to make classical music any more popular. And don't deny many classical music fans have that attitude. Much of it is on display here. Music is a highly personal taste and people can like it or not, as they wish, for whatever reason.

Oh, the usual populist cry that one form of music is as good as another. Horseshit.
The more sophisticated the mind, the more sophisticated the music. I like to tap my toe as much as the next guy, but I'd go out of my mind without something intellectually satisfying. Only simpletons are satisfied with nothing but simple entertainments.

 

[Goliath]

I think the smug sense of superiority of those who enjoy it over those that don't isn't helping to make classical music any more popular. And don't deny many classical music fans have that attitude.

I don't deny that.

But you say that as if it's a particular failing of classical-music lovers--and that I would deny.

Much of it is on display here.

I deny that as well. The voices you're describing have been a minority, from what I can see.

Music is a highly personal taste and people can like it or not, as they wish, for whatever reason.

I don't understand. When did anybody say it wasn't? When did anybody say they couldn't?

If that's your whole point, Paxil, then it's true, but trivial.

 

[JonathonWally]

Oh, the usual populist cry that one form of music is as good as another. Horseshit.
The more sophisticated the mind, the more sophisticated the music. I like to tap my toe as much as the next guy, but I'd go out of my mind without something intellectually satisfying. Only simpletons are satisfied with nothing but simple entertainments.

That's pretty elitist right there, and I don't appreciate it.

I could make a case for Rock Music vs Classical Music if you'd like.

Layering, balancing, and creating harmonies, melodies, and rhythms across a 30 piece orchestra is one thing, now go and do it with only 5 pieces. Then layer it so that it can compliment and amplify the poetic overlays of the lyrics.

Just like lumping all classical music is stupid, the same is true when trying to lump all of o rock music together.

 

[paudemge]

I think the smug sense of superiority of those who enjoy it over those that don't isn't helping to make classical music any more popular. And don't deny many classical music fans have that attitude. Much of it is on display here. Music is a highly personal taste and people can like it or not, as they wish, for whatever reason.

Oh, the usual populist cry that one form of music is as good as another. Horseshit.
The more sophisticated the mind, the more sophisticated the music. I like to tap my toe as much as the next guy, but I'd go out of my mind without something intellectually satisfying. Only simpletons are satisfied with nothing but simple entertainments.

Maybe someone with a high intellect doesn't want to have to think about there music, but would rather just enjoy it.
And I think it was quickly dismissed but lyrics make a big difference, 'modern songs' rock, country, pop all tell some kind of story that people can usually relate to.

 

[A beaker full of death]

That's pretty elitist right there, and I don't appreciate it.

Apparantly you do. If you didn't appreciate it, how could you characterize it?

 

[David cgc]

"Appreciate" in the sense of "to be grateful for," not in the sense of "to recognize something."

 

[Goliath]

I would just like to say that I don't endorse beaker's position on this question.

Everything that I've read suggests that classical-music listeners tend to be older, better-educated, and more affluent than fans of other types of music. But age does not necessarily bring wisdom, and a good education and income are not necessarily signs of greater intelligence.

What's more, I think one of contemporary classical music's worst tendencies is the tendency to over-intellectualize--to the point where some compositions can only be appreciated by mathematicians with the score in hand.

Some of history's greatest composers wrote music for a wide audience, with the bottom line firmly in mind. In fact, I've always respected jobbing composers like Handel more than tortured artist-heroes like Beethoven. Composers like Handel and Rameau understood that it was their job to please their listeners, and wrote pleasant, accessible music as a result. The fact that this was also, in many cases, great music of lasting value just adds to their stature as artists, IMO.

What's more--and apropos of something we were discussing earlier--I found this interesting anecdote about what people want from classical music radio.

I want to close this essay with an intriguing vignette about one reason why older styles like baroque and early classical "classical music" have increased in relative popularity on American classical radio stations. The 24-hour FM classical radio station, WCRB (Waltham MA), earlier followed a fairly standard classical format. But the decline in listenership that affected many stations in the 1990s in the U.S. led WCRB’s management to make consumer surveys and make marked changes in its programming.


