UKC

I cheerfully admit to knowing next to nothing about what I shall, in my ignorance, refer to as chart music. My prejudices tell me that it it is musically trivial, repetitive and ephemeral. Like many people, I imagine, I can remember some (very few) of the artistes and their music which accompanied my teenage years, and I also imagine these will still be played today on some specialist radio channels. Do people still pay money to go to gigs to hear music from, say, the 60s, and if so are there people in the audience who were not born when those songs were first played? Will any chart music last for, say, 100 years?

 While writing this I am listening to (with less attention than it deserves) a late Beethoven piano sonata (op 111), written almost 200 years ago. 

Most won't. Some will. Same as it has always been.

But how much of the music written a couple of centuries ago do you never listen to?

Good music will last, regardless of when it was written; some of it will have been in the charts.

Jon Hopkins is a classically trained pianist turned electronic musician, I heartily recommended his album Immunity and I suspect his stuff will still be played 200 years from now.

You're not listening to Ignaz Moscheles, Friedrich Kalkbrenner, Bedřich Diviš Weber (not the more famous Karl Maria von), Johann Cramer, or Henri Hertz, all notable pianist/composers of Beethoven's time. You might have played Czerny if you've studied piano but no-one listens to him for fun. The wikipedia page lists 355 19th Century German composers. I might have heard of 20 of them. It doesn't include German-speaking composers we'd now call Austrians, Slovaks, Czechs, or Poles, hundreds more now mostly unplayed and unloved.

Some music survives, most doesn't and it's difficult to predict what will still be listened to in 200 years time. Hummel was considered Beethoven's equal at the time but where is he now? The Beatles seem a safe bet as they originated and dominated the major popular music form of a 30-40 year period: blokes with guitars and drums writing their own songs. Beyond them, it's harder to be confident. Post mid-90s, Rap has arguably become the dominant popular music form world-wide but I'm not equipped to judge who might be the stayers.

I have two or three albums of his, including that one.

I disagree.  Small Craft on a Milk Sea, the album he did with Brian Eno and Leo Abraham, is better but that won't get played much either in thirty years or so, never mind a couple of hundred.

T.

I see what you did there 😏 

nothing to add to the thread, other than noting the username links to musicians [Wilko Johnson, Jeff Buckley].

Try a bit of Mick Gordon The only thing they fear is you.

I saw the Stones and Alice Cooper just pre Covid. There were plenty of people in their 20s paying decent money to listen to material that must have been released four decades before they were born.

The good stuff will remain, I think. We have a culture that perhaps lionises the music of the boomer generation, and their templates are still defining what we listen to today.

I reckon Wannabe will be massive in 2323.

Not exactly chart music but I saw Steve Hackett with his band last year a couple of times in the States on the 50th anniversary of the Genesis masterpiece Foxtrot tour, sold out, admittedly not exactly full of youths but my son was there who is 28. I still listen to music from that period constantly.

If the current craze of reworking stuff from 30 years ago in to modern chart toppers continues, nothing will ever fade away, just be endlessly ripped off to make up for a lack of creativity.  It’s a bit like an insight into what’ll happen when “AI” cracks generative pop music.

Blue Da Ba De being a recent example, is nothing sacred?  

I'm sure Schubert would have been delighted to have written McCartney melodies like And I Love Her, Yesterday, Eleanor Rigby, Blackbird, Let it Be, The Long & Winding Road etc. I'd be very surprised indeed if these don't continue to be performed just as long as Der Erlkonig, Nacht und Traume or Der Leiermann. 

Shocking isn't it. Classical composers would never recycle, rip-off or copy each other...

There are innumerable examples of composers penning variations on each other's tunes: Beethoven managed to squeeze 33 from a trivial waltz by music publisher Anton Diabelli. Most composers have used others' themes or ideas: The Rite of Spring is a patchwork of Russian folk tunes, Mahler's first symphony makes extensive use of that of his friend Hans Rott (who conveniently died young). Bach constantly recycled movements from Cantatas into other Cantatas or Masses, reorchestrated pieces for different soloists, and blatantly copied Pergolesi and Vivaldi. Puccini copied Mussorgsky, Andrew Lloyd Webber copied Puccini. No one, as far as I know, has bothered copying Andrew Lloyd Webber.

More recently, composers have paid conscious homage or used satirically others' work: Shostakovich's 15th Symphony quotes the William Tell overture in its Lone Ranger glory. Liszt had transcribed a solo piano version of the whole piece but he wrote transcriptions and variations on everything. Lucio Berio's Sinfonia quotes at least 23 well-known classical pieces and it's third movement consists of "a slightly cut-up, re-shuffled and occasionally re-orchestrated version" of the third-movement from Mahler's 2nd Symphony. It sounds simultaneously wonderful and bizarre. There are entertaining YouTube channels devoted to pointing out where John Williams acquired the ideas for his film soundtracks. Star Wars theme: Korngold theft or loving pastiche?

I'll let others point out the 'homage' bands like the Rolling Stones and Led Zeppelin paid to old blues singers or The Beatles debt to Chuck Berry. 

'Twas ever thus.

Course it will!

I listen to music that's coming out today, music from when I was a kid (80s and 90s pop), music from before I was born and music from previous centuries back to Bach. What I get from Amon Tobin is different to what I get from Nina Simone, and that's different to what I get from Schubert.

There is a difference though, between the music of Beethoven - which was composed to be the wildest imaginable musical expression taking the cutting edge technology of the day to its limits - and commercial music. Today's Beethovens aren't in the charts, they're in esoteric subcultures where experimental, virtuosic music is being played for a handful of people who are into the same thing. In parallel, we've got commercial music, which is going to be repetitive and trivial, because it's for people who aren't really into music, for the sake of making money. Sometimes there's a bit of crossover where music is both popular and actually good, but that's the exception rather than the rule.

