Hello, I’m Robert Estrin and this is LivingPianos.com, Your Online Piano Store. The question is, “Are there new musical classics being composed today?” The people I’m involved with, for the most part, have a great appreciation for the classics. Classical repertoire has endured centuries, and that might make you wonder, “Are any classics being written today?” This is a really tough question. Think about this. If you go way back to the time of Bach and Mozart, they didn’t necessarily know that they were going to be classics. They didn’t know their classical compositions would be studied centuries after they were written. In the thick of it, sometimes the composers who are immensely popular don’t live on and they’re not particularly important in the realm of history. Conversely:
There are some great composers who in their day were obscure or not highly respected.
Styles change. Even Johann Sebastian Bach near the end of his life while writing some of the most magnificent works, had fallen out of favor. The new classical era had begun and the flourishing complexity of the Baroque music he was writing was less in vogue than the music his sons were writing! Can you believe it? I will say this:
There are absolutely pieces being composed today that will live on for centuries.
Predicting what those pieces are is very tough to do. Who would have predicted, for example, in Beethoven’s life that Beethoven would be celebrated centuries later? In the 19th Century, there were hundreds of composers. Who could have predicted who would be the ones to live on in history and who wouldn’t live on? We’re living through a new era. Great music of all time can sometimes be found in unexpected places.
Consider the impact of technology on music.
In the time of Bach, the piano wasn’t even invented yet! Centuries later when the piano was more developed, there was a flourishing of music that couldn’t even have been conceived earlier. At one time, the symphony orchestra didn’t exist! The concert hall had not developed yet. We’re living through a time now with computer technology and some of you might not like the whole idea of computer-generated music. But it’s just a tool!
We can’t begin to imagine how people are going to be working with these new tools in the coming decades and centuries.
We’re definitely living through some tremendous music that’s being written that combines different elements of styles of music written all over the world. The entire world’s music is just click away! Composers can hear each other and develop music that combines elements that were never combined before. Eastern music combined with Celtic music. Anything’s possible today! What is going to be the great music that will live on? It’s hard to say, and we can talk about that. I would love to hear from any of you who has ideas about what music are truly classics that are being written right now. Thanks for keeping the great questions coming in. Again, I’m Robert Estrin here at LivingPianos.com
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