Paul and mh,
please, I think this is escalating into something unnecesary, I am sure both of you fundamentally love classical music and musical instruments and thats why we are all here. If we all got together in a concert hall we would all be friends and equally thrilled to hear any good music.
mh,
I dont think Paul meant anything personal against you. He just has a different preference on where music should go. The choice of words may not be the best, but then he is speaking his mind and thats important to know what he really feels about this.
Paul,
your views are interesting and thanks for being honest about them. I am not an avid fan of avant garde music or anything. However I find it extremely intriguing and I am infintiely curious about it, to the extent that I do not believe it is corrupt or nonsense. (You would not really call the Salonen or Ives peices atonal noise would you? If you listen to them on good speakers or headphones the sound is just AMAZING. The thing is they are using the same instruments of a classical orchestra to create the most innovative sounds. It wouldn't take much time to realize these are geniuses.
The key is that I do not understand whats going on. For someone to criticize some piece of art, or call it nonsense, they should have understood it right? So I believe there is something there that I find very intriguiing that I do not understand and I would like to learn.
I feel about many modern works much the same way as I first heard Brahms after several years of only knowing Mozart and Beethoven. or Wagner after Brahms, or the feeling of hearing Stravinsky after hearing music up to Wagner and Mahler. The evolution of western classical music over the last 400 years is fundametally based on bold innovations in both exploring the tonal landscape and in instrumental design. As far as I know this is different from any other type of music in the world.
Of course, you can say it makes no sense trying to understand a 'scribble' as there is nothing meaningful in it. But you and I know when we hear Charles Ives Holiday Symphony or Salonen's violin concerto that these are no scribbles of a child. Or take this symphony of Corigliano.
These are highly sophisticated works of art that takes a lifetime of training to create.
Would you also say that the Rite of Spring is corrupt? Audiences could not understand this piece in 1912, But Stravinsky was taking music in entirely new directions. It took me lots of hearing to appreciate it but once I got what he was trying to do, it just gives me goosebumps everytime I hear it. The way instruments are used, the use of polytonality, polyrhythm etc. etc.,... and the sound is truly visceral if you hear it live.
Similarly there are compoers today who are taking music in new directions. Thats the way western classical music evolves...its like engineering and science. No one can stop its growth wheather they like it or not, since it is based on curiosity and a solid structural framework that was built over centuries starting from Bach and Haydn.
Of course, its a personal choice what you prefer to listen to or create. I once knew a guy who used to hate any music that came after Beethoven, calling it pure noise.
But music will not stop!
Cheers
Anand