It can also be stupid, vulgar, and insane. Yes, the music can be great and serious but greatness and seriousness are not its defining characteristics. Consider some of the rival names in circulation: “art” music, “serious” music, “great” music, “good” music. I envy jazz people who speak simply of “the music.” Some jazz aficionados also call their art “America’s classical music,” and I propose a trade: they can have “classical,” I’ll take “the music.”įor at least a century, the music has been captive to a cult of mediocre élitism that tries to manufacture self-esteem by clutching at empty formulas of intellectual superiority. The phrase is a masterpiece of negative publicity, a tour de force of anti-hype. It banishes into limbo the work of thousands of active composers who have to explain to otherwise well-informed people what it is they do for a living. It cancels out the possibility that music in the spirit of Beethoven could still be created today. It traps a tenaciously living art in a theme park of the past. I hate “classical music”: not the thing but the name.
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