A millennial's rant on classical music

[Brian Hall]

 

[Brian Hall]

 

[Brian Hall]

 

[Haskil]

Personally, I think that a lot of Western art music is boring beyond comprehension. Throughout different periods and styles, there are just a few standout composers, with the rest producing music that's repetitive and uninspired. While I can stomach some Mahler, Bach, Chopin, Shostakovich, or Lutoslawski, a big chunk of - say - 20th-century music is just noise. Recently, there's been a shift towards some sort of new age styled compositions, which I find even worse than the noise of the 20th century. The Hyperion gets credit for trying to record less popular stuff, but it ends up highlighting how mediocre a lot of non-mainstream music really is. And then there's this endless stream of 'me too' soloists, ensembles and orchestras playing the same old compositions over and over again. It's a dead end.

Mediocre? Really ? You are confusing your opinion with what is.

You don't like many works and composers and you have the right to do so, obviously. This does not mean that these works and these composers are mediocre... I don't like Reger's music, for example, which I find deadly boring, but I would never claim that it is mediocre: Reger is a great composer whose the music is of undeniable formal quality...

 

[MRC01]

"Classical music is just heavy metal before electricity"

I am reminded of this when I listen to certain works, like Ysaye's violin sonatas and Liszt's transcendental etudes.