Great music today doesn't have to build on the last great composer within the same tradition, as Beethoven did with Mozart and Bach, it has splintered off into a million different strands mixing every imaginable sound from every corner of the globe and every point in history. As such, there isn't a linear canon that picks out the highlights from each era in a single tradition. So today's music won't last in quite the same way as Beethoven has, with millions of people all listening to the same few pieces 200 years after the fact: there's too much of it, spread out amongst too many different genres, each with the odd genius doing something incredible. For those in future generations who are interested, they'll have an unimaginably vast and diverse musical history to explore.

Led Zep certainly paid plenty of homage on their first couple of albums - it was paying royalties they weren't so keen on.

Who knows where humanity will be in 200 years but if there is a civilisation I think the 2nd half of the 20th century will be seen as a, if not the golden era of music. A combination of more open, travelled societies and obviously the technology.

That would include modern recording of the classical music you love being available to the masses, for the first time in history. And that was one of many influences which along with the new accessibility spawned some real gems in every genre.

I’m really enjoying all the responses on this thread. I expected a lot of different views and I got ‘em! 
The summary answer to my question is “yes” but no-one knows which bits.

I though Elbow was music for people who aren't really into music?

Surely Coldplay would be the archetype here? The list could go on endlessly though...

I think it's even harder with contemporary "classical" music. If it gets played regularly on Classic FM, does this mean it's doomed to be forgotten? If it features on Radio 3 late at night, is it destined to be a staple of the repertoire a century hence? Max Richter? Hans Abrahamsen? Thomas Ades? What are your own top tips for posterity? Personally I've no idea.

When I was listening to music the most I had gotten very much into electric guitar-oriented rock. When I occasionally hear what is popular today I feel genuinely mystified that the kind of formulaic, auto-tuned pap being pushed on youngsters hasn't resulted in the kind of revolt that brought about punk/new wave in the late seventies. The classic rock combo - guitar, bass, drums, voice seems to be the natural vehicle for youth wanting to make a noise and seemed to endure from the fifties right into the new century, but today? I don't know. I've come across some good modern rock bands (Wolf Alice comes to mind) but also some pretty derivative stuff (Greta Van Fleet are very much Led Zeppelin wannabes).

Sometimes I'll watch old re-runs of Top of the Pops (BBC 4, Friday evenings) and think that some of the chart stuff I dismissed back in the day was actually not too bad at all. There were lots of outlets on TV to discover rock (Old Grey Whistle Test, The Tube as well as on Top of the Pops). I'm not sure if it's all down to age - 'everything was better in the good old days' - or if chart stuff today really is that dire. As a teenager, I could really appreciate rock, soul and blues artists from previous decades, some of whom had died before I was even born.

Because punk was a rebellion against technically skilled, but windy and verbose naval gazing prog rock? The point being anyone could make it.  Which is still very much the case for a lot of modern music via electronic instruments, or various genres of rap.

Modern guitar based music isn't really rebelling against anything musically.

Punk (as I viewed it in my late teens) was very rebellious. Of course it was DIY and much of it was pretty low quality but it definitely moved things on in terms of musical direction. Ironically, Steve Jones (when he wasn't thieving stuff) said that far from reviling the likes of Page et al, he just wanted to be up on stage playing like them.

I'm not sure what you mean by 'modern guitar based music'? Revolt/revolution to me just means you're tired of what's on offer and do something about it.

I’m with Noel Coward here Rog: “It’s extraordinary how potent cheap music is.” 
 That’s something that has been recognised by ‘serious’ composers over many years as they’ve ransacked the folk music of their and other nations and cultures. 

As someone who knows someone else involved in the music industry, I can say with some conviction that chart music has the primary purpose of fattening the bank accounts of those who run the industry. Up and coming artists themselves are, ironically, a distant second in a somewhat skewed hierarchy. The percentage cut that new bands get from live performances are pretty meagre to say the least. They cover costs, if they are lucky, by selling merchandise.

I think it's a difficult dilemma; you either conform to the formulaic machinations of the industry (including producing music that the industry deems more likely to hit the charts), or run the risks involved in breaking new ground in terms of creativity within a genre or even create a new brand new genre. It is partly why a band's first few albums, that are relatively free of industry influences, are often their best creative works, and subsequent ones (with industry influences) are pale imitations.

So really, the charts are dominated not so much by raw creativity that potentially stands the test of time, but by the motives of the industry whose mantra is 'we know that this works for us, so stick to that or else you'll get no support'. This has the effect of anchoring chart music to a kind of formula-based, risk-averse, money-making, non-creative stasis, not standing the test of time.

It was always the same, including in classical music:

"The rise of the master composers - Haydn, Mozart, Beethoven, later Handel and J. S. Bach, and finally Schubert, Weber, Schumann, and others - to musical sainthood took place during the 1850's and 1860's. It can be regarded as an early, but clever and profit-seeking form of mass culture, whose evolution can be traced in Europe from about 1770 to 1870."

Mass Culture and the Reshaping of European Musical Taste, 1770-1870 - Wiliam Weber

https://www.jstor.org/stable/836942

The rise of tribute bands suggests that people do. I can't vouch for the audience profile that go to these performances but I suspect that given the scale of success some of these bands achieve that the audience is from a broad age range. I've seen it argued that tribute bands are doing what classical orchestras do in reproducing music from a past age as authentically (subject to changing notions of 'authenticity') as possible. 

I go to Rory Gallagher tribute events including the Ballyshannon annual events. They are filled with young people, including the tribute acts themselves. The respect and kudos you get when people realise that you saw Rory live is a great bonus for being rather old. 

Obviously some classical music was written for money, but not the good stuff. Compare Schubert's crap, soulless, formulaic symphonies with the staggering chamber music he wrote just before he popped his clogs. The quintet in C was never even performed in his lifetime, yet it's among his most famous and well-loved works today.

The classical greats have achieved their longevity because on the one hand they're musically rich enough for top musicians to want to perform them; while it's still relatively accessible music adhering to the logic of the western tonal system conventionally enough to sound nice to a lot of people. As such, the 'greats' are really effective at expressing emotions in a musical language a lot of people can understand. Once you get into 20th century 'classical' music, so much of it is so dissonant that it just sounds awful to anyone who hasn't got decades of sophisticated musical experience.

