The History of Music, Second Edition

Modern Times

Teacher’s Guide 6465 N. Avondale Avenue Chicago, IL 60631 800-253-2788 • 773-775-9433 [email protected] clearvue.com • PowerMediaPlus.com

The History of Music, Second Edition Modern Times

Table of Contents Tabl INTRODUCTION.........................................................................3 LEARNING OBJECTIVES..................................................................3 TARGET VOCABULARY...................................................................3 DISCUSSION STARTERS...................................................................4 REVIEW QUESTIONS.....................................................................4 TRANSCRIPT............................................................................7

©2005 Clearvue

6465 N. Avondale Avenue Chicago, IL 60631 800-253-2788 • 773-775-9433 [email protected] clearvue.com • PowerMediaPlus.com

The History of Music, Second Edition Modern Times

Introduction As with the impressionist period, during the mid-twentieth century, there was still a divide between those who embraced the traditional styles and those who continued to explore new methods of musical composition. Edgard Varèse experimented with percussion and electronic sounds. Henry Cowell asked the pianist to use fists and forearms to strike the keys. John Cage actually made changes to the piano itself to create new and unique sounds. The U.S. and Europe were beginning to hear the effects of jazz on classical music. George Gershwin, Aaron Copland, and Leonard Bernstein are three of the composers who gained popularity by incorporating elements of jazz into their music. All three also explored musical forms beyond concert music: Gershwin gained fame with his musical shows and operas, Copland wrote film scores, and Bernstein was widely successful with his Broadway musicals and as conductor for the New York Philharmonic. In the later twentieth century, composers George Rochberg, György Ligeti, and Arvo Pärt started to reach out to the public by creating a new era of romanticism. A simpler type of music called minimalism was introduced, led by Phillip Glass and Steve Reich. New opportunities were also created by the wide distribution of music through CDs and the Internet, making this an important era in music's evolution.

Learning Objectives After completing the program and participating in discussion and activities, students will be able to: • Understand the influence of jazz on modern music; • Compare the compositions of such modern composers as George Gershwin, Aaron Copland, Edgard Varèse, Leonard Bernstein, Philip Glass, Astor Piazzolla, John Adams, and George Rochberg; • Explain why many listeners in the modern period preferred the music from past eras; • Describe how and why American music began developing; and • Discuss the state of music today.

Target Vocabulary Edgard Varèse Ionisation Henry Cowell Harry Partch jazz John Corigliano Pied Piper Fantasy Tabula Rasa

George Gershwin Rhapsody in Blue Porgy & Bess Aaron Copland Rodeo minimalism Nixon in China Arvo Pärt

Billy the Kid Appalachian Spring Leonard Bernstein West Side Story Samuel Barber Philip Glass Astor Piazzolla Imaginary Landscape no. 4 3

Adagio for Strings Dmitry Shostakovich serialism John Cage 4'33" Steve Reich "new tango" Short Ride in a Fast Machine

chance music electronic music George Rochberg György Ligeti Lux Aeterna John Adams Henryk Górecki Symphony of Sorrowful Songs

Discussion Starters 1. Start a discussion about how such musical styles as jazz and minimalism are present in current music. Ask students if they recognize the influence of either of these styles in the music they, their family, or their friends listen to. What other musical styles do they recognize in the music they hear today? 2. Talk about the development of American music, touching upon such composers as George Gershwin, Aaron Copland, and Leonard Bernstein. Were students familiar with the works of these composers before watching the program? What music do they consider to be the American music of today? Do any of the students enjoy music by composers or musicians from other countries? 3. Discuss how music is created, distributed, sold, and bought today. Do any of the students purchase music online? If they purchase music in stores, in what format do they typically buy music? What kinds of devices do they use to listen to music (i.e. computer, portable CD player, portable MP3 player, iPod)? Ask the students to think about how the Internet has and will continue to affect music.