Soon knowledgeable long-time listeners filed complaints on the station’s web site, first about the loss of the playlist. Then they noted that vocal music, J.S. Bach, music of the great romantics (Brahms, Tchaikovsky) and even Beethoven were disappearing. Moderns had gone well before. Now there were short, rarely heard early Haydn and Mozart symphonies, many baroque works, and even pieces by rarer early classical composers like Sammartini, Hasse and Johan Stamitz.


What happened? Had sophisticates taken over the station to indulge their special historical tastes? Just the opposite. The manager discovered that motorists clogged in traffic queues in the greater Boston area wanted to relax with classical music. But stormy Beethoven symphonies, or emotional flights by romantics like Schuman or Brahms were not on the preferred list. Commuters said no to the contrapuntal complexities of J.S. Bach. Even the human voice could be stressful. It proved to be the transparent textures, simple melodic structures, grace and harmonious resolutions of baroque music and early classicals that provided the preferred atmosphere. This was especially true for listeners who were new to classical music.


The station manager eventually created special commercial software that programmed classical music. He did away with the playlist that could reveal his programming design. The station finally removed its interactive listener forum from the web, because more knowledgeable listeners continued to give the manager grief – but added little to the numbers.

It seems that hardcore classical fans aren't all that different from hardcore trekkies.

Which leads me to wonder:

Is Pachelbel canon?

 

[Daedalus12]

That is not surprising.

Beethoven would be a Metal musician in the modern era.

The early Classical/Baroque materials would be the Pop and Easy Listening stuff.

Guess which one is more popular with the radio crowd?

 

[A beaker full of death]

I would just like to say that I don't endorse beaker's position on this question.

Fair enough.

Everything that I've read suggests that classical-music listeners tend to be older, better-educated, and more affluent than fans of other types of music. But age does not necessarily bring wisdom, and a good education and income are not necessarily signs of greater intelligence.

I think you have me wrong. I did not mean to suggest that formal education is an indicator of either intelligence or the ability to appreciate more complex forms of art; indeed, I am often dismayed at the shocking lack of breadth of knowledge my professional peers display. I say only that a complex (i.e. intelligent) mind cannot be satisfied with nothing but simple art. That is the entirety of my statement, and I do not consider this elitist.

 

[JonathonWally]

Beethoven would be a Metal musician in the modern era.

Metal is where all the brilliance is in modern music.

 

[M'Sharak]

I think the smug sense of superiority of those who enjoy it over those that don't isn't helping to make classical music any more popular. And don't deny many classical music fans have that attitude. Much of it is on display here. Music is a highly personal taste and people can like it or not, as they wish, for whatever reason.

If you want to read what I said in response to your earlier post:

Because it doesn't have words. I hate instrumental music of any type.

I don't understand this at all.

Besides, [...]

...as exhibiting a "smug sense of superiority" or "having that attitude", well, I can only say that I don't understand that, either. I responded seriously to your statement and tried to say why I thought that the act of categorically dismissing all of classical music "because it doesn't have any words" was off the mark.

If that's smug, well then, I guess I'm smug. I'll live.

That is not surprising.

Beethoven would be a Metal musician in the modern era.

The early Classical/Baroque materials would be the Pop and Easy Listening stuff.

Guess which one is more popular with the radio crowd?

I can almost see there being an argument made for music from the early Classical period being equivalent to the pop and easy-listening of today - almost; some of it was quite simple, formally, technically and harmonically, but it goes right out the window by the time you get to Haydn and Mozart. However, to make the same comparison for Baroque music suggests a certain lack of familiarity with just how demanding some of that music actually is, both from a playing and from a listening standpoint.

 

[Nerdius Maximus]

Beethoven would be a Metal musician in the modern era.

Metal is where all the brilliance is in modern music.

I'm a huge metalhead, have been for probably 20 years, but I wouldn't necessarily go that far. There's brilliance to be found in a wide variety of genres. Even(GASP) some country. Underground stuff of course, none of this novelty song bullshit they play on the radio.

 

[Goliath]

Beethoven would be a Metal musician in the modern era.

He was certainly deaf enough.

The early Classical/Baroque materials would be the Pop and Easy Listening stuff.

Guess which one is more popular with the radio crowd?