Meanwhile in the 20th century, you've got all the genres descended from folk and blues using a musical language that's really easy to understand, and expresses emotions incredibly directly through performance. While Beethoven's musical expression is all in the score, any pop etc music requires the artist sing the song in their voice - that's what's carrying the expressive content, not the score (which in Rog's words might be "repetitive and trivial").

They're totally different art forms, and classical music translates better over time. That doesn't mean that other genres are any less good, just that sometimes, you have to be there as it happens.

Some interesting thoughts here. But I'm not sure about your idea that pop music is expressed through the voice not the score. That dismisses the whole instrumental side of pop - the arrangements, the playing. And there's also the production side, which has layers of sophistication that may surprise you. 

On the subject of pop music being repetitive, it's worth pointing out that most music exists because of repetition. Without that structure of expectation we're cast adrift in the sea of modern classical music you dislike. The trick is to balance repetition with enough variety to keep our interest, but that variety can lie in many different areas, not just musical complexity. 

Also, I'm not sure that there is really a difference between the greats being 'really effective at expressing emotions in a musical language a lot of people can understand' and then 'the genres descended from folk and blues using a musical language that's really easy to understand, and expresses emotions incredibly directly through performance.' Aren't they performing a similar job, even if the techniques are rather different? In fact you could make a claim that the exponents of folk, blues, pop etc. are actually more musically adept in that they can make less complex forms as musically effective as all that 'sophisticated' western classical music! 

It's all music, (man!).

I disagree. Hopkins music is the kinda thing I listen to. But I find his stuff boring and dull.

This sensation of being cast adrift that some listeners experience is only true of some modern  classical music though. I don't suppose much Schoenberg or Stockhausen is ever going to appear in Classic FM's Hall of Fame. But on the other hand the American Minimalists - Steve Reich, Terry Riley, Phillip Glass & John Adams - were initially derided by some critics for what they saw as excessive repetition. They now seem better established in the repertoire than peak Schoenberg or Stockhausen. And their art music has undoubtedly had a significant influence on modern popular music. You can hear echoes of Reich all over the shop. I think one steps on very shifting sand in trying to draw qualitative distinctions on the basis of degrees of repetition.

A somewhat random afterthought: if anyone is looking for good music to run to, I used to find Steve Reich's Music for 18 Musicians and Terry Riley's In C absolutely perfect.

I wonder if this analysis of ‘Eleanor Rigby’ might convince you that there can be harmonic complexity and interest in popular song?

youtube.com/watch?v=dsYRpHnejIc&

I have admiration for some Beatles songs, including Eleanor Rigby. This may have something to do with the fact that I can actually hear the words. I also like a lot of stuff from the likes of Nina Simone, Billie Holliday, Ella F, etc etc. Songs like Lady is a Tramp, Just one of those Things, there are many more, fill me with joy. The music is catchy, the lyrics have never been bettered (except possibly in West Side Story). They and a typical classical symphony, concerto, even violin sonata are different as chalk from cheese. The greatest thing about “classical” music, even up to the present day, is to my mind when a huge edifice is built around a simple, even banal little tune, of just a couple of bars. This is where that evergreen idea of variations on a theme becomes so important. It is an idea fundamental to the music of composers from (at least) Mozart (whose music has never moved me emotionally) right through to some 20th century greats such as Shostakovich. Even the Beatles best, and the jazz greats of the 1930s, don’t in my view compare. 

Did Shostakovich ever work out how many holes there are in Blackburn, Lancashire? Or any other of life's big questions?

Not so sure... have a listen to "I live in a car" by UK Subs. There's a lot of punk music trying really hard to sound unskilled, but I'm not so sure it all is

https://youtu.be/-q1hyTLamUs?si=8UZh6w8AYC7FsOgs

the 5B's are Bach, Beethoven, Brahms, Bartok and the Beatles

Well, Karl, at the risk of taking too serious a view of your question, he was undoubtedly not only supremely talented musically, but possibly the only major composer whose work could have led to torture and a hideous death at the hands of Stalin’s thugs, or at the very least banishment to the gulag. Like a pregnant woman, he kept a small suitcase of essentials by the front door, not for a few weeks but for many years. He was a Russian patriot. His famous Seventh Symphony, known as the Leningrad, was written and first performed there during the Nazi siege of the eponymous city. I don’t think there was room in his life for trivia. 

Not too sure about Bartok, though I’m aware many musicians who know stuff rate him very highly. Most of his works aren’t easy on my ear (exluding Concerto for Orchestra, natch). And 5b has always been such a tricky grade in my opinion.

it's traditionally the 4B's, but the Beatles if you call them a composer aren't far off?

agree re modern chart music and Mozart; Mendelssohn wins the child prodigy award for me..

youtube.com/watch?v=Vw1kcQ-QbZw&

For me building grandiose edifices from small tunes seems very 19th century! Those Romantics! And I couldn't restrict myself to what is effectively a single theme-and-variation genre. To take a literary parallel it's like restricting oneself to just literary fiction, and only novels at that. No short stories... But it's a perfectly reasonable choice and I'm sure you must have got huge satisfaction from the depth and breadth of the classical canon over the years.

As an aside, I would dispute your suggestion that the lyrics of West Side Story have never been bettered. But that's another, er, story!

And 4b’s more my grade.

Sounds like you'd be receptive to some thundering techno.

Over the years all sorts of Bs have been suggested for the list. It was originally the three Bs of Bach, Beethoven and Berlioz. Then somebody swopped in Brahms. For me, Brahms is way out of his league in the exalted company of the first two. Bartok is a more worthy contender if it must be alliterative, but I'd prefer Bach & Beethoven, Schubert & Schoenberg. Not likely to catch on though.

In relation to jazz greats, have you listened much to John Coltrane's A Love Supreme? That's a pretty huge edifice. Certainly up there with any cathedral when it comes to the greatest achievements of Western art.

