Entertainment For Lively Minds
Is classical music irrelevant to today's youth?
Posted by Baskerville Old Face on 12 May 2011 - 10:44pm.
This is to be debated at the Cambridge Union (motion being proposed by DJ Kissy Sell Out with Stephen Fry responding). What does the Massive think?
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For better or worse
I'd say classical music always been irrelevant to the youth of any era of the last 100 years.
Apart from posh kids, that is.
I've learned to appreciate some classical music in later life but growing up, no one in my peer group had any time for it at all and we would turn it off when it came on the radio at home.
I'm 18 years old, state-educated...
and I love it. Neither my parents care about classical music, but I've worked my way backwards from rock/pop/dance to contemporary classical (Johann Johannsson, Max Richter etc) to 20th Century (Philip Glass, Steve Reich, Schoenberg etc) to the likes of Beethoven and Bach. I've just treated myself to the complete Nielsen symphonies, and am working my way through those as I write (I remain a massive pop fan too).
Again, like with so many questions about the 'yoof', the answers tend not to change - interested people will search it out. What I reckon has changed, largely as a result of the internet, is that I think my generation discriminates a lot less between genres. Classical music is as readily available as rock - I went to a classical concert for a fiver last week, saw the Joy Formidable in Camden for 13, and then when I came home downloaded both. This is not even considering the work of people like Olafur Arnalds (and in the last month (!) Dustin O'Halloran), who make classical music that is heavily indebted to popular music. Not to mention Bryce Dessner's (The National) and Jonny Greenwood's second lives as classical composers, who blur the lines between the two.
In my experience, posh kids are less willing to embrace it, whether that is because of a fear of fulfilling the stereotype you just illustrated or just an individual closed-mindedness I don't know. Saying that, they were generally more interested in their city internships than their music anyway.
Isn't he lovely?
Wish I was your mum Freddie. Bet no one is telling you to turn that bloody racket down. Or maybe I'm wrong, you're getting told off for drowning out the Garth Brooks?
With the greatest of respect LROS, that comment came
across as the worst sort of patronising sniping - something I'd have hoped we we're above here.
Really?
I thought it was just intended to be silly: patronising-on-purpose in the same way as the hair-ruffling jokes that Joe gets.
Yep. No harm no foul.
And I have to say that my power over volume control decreases radically when listening to My Bloody Valentine rather than Ravel.
Try Ravel's Piano Concerto
That should help restore things nicely.
And then
give it some Rite Of Spring, all the way up to 11. Getonmyson!
Then Mahler's Symphony Of A Thousand
The Motörhead of classical music...
Verdi's Requiem
Another heavyweight from the classical vaults.
"Apart from posh kids, that is"?
Where's the evidence that children from "posh" backgrounds (and define that in this day and age) are any more or less likely to embrace classical music? Where I come from in Yorkshire there was always a strong tradition of people from less privilege background embracing "serious" music via brass bands, chapel choirs and amateur operatics. In Stan Barstow's "A Kind Of Loving" the hero, who labours by day in a draughtsman's office, pours all his energies into his enthusiasm for classical music.
Obviously the overwhelming majority of young people have no interest in things that aren't immediately gratifying but I don't believe it's ever been anything to do with class. They may go to schools that place more emphasis on serious music in the curriculum and make more of an issue of people learning to play instruments but it doesn't mean they're any more likely to embrace it when they're young.
Tongue in cheek
It was a throwaway tongue in cheek comment and I rather hoped that much was clear, but I also think there's a grain of truth there.
I also come from Yorkshire and on my council estate there wasn't much Shostakovich in evidence when I was growing up in the 60s, let me tell you. We just weren't exposed to it. If I can paraphrase Paul McCartney who is quoted as saying something like "classical music was something 'they' listened to. It wasn't for the likes of us". It took his experience of living with Jane Asher and her family in Wimpole Street to introduce Macca to the finer things in life.
Personally it wasn't until I moved to London and began mixing with people who appreciated such things that I realised it was OK to like classical music. We can only speak from our own experience and things may be different now, of course.
To counter your Stan Barstow argument, there's always A Clockwork Orange by Anthony Burgess. Here we have Alex the teenage thug who loves nothing more than a bit of "Lovely Ludwig Van."