Review Questions Use these discussion topics and questions to review the program material. 1. By the 1930s, composers of concert music were generally divided into two groups. What were these two groups? [One group built on traditional patterns, and the other broke radically with the past. While each group covered a vast range of styles, to listeners, most of it—even the more conventional works—sounded strange. Believing that a new time called for new sounds, some composers tried to reflect the twentieth century's great scientific and technological advances in their music.] 2. Who composed Ionisation? Why was this piece considered experimental? [French composer Edgard Varèse was among the experimenters. He rejected many traditional ideas about the structure and function of music as he tried to convey the sounds of the modern age. His composition Ionisation is written for an orchestra consisting only of percussion instruments. Varèse later experimented with electronic sounds.] How were other composers experimenting at this time? [American composer Henry Cowell wrote piano pieces that called for players to strike the keys with fists and forearms and to pluck, strum, and scrape the strings inside the piano. John Cage, who studied with Cowell and Schoenberg, went even further, devising what he called a "prepared piano," inserting nuts, bolts, pieces of rubber, and other items between the strings to create a whole range of subtle and unusual sounds. Harry Partch, a Californian like Cowell and Cage, rejected not only the European system of scales but all conventional instruments as well. Partch created his own tuning system based on forty-three pitches to the octave, and designed and built a large array of instruments on which to play his strange, ritualistic music.] 3. How did jazz influence music in modern times? [Serious musicians in Europe were paying increasing attention to jazz, the music that had come out of the American black community. Gradually, many composers of concert music in the United States turned to this distinctively American sound to find their way toward a national musical identity.] How did George Gershwin and Aaron Copland incorporate jazz into their music? [George Gershwin, a successful composer of hit songs and musical shows, aspired to write concert music. He incorporated the spirit of jazz into a virtuoso piece for piano and orchestra: Rhapsody in Blue. The music for Gershwin's opera Porgy & Bess, a story set in an American black community, was also inspired by jazz and the blues. Aaron Copland was another composer who combined elements of jazz with classical forms. Copland had more formal music training than Gershwin and, greatly influenced by Stravinsky, 4

wrote more sophisticated, modern-sounding music. In the ballet Rodeo and in many of his other works, Copland focused on small-town American life so effectively that, for many people, his music is indelibly associated with the image of rural America. In Rodeo, as well as in the ballets Billy the Kid and Appalachian Spring, Copland used modern techniques in a way that appealed to audiences, and he became one of the few twentieth-century composers whose music was widely performed.] 4. How did Leonard Bernstein's music impact popular culture? [Leonard Bernstein was Copland's close friend and a follower of his jazzy Americana approach. In addition to concert music, Bernstein composed Broadway musicals, including West Side Story. Some of his songs even became pop hits. But Bernstein did more than just write music. He became conductor of the New York Philharmonic, one of the world's top orchestras, where his extravagant podium style excited the public. His colorful manner and charismatic personality made him an effective communicator. Bernstein's regular appearances on television brought classical music into millions of American homes and made the conductor and composer a major celebrity celebrity, probably the most widely known classical music figure America ever produced.] 5. Why was Dmitri Shostakovich's music so well-received by the public? [Dmitri Shostakovich of the former Soviet Union is another of the few twentieth-century composers whose works have wide appeal. Shostakovich composed fifteen symphonies—sweeping, epic works that reflect Gustav Mahler's musical influence. Shostakovich became the leading composer in the Soviet Union, where the government—which helped to subsidize musicians and other artists—encouraged heroic, uplifting works that the public could easily understand. Shostakovich captured these qualities in music that established him as one of the most important composers of the twentieth century. His music is heard widely in concerts and on recordings.] 6. Why did the U.S. become a music hot spot during World War II? [In the years before and during World War II, many respected European musicians moved to the United States. As a result, the U.S. became a center of music rivaling Germany and France. In many countries of Europe, musicians and other artists receive either partial or total support from their governments, which allows them to create even if their work is not received enthusiastically by the public. In the United States, universities have similarly supported artistic efforts. Composers hired as faculty members write music as part of their responsibilities.] 7. What is serialism? [The most prevalent style of music in American universities and in much of Europe during the 1950s and 1960s was serialism, based on the work of Arnold Schoenberg and his pupil Anton Webern. An outgrowth of the twelve-tone approach to creating music without tonality, serialism used strict formulas, sometimes requiring the help of computers, to control all elements—pitch, rhythm, dynamics, and articulation. Serial music served mainly as an academic discipline, of interest largely to its composers and their students. The public never responded favorably to it. Because serial music was often extremely difficult to play, some composers programmed electronic music synthesizers to produce the most complex sound combinations.] 8. Discuss the musical compositions of John Cage. [John Cage, by mid-century an influential figure, vehemently opposed the serialists' strict intellectual approach. He urged that the very definition of music be reexamined. Cage suggested that all sound is music. His composition called 4'33" illustrates this idea. The performer sits on stage without playing a note. The audience is expected to listen to its own breathing and rustling, the heating system of the hall, noises from outside, and so on. In Cage's Imaginary Landscape no. 4, twelve radios are tuned to different stations and played simultaneously. Cage argued that the composer should present sounds rather than try to 5