This is quite fascinating!

Ah that's not quite what I was trying to say. When I say 'score' I mean literally the music written down in notation. I agree there's loads of expressive content in the instrumental elements of pop etc. But, you can take the score of a Nina Simone song and get brilliant virtuosos to perform it, but the expressive content in her voice and playing is totally absent with something else in its place. Sure, you can do a good cover, but it's no longer Nina Simone's music.

And no one wants to hear an accurate transcription of John Coltrane played faithfully - they want to hear how a great jazz musician plays, doing it their way.

In contrast, the expressive content of a Beethoven piano sonata is all contained in the score. All the recordings I've heard are by great pianists, and there's differences but I'm not sufficiently sophisticated to have much of a preference. And they'll all sound about a thousand times better than when Beethoven played them himself, because the pianos he played them on were, by modern standards, shit.

I'm into electronic music which is all about sound design. I'm not into pure electro-acoustic / sound installation stuff, I need a bit of melody and harmony to act as a scaffold onto which all sorts of strange and wonderful sounds can be built to make a great piece of art. This is a good example of some seriously great production IMO:

https://youtu.be/JATZS5_Qi80?si=muQisg2MQuPeqfsl

Exactly. And everyone's got their own level of how much repetition they want before they get bored, as well how much dissonance they can handle, how smooth or grating the sonority, etc. Your personal history of music listening results in certain things sounding great to you while other things sound shit.

The difference I'm getting at is on the one hand we have Schubert writing his quintet, dying, alone, writing down the notes in his head, without there ever being a performance and people like me are deeply moved by it 200 years later. Whereas in folk/pop/rock/jazz/soul etc, the art *is* the performance (or the recording), you can't write down the notes and the words for other people to pick up after you're dead and expect them to play it in a way that expresses what was felt.

I wasn't making any case that any artform was 'better' than another in some scheme of objective musical value (is such a thing possible ?- I think probably yes). But I was making the case that when people make music just for money, it's usually shite, even when it's Schubert.

In a couple of centuries people might have figured out Allan Holdsworth.

I would argue that Op. 111 is just about the greatest piece of music that’s ever been written.

I don’t think Hummel was consider LVB’s equal … perhaps at the time of early Beethoven. Over 20,000 people turned out for Beethoven’s funeral in 1827.

The Beatles were virtually in a class of their own. They completely dominated the whole of the 60s (an astonishing list of hits). Elvis and Stones probably in 2nd and 3rd place.

He only did so (out of politeness, because it was such an ordinary melody) because he was asked to do so. (Diabelli it out to about a dozen composers to do variations on it, IIRC.)

Only because he had to compose such a huge amount of music per week, as Kapelmeister. 

Please quote poster that you are replying to it helps keep up with who the hell you're talking about. 

Agreed, Brahms is highly overrated. Pompous, stodgy and bombastic. Occasionally he excelled himself in his slow movements.

Sorry, oops, OP re just using Op. No.  To a Beethoven fanatic like myself Op. 111 just trips off the tongue without need of further identification. Double smiley

Thanks Gordon, will give it some attention 😀

I had a feeling it might not be - had to start somewhere... I understand what you're getting at, but I don't think all the essence of a pop song is necessarily in the performance. That's why some songs lend themselves so well to cover versions, because there is some inherently attractive quality in the song itself. And in some cases the performance can be quite atrocious but the song itself transcends that (B. Dylan, I'm thinking of you!).

As far as songs for money are concerned, I suspect that the situation is usually more nuanced - there's some rubbish, yes, but also some great songs produced for money. The Brill Building songwriters exemplify how the commercial imperative can't stop fantastic songs emerging.  

So you'd argue that there is an objective scale of musical value...what sort of basis does it have?

I guess this is a basic philosophical question, but I'm not familiar with the arguments for why it seems obvious to a lot of people that Beethoven is objectively better than the Spice Girls or whatever (that's the reference point reflecting my age). 

Something like the number of people loving a piece of music multiplied by a measure of their expertise in music would give us a way of summarising opinions and giving some more weight than others. So really complex, virtuosic, abstruse compositions don't get top rank because while the people that love them are experts, there's not many of them. And pop hits don't do well because the number of people loving them is high whereas they...don't know much.

Beethoven would do well on this scale - millions of fans, including moderately educated and experts. So would the Beatles and John Coltrane.

Are the experts able to tune into some objective property that great music has? Is it something to do with the intensity of emotion that's generated? I don't think that's it, teenagers feel really strongly that the crap music they like is good. I dunno, I can't really get a handle on what it means for music or art to be objectively good, but I don't think it's purely subjective either.

It's fine to not have a preference: several interpretations can be different and all of them great. However, if you do hear a difference the expressive content cannot be all contained in the score! I admit differences can seem small and perhaps I'm falling into a 'narcissism of small differences' trap.

Here is a example, admittedly Bach not Beethoven, of two famously different interpretations of the same piece by the same performer:

youtube.com/watch?v=2RXZGklAMzs& 

youtube.com/watch?v=43sTxRVpRBM&

In reply to Gordon Stainforth:

I'm familiar with the background to these works but I don't quite get you point. 

I was trying to point out  - to what sounded like a stereotypical grumpy old man being stereotypically grumpy about modern music - that his complaint about re-using or re-working musical ideas was hardly new. The reasons vary for classical composers and they probably do in modern music too. Re-working could be pragmatic (Bach, as you say), plagiarism (Mahler) or quotation-for-artistic-effect (Berio). It would have been easy for Beethoven to quickly bash out a contractual-obligation set of variations so why did he produce the magnificent 33? We can't be sure but, it seems to me, it might be that he enjoyed the artistic challenge of transmuting base metal into gold.  

I'm just disappointed no-one has picked up my gauntlet and provided an example of someone plagiarising Andrew Lloyd Webber!

