Who's a modern Bach or Beethoven?

[javasaurus]

What is the nature of 21st century orchestral music? Yes, John Williams does a masterful job of scoring films, but is there any distinctive sound for non-programatic "classical" music in the current millenium?

Comments

[acroyear70.livejournal.com]

one other thing to consider: in the first decade of any century, the works all tend to be the closure of the previous century. 1800-1810 saw Beethoven and Schubert stretching classical forms with new tonal colors, moving beyond Mozart. 1900-1910 saw Ravel, Debussy, Schoenberg, and Mahler himself all putting the final nail in 19th century Romanticism. Schoenberg didn't bring atonality into full view until 1911, a year after Stravinsky reinvigorated tonality with the rhythms, colors, and harmonies in The Firebird.

In short, by experience one could say there's not yet been enough time for this century to find its voice. in this, music remains in parallel with many other cultural artifacts as well.

[javasaurus.livejournal.com]

Thanks for the input. So it's not my imagination that we are fairly devoid of truely modern orchestral music (which makes your statement about the beginning of this century being tied to last century a little problematic -- little there to tie to!). I did find an interesting web site (www.numusic.org) which promotes itself as modern "classical" music. Also, looking at this wikipedia page was also helpful.