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There are "pops " concerts were a conductor will conduct these tunes. Most seasoned players want to be challenged to higher degree than what popular music is intended to do. If you want the best players (over 100 musicians) and want them to show up to rehearsals, they have to think they are going to get better just by playing this music.
Just writing good music doesn't make some one a great musician. There had to be hundreds of good musicians in Mozart's day. Conservatories are pumping them out by the hundreds as we write. Some composers can't read or write music. A musician has to do some thing with music, that transcends music it self to be great. When Beethoven wrote twenty or more minutes of music with "dada-dada" people flipped out. How do you write a symphony with out a melody?
Well if that's what you mean I think there has been some popular music that is complex and grand. The Moody Blues and Queen tried for that on occasion. I think some film composers have done some great stuff. Bernard Herrman, Hitchcock's composer, did some good to great stuff.
Possibly non-Western classical music is still doing some too. I think Indian (as in India) classical music is quite complex. The Chinese might be producing something of interest.
One has to realize that virtually anyone who is a "trained" musician (able to write notes on a staff, knows meter, range, instrument capability, etc) can compose. In this day of atonality "anything goes". I have no talent at all for creating but I could write a 20 minute four-voice fugue by just putting notes down on a music paper staff. What comes out, however, I could not guarantee. There are thousands of musicians out there composing, as opposed to hundred of thousands painting and millions writing books. Because music requires an advanced degree of training, much more so than being an author, the field is obviously limited. What those thousands are writing, however, will die with them in 99% of the cases. 1% might rise to the surface.
Speaking to the OP--what are the requirements for it to be "classical" music and not "pop music"? If the piece includes a full orchestra, or is written for one, is it then classical? Mike Post seemed to be the top TV theme composer at one point about twenty years ago.
Well, "classical" music could actually be said to be a more specific term than it is in general usage. That is, it refers to a period from about 1750 - 1820. Prior to that was the Baroque period, and afterwards came the Romantic era. So Mozart came at the beginning of the classical era, with a strong influence from his baroque predecessors. Beethoven is considered to be a classical composer, on the eve of the romantic era. He is often considered to be the first romantic composer. Strauss, Liszt, Mendelssohn, Chopin, Wagner, Brahms, Tchaikovski, Dvorak, et al, would not be considered as classical composers, but instead romantics. Starting about 1890 or so, we begin the "modern" era. We really need a new name for it.
We also need to consider the difference between "classical" (in the common usage) and "folk" music. Our modern pop artists, I submit, are folk artists. There are some who have been able to cross genres, such as Gershwin, Ellington, M. Davis, and you might include Aaron Copeland with this group.
I think the era of enduring "classical" music essentially died with Bernstein, Copland, and Stravinsky. Modern music, unfortunately, has descended into the absurd with travesties like Cage's "4:33" and one composer setting fire to an upright piano (along with a hired fire crew, of course) and asserting that the snapping and crackling of strings and wood was a form of music.
I love Classical music, I listen to it daily with my daughter and often wonder about this same question.
I would have to agree that it is Technology, but that doesn't mean we don't have the same "Genius" quality of composing. Check out "Richard D James AKA Aphex Twin", this is the genius of music right now, he is the father of Intelligent Electronic Music described as "the most inventive and influential figure in contemporary electronic music".
It is much more complex and yields much more power than Bach or Mozart imo, as a single musician can access 100's of computers and analog synthesizers to create sounds never heard of before.
No it is not slow tempo music at all, it is sometimes 180 BPM....but it is genius:
There are no more frontiers in music to explore. From Gregorian chant to the romantic period rules of practice were established and accepted ways to break those rules as a performer or composer.Since the 20th century most music categorized as "New Music" challenges the very definition of what is an ensemble as well as a composition or performance. There is a composition I believe that will take 900 years to perform from start to finish, yes 900.
Any Vangelis fans? I've been one ever since I wore out my father's Cosmos LP.
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