exert personal control over them. He even rolled dice to make decisions while writing his own pieces.] What is chance music? [Although Cage's music bewildered and alienated audiences, his ideas influenced other composers and artists of the 1960s and early 1970s. Many followed his principles of indeterminacy, also called aleatoric or chance music. This music allowed the performer to make choices about the form and content of the music. Composers often had to devise new systems of notation to communicate their interests.] 9. Why did electronic music appeal to some composers? [Some composers focused on electronic music, which they often approached as if it were sculpture, creating sounds that unfolded without regard to traditional concepts of melody, harmony, rhythm, or form.] 10. Why did modern audiences prefer music from the past? [Many composers continued to write traditional works and, in the second half of the twentieth century, more music was being composed, in many different styles, than ever before. However, both in the United States and in Europe, the music that was being composed was hardly ever the music that was being performed. Although many composers insisted that their music represented the spirit of the times, audiences continued to prefer and find more meaning in the music from centuries past. Because the listening public preferred this fixed body of works from the past, record companies and radio stations, which aimed for the widest possible audiences, were reluctant to introduce new works. As costs of staging performances kept rising, concert producers and performers had more to lose if they failed to attract large crowds. They, too, avoided new, unfamiliar compositions. The stars of the music world were celebrated soloists and conductors who devoted themselves to performing the same well-known works over and over. Audiences focused less on the music itself than on the fine points of performers' interpretations. Ancient instruments were reconstructed and older performance styles revived in an attempt to recreate the way music sounded in its own time.] 11. How did George Rochberg influence a change in the musical landscape? [The mid-1970s marked a turning point as an increasing number of composers became dissatisfied with their isolation and began to look for ways to interest audiences. A prominent composer of serial music, George Rochberg influenced this change. He renounced serialism as hollow and meaningless and urged his fellow musicians to rediscover artistic values that they could share with their listeners. Composers began to talk about a new romanticism, implying a return to beauty, emotion, and communication—concepts widely scorned in the United States and Europe only a few years earlier.] 12. Which composition was used in the movie 2001: A Space Odyssey? [Hungarian composer György Ligeti's Lux Aeterna, with its unusual choral textures, was used to accompany scenes of space travel in the acclaimed science-fiction film 2001: A Space Odyssey.] What tactics did composers use to try to win back audiences? [In their new concern to communicate, composers turned to fanciful, imaginative titles. Some began to weave quotations from music of the past into new collage-like pieces. Many even returned to tonality. While the familiar sounds of eighteenth- and nineteenth-century music remained more in demand, audiences responded favorably to a few new works, especially those closely tied to a dramatic or literary idea, as in John Corigliano's Pied Piper Fantasy.] 13. What is minimalism? Who were some of the most notable minimalists? [Younger audiences, not so immersed in the classical music tradition, responded enthusiastically to another new movement of the 1970s. The movement was called minimalism because, in early experiments, very simple musical ideas were continuously repeated. Philip Glass is one of the leading composers labeled a minimalist (although he, along with others so-labeled, dislike the name). Steve Reich is 6

another. Both Reich and Glass came from academic musical backgrounds but rejected them to search for fresh alternatives. Rock music, avant-garde drama, and the music of India served as inspiration for Glass, who attracted worldwide attention for his own brand of opera. Electronic keyboards and woodwind instruments are prominently featured in Glass's music. African drumming and Javanese gamelan music attracted R Reich. As his style developed, Reich focused on throbbing, pulsating textures featuring percussion instruments and unusual vocal effects in gradually shifting rhythmic patterns. Reich and Glass achieved considerable popularity, although many traditionalminded listeners disliked the music's repetitiveness.] Which composer combined traditional symphonic and minimalist techniques? [John Adams combined these techniques in pieces like Short Ride in a Fast Machine. Adams applied much of the same approach to writing operas, often based on recent world events, as in Nixon in China.] 14. Who was Astor Piazzolla? [Always seeking ways to expand their audiences, musicians during the 1980s discovered Astor Piazzolla, a veteran Argentine composer, classically trained, who had spent years refining the popular dance known as the tango into a serious art form he called the "New Tango." Many of the world's most elite musicians were fascinated by Piazzolla's sensuous, dark, and moody compositions, and audiences shared their enthusiasm. When Piazzolla died in 1992, the popularity of his music was still rising.] 15. Why were some listeners drawn to European works during this period? [Many listeners continued to seek new music that would meet their spiritual and emotional needs. Jaded by traditional styles, alienated by modernism's sterile intellectualism, but bored by the simplistic repetitiveness of minimalism and its offshoots, many listeners were drawn to the introspective style of such eastern European works as the Symphony of Sorrowful Songs by Henryk Górecki of Poland and Tabula Rasa by Arvo Pärt of Estonia.] 16. Describe the state of music today. [In the early years of the twenty-first century, the world of concert music is fragmented. While the largest body of listeners remains committed to the music of the past, the major institutions that showcase that heritage face serious financial problems and dwindling, aging audiences. Many have been forced to shut down. Yet more concert music is being composed today—and in more different styles—than ever before. Perhaps the greatest hope for the future is the Internet. While orchestras and opera companies face the prospect of either luring new, younger audiences to the standard canon of classics or shutting down and the large, established recording companies try to find exciting new performers and experiment with new marketing approaches to reinvigorate this fixed repertoire, hundreds of small CD labels make every style of concert music—old and new—easily accessible to the interested listener via the Internet. Whether the fixed canon of classics will remain central to music lovers as it is, or be infused with new classics, or simply die out, cannot be predicted. But one thing is certain: Never before in human history have so many different styles of music been so inexpensive and readily accessible to so many listeners throughout the world.]

