will Classical music ever return to mainstream?

Yes, but the question I asked as regards remastering concerned the nominal host of this Forum. I am aware of the reissue programs. However, as I said, when I go to Amoeba San Francisco or at the Local Rasputin's I witness very little of that "flood".

 

I suspect a lot of folks like the tunes and the open-throated delivery. And, again, the serving size was mostly 5-minute songs, well-within the attention span of people raised on radio.

 

It all depends on what one means by "mainstream" -- will classical music be pop music? No. Will classical figures ever again be popular stars even the way Heifetz or Gould or Bernstein or Horowitz were in my life time, Jenny Lind or Adelina Patti were in the 19th century, or opera was as popular entertainment then? Possibly not, not in the U.S., not with the caliber today of music education and exposure. People don't grow up exposed to it even the way, say, we did 50 years ago when classical music was on TV regularly and you learned the nuts and bolts of western music in grade schoo. But will classical music be mainstream enough to keep drawing crowds to concerts, keep attracting foundation dollars and public support, probably -- at least the "mainstream" classical stuff; of course there's mainstream stuff and avant-garde stuff just like there is in any art or genre, and there will always be folks at the avant garde edge making new music, both, has has often been the case in recent years, supported by academia, and otherwise, at least for the near-term, though certainly the extreme graying of the audiences I see at concerts today is pretty dismaying, and the extreme costs of say, keeping something like an opera company alive, is pretty daunting.

 

Classical music has value and it will never die out. It will also never be popular.

 

Certainly true in the last decade but it is worth not forgetting that with DCC, Steve H did an outstanding job with Villa Lobos' colorful Uirapuru conducted by Stokowski, along with Prokofiev's Cinderella Suite. It's a bit pricy these days but sonically impressive. The situation has deteriorated though since the 90s when even Classic Records reissued a selection of RCA shaded dogs.

 

Classical music, as far as I can see, is quite popular with those families and young people who have always been interested in classical music. It's attraction is not limited to wealthy families sitting in boxes at the Hollywood Bowl. The BBC Proms, the largest clasical music festival of the year in London, sold more tickets than ever (over 100,000 tickets) on the first day of sales. The proms are popular because young people can afford the tickets, which are very reasonably priced.

As far as "popular" music played by orchestras, soundtracks (after a long moribund period) are extremely popular with the younger crowd. You see colored vinyl issues of new soundtracks on the Mondo Tees site. The major orchestras all put on concerts featuring motion picture soundtracks, and they are extremely popular. My 17 year old actually persuaded me to give up the Who at Hyde Park to attend a show put on by the London Philharmonic Orchestra at Royal Albert Hall - it was completely sold out and there were many younger people in the audience. I enjoyed it - the Pirates of the Carribean soundtrack rocks better than the Overture from Tommy!

I don't know much about classical music sales, but I do know that Ennio Morricone has sold 70 million albums over the course of his amazing career - does that count?

 

Usually a type of music is quite popular with people who have always been interested in it, whether European classical, rock, jazz, etc.
Ennio Morricone did a bunch of movie soundtracks, which I would hardly call European classical music.

 

yes while much of modern Classical went mostly down an inaccessible blind alley in the mid 20th century i believe it was kept alive in film scores, to me the likes of Alex North, Jerry Goldsmith, John Barry and many others including John Williams is where much of the accessible modern Classical music is now to be found...

 

i could not disagree more, Ennio Morricone's film scores are in the highest classical tradition, we are only now just realising that....

 

I'm a product of 70's prog rock, nowadays classical music is at least half of what I listen to. But I'm pretty much alone with my mid life infatuation. My wife even leaves the room. I attend 15-20 classical concerts a year here in Maine...generally alone, and when I look around I feel like a youngster, which is nice for a 60 year old.

 

That was what I meant to say. I don't think it was every "mainstream", and I don't think it's popularity has decreased or is limited to the old and grey. When I was young, I played in the orchestra and always enjoyed classical music, as did many of my classmates. And, I think today, the same types of people have an interest in classical music.

As far as Morricone goes, a "bunch of movie soundtracks"? My goodness. If you are not familiar with Morricone, I might recommend one of his most well-known - the soundtrack to The Mission. Music to stir the soul.

 

Oh oh... Well, I hope not, as I just last week splurged on tickets for Berg's Lulu at the Met in November

 

Film scoring is an application, not a genre. The fact that a piece of music is scored for an orchestra does not make it "classical music."

I would not hesitate to consider Alex North, Leonard Rosenman, Jerry Goldsmith, Ennio Morricone, Miklos Rozsa, Toru Takemitsu, and Bernard Herrmann as classical composers. I would not necessarily extend that distinction to Danny Elfman, Howard Shore, or John Williams. (And I love Shore's Cronenberg scores, incidentally.)

