WHERE HAS THE COMPOSER GONE?
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Classical music once held power and prestige. Today’s neglect hints at a broader societal issue—modern man's growing detachment from deeper emotional and spiritual expression through the arts.
A striking feature of the current symphony landscape is the absence of celebrated contemporary composers. Up until the beginning of the 20th century, works of Russian composers like Dimitri Shostakovich and Sergei Prokofiev were given the same attention as today’s Hollywood blockbusters. Stalin’s personal opinion often decided the fate of a new piece and of the composer himself, and editorials in newspapers expounded the merits, shortcomings and deeper meanings of a piece as if the future of Russia depended upon it. Things today could not be more different. Which concert goer and classical music aficionado today could even name one of the great composers of the last 50 years, let alone any of his signature pieces? Even the one name that could be mentioned as an example of a successful late 20th century composer — Gyorgy Ligeti — has barely left a mark on even the more sophisticated concert goer — with recordings and performances of his most significant pieces remaining few and far between. We have reached the unfortunate truth that contemporary classical music does not occupy the prominent space in culture as it used to.
What I’ll be exploring in my coming essay is the link between the evolution of the human spirit and the curious obsolescence of classical music. Heidegger warned of the metaphysical state of modern man who has become a machine and estranged from his own soul. Many philosophers saw music as an expression of the soul - or as Wittgenstein said: music expresses what words cannot say. The evolution of music is thus a deeper expression of the state of the soul.
So, what does the decline of contemporary classical music say about the state of modern man? Is there something to be said about its inverse relationship with the rise of electronic music, a genre characterized by homogenous, endlessly repeated rhythms? Perhaps man feels like a machine. And perhaps that mechanization has stunted his ability to gain greater access to his deeper emotions and cravings. Let’s explore.