Transcript Introduction Hello, I’m Megan Keith. Welcome to The History of Music, an introduction to the Western classical music tradition. In our final installment, Modern Times, we enter the modern era of music, starting with the middle of the twentieth century. As with the impressionist period, there was still a divide in the mid-1900s between composers who embraced traditional styles and those who 7

continued to seek new methods of musical composition. Edgard Varèse experimented with percussion and electronic sounds. Henry Cowell asked the pianist to use fists and forearms to strike the keys. John Cage actually made changes to the piano itself to create new and unique sounds. The United States and Europe were beginning to hear the effects of jazz in classical music. George Gershwin, Aaron Copland, and Leonard Bernstein are three composers who gained popularity by incorporating elements of jazz into their works. All three also explored other music forms beyond concert music: Gershwin gained fame with his musical shows and operas, Copland wrote film scores, and Bernstein was widely successful with his Broadway musicals and as conductor of the New York Philharmonic. As we get closer to the end of the twentieth century, music becomes more and more fragmented. The program highlights the development of serialism, the chance music of John Cage, and new advances in electronic music. These innovations did not gain widespread popularity, however, as the public’s attraction to the music of the past continued to dominate. In the late twentieth century, composers George Rochberg and György Ligeti started to reach out to the public by bringing beauty and emotion into their works—many considered this a new romanticism. Also, a different type of music caught the attention of younger audiences. This simpler style, called minimalism, was introduced by composers Philip Glass, Steve Reich, and John Adams. Our series ends by discussing the uncertain path of music during our era of continued fragmentation. Although classical music struggles to find its way, never before have there been so many varied musical styles available. The wide distribution of music through modern media like the Internet makes this an important period in the evolution of music. Where do you think music will go next?

Program By the 1930s, composers of concert music were generally divided into two groups: one group building on traditional patterns and the other breaking radically with the past. While each group covered a vast range of styles, to listeners, most of it—even the more conventional works—sounded strange. Believing that a new time called for new sounds, some composers tried in their music to reflect the twentieth century’s great scientific and technological advances. French composer Edgard Varèse was among the experimenters. He rejected many traditional ideas about the structure and function of music as he tried to convey the sounds of the modern age. His Ionisation is written for an orchestra consisting only of percussion instruments. Varèse later experimented with electronic sounds. American composer Henry Cowell wrote piano pieces that called for players to strike the keys with fists and forearms and to pluck, strum, and scrape the strings inside the piano. John Cage, who studied with Cowell and Schoenberg, went even further, devising what he called a prepared piano, inserting nuts, bolts, pieces of rubber, and other items between the strings to create a whole range of subtle and unusual sounds. Harry Partch, a Californian like Cowell and Cage, rejected not only the European system of scales but all conventional instruments as well. Partch created his own tuning system based on forty-three pitches to the octave, designing and building a large array of instruments on which to play his strange, ritualistic music. Meanwhile, 8