I don’t think there is an objective way of doing it. Obviously at a technical, musicological level it can be analysed for the cleverness of its construction, etc. etc, but at the end of the day there’s a much bigger thing going on that cannot be measured but only felt. It’s emotional impact. The way it gets to the heart. (LVB himself wrote - in German - across one of the movements of the Missa Solemnis: ‘From the heart, may it in turn go to the heart.”) The old problem of ‘qualia’. But, as you say, it’s a real riddle. It’s a kind of magic. Another problem being that, although harmonies are completely natural, music, especially classical music, is in a sense a ‘learned language’. Which has to be learnt to be fully understood. Typicallly one may have to listen to a piece of music - particularly by Bach - many times before it is fully appreciated.

Thanks for the Goldberg example with Gould. Yes, I have both those recordings. The fascinating thing with Bach - especially with Bach - is how open it is to different interpretations. Another unfathomable riddle.

BTW, isn’t it fascinating how in this forum we’re talking about Sunak’s Brianna Ghey faux pas concurrently with Bach and Beethoven: the two polar opposite ends of the whole spectrum of humanity: at one end the very dregs and at the other the truly sublime. (A bit like Dante’s Inferno contrasted with his Paradiso).

Have you listened to much Beethoven piano music played on period instruments? If not, since the Diabelli variations have come up on this thread, can I suggest checking out Andras Schiff's recording on a fortepiano from Beethoven's own time. It's different, but it's really not shit.

That fortepiano version is interesting in that the fortepiano is more percussive, less sonorous, than a modern grand piano, and so in some ways more suited to the very percussive Diabelli variations. It’s as if Beethoven was fully aware of the fortepiano’s shortcomings - though with much of his music it’s as if he knew it would be played one day on ‘superior’ instruments. (Once when he was criticised for his outlandish nature of his music he said bluntly, ‘I don’t write for you, I write for another age.’)

That's what you get when you play a recording

bit like above mentioned Allan Holdworth who hated his time with Bruford's supergroup UK where he had to 'play his solos to an organised structure'

Coltrane fans should like his work..

youtube.com/watch?v=TEgVtnJE8hE&

Armstrong and the Duke are the masters tho..

youtube.com/watch?v=dbkCdPUOydU&

Not Beethoven, but when I have listened to period instruments it's by mistake. I immediately go "what's wrong with this?" and then immediately find a recording with modern instruments.

Cheers will do.

I'm pretty sure it's Coltrane playing, not a stunt double!

took a while for me to get into the piano sound- i used to prefer the harpsichord/organ eg Bach/Scarlatti. they composed with it after all?

re Beethoven's late quartets, was listening to Mendelsohn quartet 2 composed at the same time as a teenager- it's like he's the son of Beethoven (rather like ELO were the son of Beatles

youtube.com/watch?v=6UAU7xbTOyA&

I agree that music cannot be judged objectively (and we'd probably lose something if it could). Your point about having to learn the language of music is good, and you could extend it to the music of other cultures, sub-cultures and genres. It reminded me of the way we can't properly understand many old master paintings - the religious beliefs, mythologies and codes of painting from the medieval to mid-Victorian periods are often incomprehensible without serious study. 

Yes, to all that. Art at this level is all just so endlessly fascinating. (I always find wandering into the calm refines of the National Gallery from the hubbub of Trafalgar Square a wonderful, mentally transporting experience.)

Interesting stuff. Here’s a thought: if you look at Spotify, Taylor Swift has over a hundred million monthly subscribers. Beethoven 8 million. But in a hundred years time I reckon Taylor Swifts music will almost never be played, yet Beethoven will be ticking along nicely.

Her popularity is also about image, marketing, social media.  It’s about her, not just the music. Whereas we dont actually go to watch Beethoven - watching an orchestra play is stuff is more like watching a tribute band. 
Getting back to the OP, chart music will not last - it is ephemeral, of the moment, lyrics often of the moment with cultural references of that specific moment. Doesn’t make it bad, but it won’t be played on Spotify in 500 years time, but Beethoven will. Mind you, most classical music is crap anyway - we only tend to listen to the good stuff.

Yes, and yes.  Eg: https://www.aussiefloyd.com/tour-dates

I wouldn't be too sure about the longevity of popular song. There are still folkies singing songs from the Child Ballads that go back to around the 13th century. Maybe not that popular, but then there are for example American songs from the 1920s that are still very popular. Whether Taylor Swift has written anything as good as some of those is another question...

Corker that! The intermezzo with the crazy fugue is just my sort of thing. Also there's that little motif that reminds me for the scherzo from Schubert's final quartet, which is my nomination for 'best music ever made by a human being'.

Yes, very similar thoughts - I have the strong intuition that Beethoven is objectively better than Taylor Swift, but I can't give a satisfactory account, and I've never heard one (I had a brief look at a couple of youtube lectures last night and nothing was convincing). I think the feeling of experiencing great art is what Jonathan Haidt calls 'elevation' - 'transcendence' is another word we might use when it's a really powerful. Great music is capable of invoking these sensations or qualia, and I don't think we can be objective about it, the best we can do is come up with words to describe the experience.

Of course, if you're a death metal fan, I'm sure you're going to get this same degree of intense emotional impact as I do from my favourite music. I'm not convinced that fans of commercial pop are getting this experience though, but of course I can't be sure.

Simple reality is that "free" music is crushing musical creativity.
It was probably easier to make a living as a musician in Beethovens day than it is now.
Ironic and sad really, because, given that incredibly powerful music creating tools are available to almost anyone nowadays, we should be living in a golden age of music creation.
 

I think we are living in a golden age of music creation, for exactly the reason you state. However, there's also a staggering amount of choss being churned out and released, for exactly the same reason. Parsing the good from the bad, or, stuff you like from stuff you don't, has become a Sisyphean task.

Totally agree that making a living as a musician is a very hard road these days. It's a crowded market, everyone expects recorded music for free and the live music scene has been hammered by covid, cuts and the cost of living crisis.

Pleasantly surprised! But it's still a much harder, colder sound than a modern piano and just a historical curiosity, for me.