Working class yob enjoys Beethoven. The irony wasn't lost on Stanley Kubrick who made this "unusual" fact one of the main themes of his film.
George Martin
Just as a contrast to Paul McCartney, the recent fascinating BBC4 documentary showed that George Martin came from pretty much the same ordinary background as The Beatles, although he was 15 years older and a Londoner. And he grew up wanting to the "second Rachmaninov". So I'd agree that everyone's experience varies. (And it was an odd coincidence that when he went to the Royal Academy of his music, his oboe teacher was Jane Asher's mother.)
Classical Music - relevant?
All I know is that after 40 years of keeping my finger on the pulse of what is hip and contemporary, I am now spending more and more of my time and my money on classical music. I am still into headbanging stuff, punk, folk, african, bluegrass etc. But I simply don't have the time to chase down everything any more, so if it comes down to listening to Arcade Fire or Monteverdi, it is the full Monte every time for me these days.
Classical music was never relevant to anything really - but the problem with most music now is that it has become no more or less relevant than classical, and classical is generally better quality and simply more pleasant to engage with. And I am totally out of patience at going to rock or blues gigs to sit behind retards who just talk on their mobile the whole way through, and who apparently cannot distinguish the difference between their loungeroom and a concert hall.
And what is the world's cheapest vice? Classical music. You can assemble a fantastic CD collection for peanuts, and you can generally also afford to go to gigs where fans actually watch and listen to the music. You do not get sprayed with booze (or worse)in the queue outside. You get a program. You can buy a drink without being assaulted or insulted or crushed to death. The venues are usually clean and even attractive. And classical music is way, way less conservative and ossified than most rock music these days.
Snobbery around the classical scene is still a feature, and I do find that alienating sometimes - but the musicians are almost universally there because they really love what they are doing, even when the audience is full of old tossers who are there because they have a subscription. And if you believe that the audience at say, The Strokes, are any less snobby than classical fans, think again.
Am partial to a bit of the old Monteverdi myself, actually
Love the Madrigals.
Love the Vespers - top stuff.
Mind you, a couple a years ago I caught one of Monte's operas - "Il ritorno d'Ulisse in patria" live at Drottningholms Slottsteater in Stockholm. Hot summer evening. Stuffy theatre. Long opera short on decent tunes. I'm afraid that after a while I was hurling out the zeds. In the land of Nod. Snoring away like a good'un.
Oh well, you can't win 'em all.
When I was at school
Our music teacher, Mr. Scarfe (Been in the war, tin leg, as near to being clinically insane as makes no difference) proceeded with every lesson the same way. He'd get out the old record player, stick on a classical disc, and hand out the sheet music that went with it. The fct that he'd never taught anybody to read a single note of music was obviously irrelevant. That was it. It put me off listening to lassical music til I was about 35.
And as another post has stated, as far as I can tell, most music is now irrlevant to most kids. They'll listen to whatever's current as part of the teen identity thing, but I don't think their obsessive about finding out more. Rock music's gradually becoming a sort of niche interest, like jazz and classical are now.
Big Ups for Da Shostakovitch Massive!!
Droppin' a bit of da 10th Piano concerto in F#!
Wikkid! 'Ave it LARGE!
It's the wrong question
It presupposes that there's any need for music to be "relevant".
You either enjoy it or you don't. I can honestly say I've never for one moment considered whether a piece of music, a song, a band, or a composer, is "relevant" to me. Just "wow"", or "urgh!", or "meh".
You've summed it up for me nicely there
At first I was going to say "yes it is irrelevant, but that doesn't mean some can't enjoy it." What is relevant in music? Is what I listen to relevant to someone in their late 20s? I'm don't particularly think it is - I just play what I like.
Is classical music irrelevant to today's youth?
...considerably less irrelevant than the Cambridge Union, I'd have thought.
As ever, these debates assume that there's only one answer. If I like it it's 'relevant', though as per Paul Vincent, I'd never describe it as such. If I don't, it isn't. Never heard him, but I suspect I would find DJ Kissy Sellout irrelevant.
Is any music strictly relevant?
Sometimes I wonder, loads of music is to me, but I'm unusually geekish about it compared to most.