serious musicians in Europe were paying increasing attention to jazz—the music that had come out of the American black community. Gradually, many composers of concert music in the United States turned to this distinctively American sound, to find their way toward a national musical identity. George Gershwin, a successful composer of hit songs and musical shows, aspired to write concert music. He incorporated the spirit of jazz into a virtuoso piece for piano and orchestra: Rhapsody in Blue. The music for Gershwin’s opera Porgy and Bess, a story set in an American black community, was also inspired by jazz and the blues. Aaron Copland was another composer who combined elements of jazz with classical forms. Copland had more formal music training than Gershwin, and, greatly influenced by Stravinsky, wrote more sophisticated, modern-sounding music. In the ballet Rodeo and in many other of his works, Copland focused on small-town American life so effectively that for many people, his music is indelibly associated with the image of rural America. In Rodeo, as well as in the ballets Billy the Kid and Appalachian Spring, Copland used modern techniques in a way that appealed to audiences, and he became one of the few twentieth-century composers whose music was widely performed. Leonard Bernstein was a follower of Copland’s jazzy Americana approach, as well as his close friend. In addition to concert music, Bernstein composed Broadway musicals, such as West Side Story. Some of his songs even became pop hits. But Bernstein did more than just write music. He became conductor of the New York Philharmonic, one of the world’s top orchestras, where his extravagant podium style excited the public. His colorful manner and charismatic personality made him an effective communicator. Bernstein’s regular appearances on television brought classical music into millions of American homes and made the conductor and composer a major celebrity—probably the most widely known classical music figure America ever produced. But there were still American composers who had no interest in experimenting with jazz or modernist innovations. For example, Samuel Barber used music to express his inner feelings as honestly as he could. His Adagio for Strings is the most often-heard piece of American concert music in the repertoire. Though never a celebrity like Bernstein, Barber left a legacy of music that is still performed and recorded frequently throughout the world. Dmitri Shostakovich of the former Soviet Union is another of the few twentieth-century composers whose works have wide appeal. Shostakovich composed fifteen symphonies—sweeping, epic works that reflect Gustav Mahler’s musical influence. Shostakovich became the leading composer in the Soviet Union, where the government—which helped to subsidize musicians and other artists—encouraged heroic, uplifting works that the public could easily understand. Shostakovich captured these qualities in music that established him as one of the most important composers of the twentieth century. His music, like Barber’s, is heard widely in concerts and on recordings. In the years before and during World War II, many respected European musicians moved to the United States. As a result, the U.S. became a center of music rivaling Germany and France. In many countries of Europe, musicians and other artists receive either partial or total support from their governments, which allows them to create even if their work is not received enthusiastically by the public. In the United States, universities have similarly supported artistic efforts. Composers hired as faculty members write music as part of their responsibilities. The most prevalent style of music in American universities and in much of Europe during the 1950s and ‘60s was serialism, based on the work of Arnold Schoenberg and his pupil Anton Webern. An 9

outgrowth of the twelve-tone approach to creating music without tonality, serialism used strict formulas, sometimes requiring the help of computers, to control all elements—pitch, rhythm, dynamics, and articulation. Serial music served mainly as an academic discipline, of interest largely to its composers and their students. The public never responded favorably to it. Because serial music was often extremely difficult to play, some composers programmed electronic music synthesizers to produce the most complex sound combinations. But serialism was only one of several avant-garde movements attracting composers. John Cage, by mid-century an influential figure, vehemently opposed the serialists’ strict intellectual approach. He urged that the very definition of music be reexamined. Cage suggested that all sound is music. His composition called 4 minutes and 33 seconds illustrates this idea. The performer sits on stage without playing a note. The audience is expected to listen to its own breathing and rustling, the heating system of the hall, noises from outside, and so on. In Cage’s Imaginary Landscape no. 4, twelve radios are tuned to different stations and played simultaneously. Cage argued that the composer should present sounds rather than try to exert personal control over them. He even rolled dice to make decisions while writing his own pieces. Although Cage’s music bewildered and alienated audiences, his ideas influenced other composers and artists of the 1960s and early ‘70s. Many followed his principles of indeterminacy, also called aleatoric or chance music. This music allowed the performer to make choices about the form and content of the music. Composers often had to devise new systems of notation to communicate their instructions. Some composers focused on electronic music, which they often approached as if it were sculpture, creating sounds that unfolded without regard to traditional concepts of melody, harmony, rhythm, or form. Alongside all these experiments in serial, chance, and electronic music, many composers continued to write more traditional works. In the second half of the twentieth century, more music was being composed, in many different styles, than ever before, but, both in the United States and in Europe, the music that was being composed was hardly ever the music that was being performed. Although many composers insisted that their music represented the spirit of the times, audiences continued to prefer and find more meaning in the music from centuries past. Because the listening public preferred this fixed body of works from the past, record companies and radio stations, which aimed for the widest possible audiences, were reluctant to introduce new works. As costs of staging performances kept rising, concert producers and performers had more to lose if they failed to attract large crowds. They, too, avoided new, unfamiliar compositions. The stars of the music world were celebrated soloists and conductors, who devoted themselves to performing the same well-known works over and over. Audiences focused less on the music itself than on the fine points of performers’ interpretations. Ancient instruments were reconstructed and older performance styles revived in an attempt to recreate the way music sounded in its own time. The mid-1970s marked a turning point, as an increasing number of composers became dissatisfied with their isolation and began to look for ways to interest audiences. A prominent composer of serial music, George Rochberg, influenced this change. He renounced 10