That is true, to a certain limited extent. But I would qualify this in a number of ways--first, by pointing out that Bach was a Baroque composer, and that, as the article says, his music was some of the first to go.

Second, I would point to the enormous amount of opera and other vocal music that was composed during these periods. According to the article, this too would not qualify as "easy listening."

That would seem to leave us with a fairly limited selection--Baroque suites, concertos, and chamber music; and Classical symphonies, concertos, and chamber music.

To show just how limiting that can be: I own eighty-four discs of music by Handel, and only twelve of them would be playable on that radio station.

Finally, as I said to Paxil, I don't think classical-music fans have a monopoly on snobbery. In fact, while I may be mistaken, I'm getting a snobbish vibe from this very post.

In my experience, (some) metal fans are some of the worst reverse-snobs around--except maybe for (some) punks. It's not their fault--members of such groups get dumped on so much that they naturally start to "reject rejection", and adopt a sour-grapes attitude, simply to save their own self-esteem. I know I did, back in my punk-rock phase.

But while I'm a big fan of melodic death and black metal these days, I haven't forgotten the way the metalheads picked on and beat up my punk friends, back in high school. Their glee at finding someone lower on the social totem pole than they were themselves was palpable.

So you'll forgive me if I take all this "Beethoven would have been a metal musician" stuff with a grain of salt. I don't even particularly like Beethoven--from that period, I much prefer Schubert.

 

[Goliath]

I think you have me wrong. I did not mean to suggest that formal education is an indicator of either intelligence or the ability to appreciate more complex forms of art; indeed, I am often dismayed at the shocking lack of breadth of knowledge my professional peers display. I say only that a complex (i.e. intelligent) mind cannot be satisfied with nothing but simple art. That is the entirety of my statement, and I do not consider this elitist.

I would like to agree with you, but I just have too many experiences holding me back, and suggesting that what you say there just isn't the case.

For example: going to the Tate Modern in London--the temple of modernist high culture in Britain--and finding, at its heart, a room entirely devoted to minimalist paintings by Rothko.

Or listening to the music of Morton Feldman.

Or playing checkers with my friend Kenton in university. The K-Man was one of the smartest guys I ever knew, but had never bothered to learn chess--he just wasn't interested. He loved checkers, though. Over the course of a whole year's games, I think I beat him once or twice.

Or, for that matter, my own father--another one of the smartest men I've ever known. I've tried to turn him on to classical, and he likes to play it in his office, as background music. But he much prefers folk and celtic music.

Some of the most intelligent gestures in music are also the simplest. The first part of the second movement in Philip Glass's Concerto for Violin is dominated by just two notes, played over and over again. To me, the effect is breathtakingly beautiful and heartbreakingly sad.

 

[Daedalus12]

Finally, as I said to Paxil, I don't think classical-music fans have a monopoly on snobbery. In fact, while I may be mistaken, I'm getting a snobbish vibe from this very post.

But while I'm a big fan of melodic death and black metal these days, I haven't forgotten the way the metalheads picked on and beat up my punk friends, back in high school. Their glee at finding someone lower on the social totem pole than they were themselves was palpable.

So you'll forgive me if I take all this "Beethoven would have been a metal musician" stuff with a grain of salt. I don't even particularly like Beethoven--from that period, I much prefer Schubert.

Yes indeed you are quite mistaken. Unless you are thinking that I think early Classical music is not as good as Beethoven's. Isn't that a form of subconscious snobbery itself?

In truth one of my favorite musician of all time is Muzio Clementi. As mentioned before I love playing his works.

In my experience, (some) metal fans are some of the worst reverse-snobs around--except maybe for (some) punks. It's not their fault--members of such groups get dumped on so much that they naturally start to "reject rejection", and adopt a sour-grapes attitude, simply to save their own self-esteem. I know I did, back in my punk-rock phase.

IMO many times the feeling of snobbery coming from the opposing person as demonstrated above is perceived rather than any actual snobbery in the person. I don't pick up on people who listens to pop music nor do I deny the fact that I also listen to pop music along with metal, punk, progressive rock, "classical", etc. The few genre of music I don't listen to all that often is Jazz, country and rap.