I can say though, that a few years ago I went to the Royal Festival Hall to hear Beethoven's 9th. The ticket was £8, there was a 100 person choir and the moment when they all stood up prior to the "Ode To Joy" was one of the single most thrilling and exciting I have ever experienced at any music event. For under a tenner. Skint music lovers can probably hear classical music far cheaper than pop fans these days.
*Hovis theme strikes up."
*Yes I know it's Dvorak*
And how could I forget about this?
Classical music is funky, daddio!
my wife plays classical music recitals
Played one in a lovely church in Kew last Sunday afternoon, Haydn(Piano Trio No 10) and Schubert (Piano Trio No 1), free entry, and of the 30 odd people who wandered in to listen, there were 2 children under ten, dragged in by their late30something mum (very middle class, continental), otherwise I think I was the only person in the audience under 50.
Relevance
My take on relevance is whether classical music has an association, or makes an impression, or is generally enjoyed, by today's youth - does it form part of their lives and, if so, how much? I suspect the question has been pitched as outlined to encourage broader debate, but there is a risk that the debate will turn into one about class, rather than the place of classical music in today's society.
The comments so far are really interesting. I've also been considering how many rock musicians had composed classical pieces of music (and whether these were any good). Billy Joel, Keith Emerson, Paul McCartney and Jon Lord all sprung to mind. Of these, Jon Lord's music stands out - I particularly liked his 'Durham Concerto' as well as his last album 'To Notice Such Things'. I also enjoyed Billy Joel's 'Fantasies & Delusions (Music for solo piano) - composed by Joel but performed by Richard Joo. Paul McCartney has released a number of classical albums - I liked 'Working Classical' and 'Ecce cor meum (Behold My Heart)', but I need to listen to a bit more.
Relevance schmelavance
I was at the (6 hour !) Steve Reich And Chums beano at the Barbican last Saturday and it was an almost full house worth of a very young audience, certainly in comparison to the your more traditional concerts. The contemporary classical crowd do tend to be a lot younger generally, and the Proms audience especially.
As for "relevance", who knows, or dares to care ? Clearly classical is not in the forefront of popular culture, but I am not sure what we get from sweeping generalisations about relevance : apart from politicians in charge of the money and earnest writers in the Guardian, who else talks of relevance ? Young people are as much, or as little of an amorphous mass as the rest of us. Even looking at the (state-educated) younglings I am related to, their interests range from Taylor Swift to obscure grungy bands never mentioned in this place, with a serious side-order of folk music, so it is a proper broad church, and they wander about where they like, as we do. Varying degrees of popular then, but relevant, to anything ?
Classical, like , say, jazz, is as relevant or otherwise as they choose to make it, and will be there waiting for them if they are so inclined.
Loved it
My Dad was a big classical music fan - Beethoven particularly, and I love it as a teenager. We went to see the Halle Orchestra play The 4 seasons, the 1812 Overture and Beethoven's 5th at the Free Trade Hall (I suppose my first gig, aged 13!) and it was ficking brilliant.
Twang Jr also loved the 5th Symphony when he first hear it - stirring stuff - so I think the debate about relevance is pretty daft. I wonder how many teenagers actually hear any classical music? I'm prepared to bet most of them would love it if they had the chance to hear it.
Incidentally the piece of Hayden played on the Today programme the other morning with horrible drum "beats" added was ghastly IMHO.
A report
Not exactly an impartial report, but here it is anyway.
http://www.theartsdesk.com/index.php?option=com_k2&view=item&id=3697:opi...
I really like Stephen Fry, but
is there ANY subject on which he is not considered an "authority?" Lazy of you, Cambridge Union.
Is 99% of what's in the charts
irrelevant to today's middle-aged audience?
The same question could be asked of pop music......
.....in an era where record shops increasingly contain fewer records (classical or pop) to make way for.....erm, help me here.....game things/consoles/stuff and DVDs.
I'm off to St John Smith Square tomorrow night...
...I'll let you know if there's any of *ver kids'* there for Buxtehude's Membra Jesu Nostri...
Meanwhile, let's hear it for the greatest classical disco crossover ever:
Night on Disco Mountain *points at ceiling*