Well, Jellyfish got to number 39 in the UK charts in 1993 - their highest!  They're still the band that really started it all for me.   youtube.com/watch?v=ymPQ_LtRpTY&

I'm hoping too still be alive in 100 years, and will definitely be playing Taylor Swift. In spite of the marketing and cultism, which I actually hate.

There's always been choss though - we've just forgotten it ever existed.

I’m going for the dislikesikes ratio record on this one. Currently 32:1.  :0))

Can’t understand where the orange smiley comes from. I typed dislikesikes

I think it would be a great shame if some chart music is not remembered and played many years into the future. There are what you might call 'chart songs' which are terrific pieces of work and which warrant repeated listens. There is certainly plenty of music from the 1960s which I still listen to and thoroughly enjoy, particularly Motown, Stax and Spector classics. 

Music in the 20th century went through a range of evolutions and revolutions, and to my mind, no history of 20th century music would be complete without representations from assorted jazz genres and, most notably to me, the revolutionary 1950s sounds of Jerry Lee Lewis, Little Richard, Elvis Presley and assorted rock'n'roll greats. They created truly incendiary sounds which confronted polite society and laid the foundations for a whole new era of cultural groupings. 

I have been thinking quite a bit about this thread's question, since it was launched, so when the track ' "I Got You (I Feel Good)" was played on the radio earlier I was struck by the sensational impact the song has alway's had on me. I am definitely too young to be basing this on nostalgia so I feel that this and many, many pieces of music like it will last as long as recordings of them are there to be heard.

It isn't necessarily choss, it's just bland... pretty face sings to a backing band with catchy beat, you can tap your foot but it's instantly forgettable. Sheeran has written some ok, stuff but much of that is repetitive, Irish girl in a bar, then a new yorker in.. what next LA, Vegas... if he can find something to rhyme. 

The youngsters are discovering bands that have spanned the generations because there is a void in current newcomers. 

I’ll agree with you there is a lot of bland music about, but I’ll counter that’s also always been the case. I actually can’t think of specific examples of blandness, because, well, I’ve forgotten them. 
 

The kids these days are also discovering old music simply because they have access to it, through streaming services and the wider internet. Something I did not have growing up in the 90s/00s at all, when it was my parents music collection (which ironically some of I now enjoy) or nothing.

Wider context, has the pub scene changed. Are there as many places for aspirant youths to play a few cover tracks in the rear lounge and get paid in beer. Or do many now see themselves as semi refined eateries?

Some modern stuff, The Himalayas

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=hWs2DSRpTGg&list=RDEM5iZ2_KhpnKG07MX8rTVO...

The Reytons

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=9jpjJJpjEVQ&pp=ygUMVGhlIHJheXRvbmVz

Shambolics (track: Universal Credit)

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=qhILGJyEkV4&pp=ygUKU2hhbWJvbGljcw%3D%3D

That assessment seems a bit harsh! It's just a different timbre, with less power and less sustain. There's a strong argument that it suits chamber music up to and including Beethoven, Schubert and Mendelssohn much better - which is no surprise, of course, as it's the instrument for which this music was written! Those composers were far too good not to be keenly aware of issues of dynamic balance in their writing. In a Classical strings-plus-piano chamber music context, a modern grand, with its greater volume, does tend either to force the pianist to underplay to an unnatural degree or to force the hapless string player(s) to prioritize volume and projection at the expense of more nuanced playing (despite the advent of higher tension, non-gut strings the volume imbalance remains an issue). Furthermore, the greater sustain of the modern grand does necessitate extremely careful handling of fast passage work (and repeated chords) by the pianist when playing with strings, which often entails completely ignoring original dynamics, and sometimes partially or completely closing the piano lid, adding use of the una corda pedal, etc.

That all applies mainly to live performance, of course: on recordings levels can be artificially boosted as necessary, and those who listen exlusively to recorded chamber music (or concertos for that matter) are unlikely to be aware of these issues at all. But from the perspective of a chamber music player or a dedicated live concert-goer, playing/hearing a Schubert Piano Trio, say, with an early piano can be like a breath of fresh air

Or modern jazz...

I guess it depends what attracts you to different musical styles. Large orchestral pieces are complex and can sometimes be too 'twiddly'; just too clever-clever. On the other hand, I love Orff's Carmina Burana, and that uses a huge orchestra and choir (lucky to see it live).

I prefer music that has a hook that, well, hooks... And that can be very simple.

My musical tastes are very varied; from 11th century choral music (Hildegard von Bingen's 'O Euchari', for instance, which I discovered by samples used by The Drum Club & The Beloved), through later religious music (e.g. "Allegri's" Miserere), through to prog, alt, electronic, minimalist, electronica, death metal and pop, including some stuff by Britney & Tay-Tay...

When I hear the fabulous chords of Faithless' God is a DJ, they just trigger something deep inside.

I have been lucky to catch a performance of the Allegri Miserere, which was sublime. I would dearly love to experience a cathedral performance of Glass' Prophecies. 

I think the things that's confusing here is the difference between 'composers' and modern 'writer/performers'

An orchestra performing Wagner is cool, it's legit to do this. It's been done, but it's ok.

But, if you do a whole Strokes set, you're a cover band. This is different to seeing the actual Strokes who inevitably will have to stop performing. 

I listened to that album 4 or 5 times in the 80's. The beauty, pain, euphoria and majesty wrung me out and I've never been able to listen to it again. A masterpiece. 

That's a very moving tribute to its genius. I agree, it has all the power, complexity and overwhelming emotional impact of a great symphony. I think Coltrane has to be ranked with Duke Ellington & Miles as the greatest of jazz composers.

youtube.com/watch?v=oVME_l4IwII&

an objective review as to why modern chart music sucks.

Tired listening but feel asleep. He’s exceptionally boring. What was his point ?  

