Why don't people like modern classical music? Blame the human brain: it can't comprehend it as music!
For decades critics of modern classical music have been derided as philistines for failing to grasp the subtleties of the chaotic sounding compositions, but there may now be an explanation for why many audiences find them so difficult to listen to.
A new book on how the human brain interprets music has revealed that listeners rely upon finding patterns within the sounds they receive in order to make sense of it and interpret it as a musical composition.
While traditional classical music follows strict patterns and formula that allow the brain to make sense of the sound, modern symphonies by composers such as Arnold Schoenberg and Anton Webern simply confuse listeners' brains.
For some reason when "modern" classical music is discussed, Schoenberg and Webern are the first mentioned. Fair enough. But why isn't contemporary music part of the conversation? The Second Viennese School is a century old; it's challenging to listen to and study; it's easy to bash, but certainly critics realize that some pretty obscure music has been written since.
How about a comparison of music by living composers instead (or even recently deceased)?
Tristan Murail - spectralist - your average listener won't relate. Between the clusters and lack of clear [traditional] melody, his music tends to appeal to the hyper intellectual.
David Del Tredici - he's one of the guys that made tonal music fashionable again. Some call him a neo-romanticist, but I think the label falls short of a good description.
Moritz Eggert - writes and plays a bunch of piano music. The real charm is seeing him perform live. Not as intellectually challenging as earlier mentions, but that doesn't mean it's not surprising.
Chen Yi - I wouldn't even know how to describe her music beyond mentioning that it has a heavy Chinese influence (as it should - she grew up during the Cultural revolution in China). Totally worth a listen if anything to determine whether or not you want to listen to more.
Astor Piazzolla - ok he's dead, but in these terms he was composing not long ago. The story goes that as he was studying with Nadia Boulanger, she was so enamored with his tangos, he was strongly advised to keep writing them. His music has melody, harmonic progression, accessible rhythms, and passion.
Anyway, my point is that some people like to detach from thought when listening to music. Others like to dive into the numbers. There's middle ground too.
Besides, what percentage of the people you know walk around listening to Bach and Mozart?
I'm not saying there's not unlistenable music currently being composed, and there has certainly been some stretches over the past 100 years or so. But some demagogue comes out and says "We have a scientific explanation for why this music isn't good" and we're supposed to accept it? Just shut up and crawl back down your idiot hole.
I think many people have a problem with the term "classical." It doesn't seem to mean anything really (unless you are referring to the era).
There is no really good term for what we are talking about, so I guess we take what we can get.
Other terms that fall short of the mark:
New Music, Concert Music, Fine Art Music
I think many people think "classical" is a genre, but that's also not really true. Genre refers to things such as opera, string quartets, symphonies, song cycles, etc.
Also, there's some pretty chaotic music from every time period/style/place.
Just because modern classical music is 'chaotic' doesn't mean that it is bad music.
Crappy music is everywhere. Luckily, so is good, thoughtful music.
Look at it this way: 80's music is pretty cool, right? But having been around in the 80's, I can tell you that there was a lot of bad music then... a LOT. But now we just remember the hits.
Once all the garbage has been sorted out, I'm sure some fine pieces of modern classical will emerge.
Classical music was never popular. Do you realize that, for example, Beethoven only held 11 public concerts? The vast majority of people in the classical era went to the bar to hear pub music, culturally similar to going to an ACDC cover band concert (no offense meant, btw).
We've been fooled into thinking that art music (or whatever you prefer to call it) long passed it's golden age, and we're all just a bunch of fuddy duddies randomly striking at new and avante garde. It's always been a small amount of people interested in "new" music - ALWAYS! There have been a few populist composers that were hailed as great, especially during the late romantic period, but in general, it's never been widely accepted by the masses.
To infer that it's the artists job to please people is to be non-artistic. It doesn't mean that you're going to like it, but as a composer - we don't care anyway. We're just trying to get ideas out of our heads. That's usually about it.
To be clear, the article isn't about current composers, but rather current interest in older composers.
Sounds more like someone is just unhappy that no one likes what they are pushing as 'music'....
If you were referring to some of my composer selections, then you should really have a listen to some of them. Silverware drawers they are not.
As an (hopefully trained) orchestral performer, you should probably not generalize the last hundred years or so of notated music. If you really think it is all terrible, that is fine by me, but it is NOT all the same.
I'm totally with Acheron12. Unfortunately, I'll likely never know what sticks and what doesn't
There is a lot of new classical music that has been quite popular, it is found in movie scores and written by composers who actually have an audience. Most of the rest are just academic masturbators, but there is also a small sub-group of con artists who use confidence games to leech off of the intellectually challenged rich (in the best tradition of post-modern 'art').
If you listen to Schoenberg, his music is actually quite expressive. Dissonant and unpleasant, but at least it still is MUSIC, even if it is serial. Oh and I actually like Weber more than Schoenberg. I find the latter's music to be melodramatic and the former's to very subtle.
But atonal academics running with Cage's tradition I find very difficult to listen to because it seems they are trying to do math on music paper instead of creating listenable art. That's not to lambaste every music academic, of course. However, my experience with my alma mater's music department that was heavily into atonal music compositions. I detested most of their music.
So as to the article's point? I don't know if it's the lack of pattern (there are patterns in serial music for sure). I wonder if the reason is because (Western) people like a tonal center to their music. Twelve tone, atonal, serial music moves as far away from that as possible and *that* could be what drives the typical listener away.
Eroica was always my favorite one! People had bad taste back then, huh?
But if the human eye can put up with artwork that is unpleasant to LOOK at, the human ear prefers something enjoyable to listen to, something to remember. Something simple, like a melody or the beautiful sound of an instrument.
It doesn't mean we are dumb or incapable. It is just normal.
It's like avante-garde theatre or modern "poetry" or the so-called "art" we're always complaining about here. Nobody really cares about that dreck, and it'll be forgotten soon enough.
"Classical" is a poor description. Classical refers to a period and genre, not the orchestral instruments used.