serialism as hollow and meaningless and urged his fellow musicians to rediscover artistic values that they could share with their listeners. Composers began to talk about a new romanticism, implying a return to beauty, emotion, and communication—concepts widely scorned in the United States and Europe only a few years earlier. But a few composers in eastern Europe had been moving in this direction for more than a decade. Their unconventional ways of combining sounds created unusual, often mysterious effects that seemed to attract listeners. Hungarian composer György Ligeti’s Lux Aeterna, with its unusual choral textures, was used to accompany scenes of space travel in the acclaimed science-fiction film 2001: A Space Odyssey. In their new concern to communicate, composers turned to fanciful, imaginative titles. Some began to weave quotations from music of the past into new collage-like pieces. Many even returned to tonality. While the familiar sounds of eighteenth- and nineteenth-century music remained more in demand, audiences responded favorably to a few new works, especially those closely tied to a dramatic or literary idea, as in John Corigliano’s Pied Piper Fantasy. Younger audiences, not so immersed in the classical music tradition, responded enthusiastically to another new movement of the ‘70s. The movement was called minimalism because, in early experiments, very simple musical ideas were continuously repeated. Philip Glass is one of the leading composers labeled a minimalist, although he, along with others so-labeled, dislike the name. Steve Reich is another. Both Reich and Glass came from academic musical backgrounds but rejected them to search for fresh alternatives. Rock music, avant-garde drama, and the music of India served as inspiration for Glass, who attracted worldwide attention for his own brand of opera. Electronic keyboards and woodwind instruments are prominently featured in Glass’s music. African drumming and Javanese gamelan music attracted Reich. As his style developed, Reich focused on throbbing, pulsating textures featuring percussion instruments and unusual vocal effects in gradually shifting rhythmic patterns. Reich and Glass achieved considerable popularity, although many traditional-minded listeners disliked the music’s repetitiveness. Some of these listeners were drawn to the music of John Adams, who combined minimalist techniques with more traditional symphonic concepts, in pieces like Short Ride in a Fast Machine. Adams applied much of the same approach to writing operas, often based on recent world events, as in Nixon in China. Always seeking ways of expanding their audiences, musicians during the 1980s discovered Astor Piazzolla, a veteran Argentine composer, classically trained, who had spent years refining the popular dance known as the tango into a serious art form, which he called the “new tango.” Many of the world’s most elite musicians were fascinated by Piazzolla’s sensuous, dark, and moody compositions, and audiences shared their enthusiasm. When Piazzolla died in 1992, the popularity of his music was still rising. Yet many listeners continued to seek new music that would meet their spiritual and emotional needs. Jaded by traditional styles, alienated by modernism’s sterile intellectualism, but bored by 11

the simplistic repetitiveness of minimalism and its offshoots, many of these listeners were drawn to the introspective style of such eastern European works as the Symphony of Sorrowful Songs by Henryk Górecki of Poland, and Tabula Rasa by Arvo Pärt of Estonia. In the early years of the twenty-first century, the world of concert music is fragmented. While the largest body of listeners remains committed to the music of the past, the major institutions that showcase that heritage face serious financial problems and dwindling, aging audiences. Many have been forced to shut down. Yet more concert music is being composed today—and in more different styles—than ever before. Perhaps the greatest hope for the future is the Internet. While orchestras and opera companies face the prospect of either luring new, younger audiences to the standard canon of classics or shutting down and the large, established recording companies try to find exciting new performers and experiment with new marketing approaches to reinvigorate this fixed repertoire, hundreds of small CD labels make every style of concert music—old and new—easily accessible to the interested listener via the Internet. Whether the fixed canon of classics will remain central to music lovers as it is, or whether it will be infused with new classics, or will simply die out, cannot be predicted. But one thing is certain: never before in human history have so many different styles of music been so inexpensive and readily accessible to so many listeners throughout the world.

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