While I wouldn't put the Dead Kennedys in the same technical skill bracket as any of Frank Zappa's bands, they might be the best example of a punk band who can really play. Even their live performances were pretty tight. Oddly the Butthole Surfers, acid drenched nutjobs each and every one of them, could play live incredibly well despite presenting a debauched clown show.

100% agree.

go on then....  studying over 500,000 songs over the last 65 years timbral diversity has objectively declined.  music has homogenised

a drastic drop in the variety of instruments used across music.

vocals have homeogenised with many artists using the same pattern of notes when singing,  from fith to the third to the fith, now known as the millenial whoop. 

lyrically songs are getting more repetitive and shorter.   Using the flescher-kingcaid readability index they show that lyrics have become around 35% more simple (i.e a kid can understand it)

Two people !!! (max Martin and lucasz gottwald) !!! are responsible for writing and producing a  sizable proporttion (the video says vast majority but I cant believe that) of chart topping music for the past 20 years

instant access to millions of songs has shortened our attention spans, as a result "the hook" of a song has to occur sooner and more frequently.  When we bought albums we would listen again and again and appreciate the subtle nuances, no one has time for this anymore.

"loudness wars" have occured this uses dynamic compression to boost the volume of quiet parts which  reduces the dynamic range.  

record labels becoming more aware of the "mere exposure effect" basically the more people hear something the more they will like it.  50 years ago labels would sign hundreds of acts and allow the popularity among listeners to decide who makes it big, now gambling on possible failures has become too expensive, so record labels have started choosing the a pretty singer and then forcing the public to like it by flooding the market with it everywhere.

none of this makes much sense unless you listen to the musical examples in the video,   I really like Thoughty2 and thought the video was great. 

In other words, it's just cr@p

I'm not sure about describing Coltrane as a "composer". Like most jazz greats, and let's bring Charlie Parker in here, their best work was improvised rather than written.

My 7-year-old grandson sang Twist and Shout all the way up Latrigg yesterday, 62 years after it was released.

It's a fair point. 

Returning to punk bands that flatten the myth of 'can't play like the 70s prog/rock behemoths', how did I forget about Magazine? Arguably not strictly punk but at the time very much of the oeuvre.

After Ascension Coltrane moved more and more into purely improvisatory free jazz, but before that some of his greatest works are original melodies and chord progressions. For example: the beautiful Naima, the fiendishly difficult Giant Steps, the magnificent A Love Supreme. After all, the changes for Giant Steps are so original they get referred to as Coltrane changes. As you say there's equally brilliant work based on standards - most obviously My Favourite Things. I guess a ground-breaking world music track like India falls half-way between, since it's supposedly based on a Vedic chant. Apparently the gorgeous tune of Spiritual, although credited as original, is actually a little-known variant of Nobody Knows the Trouble I've Seen. Overall, though, I still think composer is more than justified.

'Never Mind the Bollocks' is a fantastic rock and roll album. Steve Jones could lay down a proper riff (and I was a metal head in the late seventies). Reading his autobiography ('Lonely Boy') was a real eye opener.

I agree, but that's all it is, a simple rock 'n' roll album, nothing more. The likes of Dead Kennedys or Magazine are in a different universe to that.

When I saw the OP title, God Save the Queen was the first thing that popped into my head. It's lasted pretty well.

Anyway, before anyone accuses me of being a prog/jazz snob, I still think the best guitar solo ever committed to vinyl is from Buzzcock's Boredom, (though my personal favourite is from DK's When ya get drafted.)

Now that's a whole other thread!

My guess is that no chart music will last; it's by its nature disposable consumer fare (and nothing wrong with that as such). Perhaps some niche contemporary music will still be played or listened to  in 200 years, but probably not mainstream.

Whether there emerges someone of Beethoven stature to revolutionise music, set its direction and have a similar status as a household name in 200 years time is a question which is probably impossible to answer; outlying geniuses are by their very nature impossible to predict. A bit like asking if there will ever be another Einstein to turn physics on its head.

Anyway, well worth pointing to the brilliant three part BBC4 documentary on Beethoven - intelligent and not dumbed down but accessible (unlike too many documentaries nowadays!):

https://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episodes/m000kqq4/being-beethoven

It's far too dismissive to say 'simple rock and roll'. By that score you could eliminate whole swathes of classic fifties rock and roll like Buddy Holly and Eddie Cochrane. A great guitar riff chugging along is timeless and (to me personally) way more inspiring and uplifting than any classical music I ever heard. If it made me want to drive the car faster so much the better.

Possibly, I wouldn't know. The only song of either band I can recall is 'Shot by both sides'. What's more likely is that without the 'simple rock and roll' of the Pistols it's arguable whether or not many of the post-punk bands would have picked up guitars at all. 

I’d argue this is in fact incredibly subjective

Thank you so much for the link to the 3-part Beethoven documentary. I’ve just watched half of part I so far, and have to get on with my work now. But looking forward to seeing the whole thing, because it’s beautifully made, and because I’m a complete Beethoven fanatic (I made a 35-min biopic of him when I was at film school 50 years ago, starring Tony Britton in the title role.) Have literally hundreds of recordings (LPs and CDs). Perhaps the greatest musician who ever lived (or in joint No1 position with Bach), for his sheer humanity combined with his musical genius. The Shakespeare of music.

I am pretty sure that nobody not alive now will be listening to Taylor Swift in 100 years time.

The problem with studies like this is the inherent biases that attach to the parameters studied. It's quite a narrow range of qualities. In particular it takes no notice of the huge range of rhythmic variation in contemporary pop in its different manifestations. 

Fair point, I'm probably betraying my preferences.

Robert: thanks for that Beethoven doc link, it looks fascinating and will keep me glued for a few evenings. I don't really know Beethoven's work very well at all and feel that it may be a void in my musical experience that needs filling.

Like it!