Ironically, U.S. orchestras' simpleminded division of programming into "masterworks" and "pops" categories means that much of the worthy film music is passed over: It is too challenging for the pops series, and not highbrow enough for the masterworks series.

So saying that film music has somehow morphed into the classical music of today - while containing some grains of truth - is a gross generalization. It is much more nuanced than that.

 

The datedness is more with the instrumental works than the operatic ones. Anyway Alban Berg was a poor serialist or atonalist. Not because of technical inadequacy I hasten to add but because he was always inserting tonal sounding passages into his music even in the 12 tone works. The explanation would be rather technical so I won't bother elaborating. Anyway the drama should be interesting if the singers can manage it.

 

Classical music can only be mainstream in the present only if there is a living musician or musicians that have become a celebrity bring a style to classical that todays audience can relate to. You can go back to people who had that status, such as Caruso, or even Liberace and more recently the Three Tenors, and a few others. The person that comes closest today is perhaps Esperanza Spalding, but not enough for Classical to be the main popular music.

 

Will never be mainstream. About 5 years ago I decided to wet my feet with classical music. What a nightmare just figuring
out where to begin!! I mean...Beethovens 5th has been recorded by 1000 or more conductors and orchestras!! Where does
one begin??? Once you find the stuff that speaks to you then you in for a nice musical journey.

But finding it can be frustrating. I fear today's youth don't have the patience, or the inclination, to sit through a 35 minute
symphony.

 

Esperanza Spalding is a jazz player.

 

I graduated public high school in 2002. I took Music in Our Lives I & II (Basically Music Appreciation) & Music Theory I & II, while obtaining a diploma with a special recognition for math/sciences (my school correctly counted Music Theory as an advanced math class). I played trumpet 4th grade through 8th grade and the lessons were free. And went on many field trips to see classical music. My high school had and still has a jazz band, a marching band, an orchestra, and a choir. The high school I went to was suburban and ranks amongst the better in New York State when the "report cards" come out. So perhaps my experience wasn't typical. But I think you are also over-extrapolating the closing of your alma matter's music program to the conclusion "No one who graduated high school after the 90s got a music education."

 

It already has a few times. Much of the Progressive Rock music was a return to classical music, the difference being it was enhanced by rapidly moving electrons. The same with new age music. You see bits of classical music approach to freestyle jazz.
Of course it isn't your great great great great grandpas classical music. But the musical knowledge, skills , and creativity are there.

 

Many don't. But that's always been true. But, whether it's a well-played symphony, a good novel or a 1-0 pitcher's duel, for those that understand, there will always be appreciation of the art.

I should add that my wife (then my fiancé) fell asleep during 9th inning of a no-hitter. To be fair to her, it was probably the worst no-hitter in MLB history - Joe Cowley of the White Sox with a 7-walk no hitter at Anaheim Stadium.

 

No.
The mainstream has the attention span of a..a...Goldfish!
I've heard even three minute Pop songs are being trimmed for radio
And it gets worse by the day with ALL the Arts.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/sci...span-than-goldfish-thanks-to-smartphones.html

 

The closest to superstars in classical today might be Lang Lang and Gustavo Dudamel but I don't think their crossover appeal will move the meter much.

 

I think 'classical music' always had the same 'market share'; it was never really mainstream i.m.o.. Every now and then an artist or interpretation pops up that becomes a ''hit'' (Three Tenors, Nigel Kennedy's Four Seasons), but most of the time it's that music with its own radio stations (over here) and section in the music store.
I see myself as a 'casual fan'; it's hard to dive in a musical genre that has gazillions of versions, orchestra's, interpretations and recordings per composer.
P.S.; these days the English composer/arranger Max Richter is quite popular with his reading of Vivaldi's The Four Seasons. It's being used in many tv-shows, it slightly gets on my nerves, but you can hear for yourself if this is an improvement in any way:

 

I suppose we've redefined the definition of "never." What a truly ignorant espousal. At one time, it was pop (Mozart), prog (Beethoven), and avant garde (Stravinski, Schoenberg, Webern, Berg, et alia).
Look, I understand that classical isn't a vibrant genre these days, but please don't relegate 300 years of brilliant music to insignifia, as it were.

 

This is very interesting. Where would you factor in popular film soundtracks that generate popular light classical compositions, the Dunbar theme from Dances with Wolves for example? Has classical migrated in part to cinematic use, somehat in the sense that classic comedy shorts of the first third of the 20th century evolved into tv sitcoms and the like?