On Thu, 09 Feb 2006 23:59:06 GMT, wrote:


"paul packer" wrote in message
...
On Wed, 08 Feb 2006 16:53:13 GMT, wrote:


Another factor is that with classical music you have a limited supply of
"product," whereas pop music has a new batch of people fresh out their
garage or prefab groups created by record companies to constantly put out
new product, that is trying to copy the older product, etc., etc.

Not true, Mike. There are vast amounts of neglected music from the
last 100 years or so waiting to be discovered

If they are undiscovered, how do you know there are vast amounts?
Perhaps they are undiscoverd because the composers or the audiences of the
time didn't care for them.

"Undiscovered" by the masses, but not unknown to the congniscenti.

, plus plenty of young
composers ready to start composing tomorrow if there's a market and
money.

That's always going to be a problem, without a reasonable solution other
than renewed interest.
One can only hope, but I think that composers like John Williams might be
helpful insofar as their music tends to be easily encountered and more
exciting to the unitiated.

Agreed. This relates to my remarks about the young looking to film
music for cultural sustenance. Had there been more artists like
Williams over the years perhaps classical music might not have
suffered such decline. The problem is that young people today will
never connect to Mozart operas and Haydn quartets; even I don't. They
might however be persuaded to listen to the likes of Shostakovich etc,
music that basically speaks the same language as film music. I've
always been astonished at the distain with which film music is treated
by concert hall snobs when it is in reality a "crossover" medium, a
way of involving the young in serious music. In recent years there
have even been film music concerts where the film in question is
projected behind the orchestra so that the audience can relate
directly to the music's subject. This was done with the sea battle in
Ben-Hur and I believe it was a huge hit. It might seem crass to the
elitists, but it might also be classical music's only hope.

As someone said once about atonalism, "There's still much more
to be said in the key of C."

If it doesn't have something with a melody you can hum when you walk out,
it's probably doomed.

Possibly true, but that in itself isn't so terrible. We start with
that and maybe move on later.