I was first exposed to Beethoven at about age 14 when my big sister bought an LP of the fifth symphony. Thought it was OK, but it wasn’t considered cool by any mates. Got a boost at uni when my wife-to-be (much more exposed to culture by her family) shared her LPs, many of them LVB, and it went on from there. Within a couple ofyears I could sing along with any of the 9 symphonies, the 5 piano concertos and the violin concerto. Oddly, I have very few CDs of the orchestral works, but most of his quartets, piano trios and a fair few of the piano sonatas. I realise that I am much more in love with the chamber works than the orchestral, but I don’t know why. Are they some kind of musical distillation? I do play the Eroica quite a bit, though. Probably my favourite single piece is the so called Ghost Trio, and but its Op. 70 partner, No. 2, though much less played and well-known, is a close second.

For someone interested in getting to know LVB’s work the symphonies may be more accessible than the chamber works. The 7th takes some beating imo.

Thanks! I will bear all that in mind.

Given the enormous breadth of music that makes the charts and even Classical music often charts I'm not sure how that statement can be true. Also is Beethoven 'mainstream'?

Beethovens 9th and 5th, played at the Proms last summer, are still on Iplayer. 

Nope, it’s simply one post:

Alone by Dinosaur Jr. 

Ive always felt that there is a lot of rose tinted spectacle stuff going on when people compare chart or pop music. As a sample, here are the top 10 from about 1960, most of which is total garbage to me:

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_UK_top-ten_singles_in_1960

Cliff Richard does well, with entries for people like Max Bygraves, Ken Dodd and Rolf Harris. Utter tosh musically (the last three anyways).  The great Lonnie Donnegan is in there with a few, including ‘My Old Mans a Dustman’.
As others have said, the ‘pool’ for music is massive now. I’m no fan of current chart music, but bands like Radiohead, Nick Cave and Bjork would ‘out music’ just about anyone from previous decades. And the bands that I delve into on Spotify, including very recent bands/songs, have great lyrics (punk like), good musicality and variety. But like I said, most chart stuff doesn’t do it for me (and wouldn’t have done back then either).  

A mate of mine played in punk bands back then, and always said many where underrated in terms of skill and technique (esp the Sex Pistols).  Only got into Punk in the mid 80’s, but Dead Kennedys were brilliant. And some of the post punk (eg Joy Divsion, The Cure) and Ska (eg The Specials, The Beat) where brilliant. 

I watched the first instalment last night. Very interesting and beautifully scripted, filmed, cast and produced. It got very emotional at times, obviously in relation to Beethoven’s deafness. Grown men on the screen and elsewhere struggling not to break down.

You may over-claiming a bit there. Plenty of prog bands had serious musical capabilities, and some even appeared in the charts. And there's always Never Gonna Let You Go...

youtube.com/watch?v=ZnRxTW8GxT8&

Make sure you have a good supply of tissues at hand for the last episode then. Deafness, spurned in love, ill.... yet....

Didn’t realise it was one of those types of films. Might watch it now

A few did, always partial to a bit of Rush

A few did, always partial to a bit of Rush

This is quality, genuinely, top bloke as well: 

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=dQw4w9WgXcQ&pp=ygUXbmV2ZXIgZ29ubmEgZ2l2ZS...

I’ve watched both the first two episodes of ‘Being Beethoven’ now and have found it awesomely good. BY FAR the best documentary on Beethoven I’ve ever seen. And very moving. Really looking forward to seeing the last part now. It’s the sort of documentary I could watch many times.

Me too. Just finished part 2.

That's really interesting, thanks for opening my mind! I'm a big fan of Schubert's piano trios, so might try to find a recording with period instruments so I'll have a better feel for the difference knowing the music better. For the solo piano works though, I want to hear them played on a fantastic modern piano, usually by Brendel, who seems to 'get' Schubert's elegance just perfectly.

I think Chopin's mind would have been blown by how his music sounds on today's pianos. I really love this performance of my favourite nocturne, and this one really benefits from the rather nice instrument it's played on. Or maybe he'd think it was all mushy?

https://youtu.be/xZ83Lwnhkj0?si=34bMuqFHAdzKf2CX

There's a good Storyville doc on iplayer about the Chopin competition - it doesn't give quite enough space for the music IMO, but it's a great watch for the characters and drama.

Whilst trying to overcome my relative ignorance about Beethoven I came across this article by Alex Ross that I think you, Gordon and other enthusiasts will find fascinating. 

https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2014/10/20/deus-ex-musica

It's ostensibly about how Beethoven is venerated to the point of meaninglessness, but there's a lot more to it than that, and it's clear that Ross really has a huge affection for Beethoven. There are substantial chunks on some of the Beethoven literature, and it's full of interesting facts and anecdotes like this:

"Recording technology evolved with Beethoven in mind: the first commercial 33⅓ r.p.m. LP, in 1931, contained the Fifth Symphony, and the duration of first-generation compact disks was fixed at seventy-five minutes so that the Ninth Symphony could unfurl without interruption." 

Thanks for the link. 
I don’t quite agree that Beethoven is excessively venerated. If you look at, for example, the Halle orchestra’s programme for a year, there isn’t anywhere near endless Beethoven. The point may be better exhibited in the world of recitals by string quartets, piano trios, etc.

The first one with the LP could well be circumstantial as something has to be first.
The second one with the CD appears to be urban myth:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Compact_disc#Disc_shapes_and_diameters

I think the veneration he referred to was more the way Beethoven has been treated by various people and media rather than levels of performance.  What I found most interesting is the whole mythologising process, which started very early on. 

There seem to have been a few significant Bs in the 20thC, many influenced by Schoenberg, I think, including Milton Babbitt* - even less of a household name than the others on my list, I suspect (Berg, Birtwistle & Boulez would be my other Bs, +/- Berio)

Apparently, Sondheim’s suggested amendments for West Side Story (I’m guessing) were resisted by Bernstein if he thought they’d come from Babbitt – “I was never one of Lenny’s favourites” (he says in Portrait of a Serial Composer)**

* https://www.theguardian.com/music/2011/jan/30/milton-babbitt-obituary

** https://www.npr.org/sections/deceptivecadence/2011/04/10/133372983/npr-excl...