Tako Oda wrote:
> The ONLY reason classical music *seems* superior now is because only the
> better stuff has survived. The ratio of sublime/decent/crap has and always
> will be something like this: 0.2% : 9.8% : 90%
Did you mean this to read the way it sounds? That 90% of Classical music
is/was "crap"? If it hasn't survived, how can you possibly tell?
And the point about "classical" as opposed to "popular" in any age - and
there was a lot of popular music in every century - is that it's meant
to last.
I don't think it's even slightly correct to say that 90% of classical
music has "not survived"! just because some of it is rarely performed
nowadays. Some of it has been mundane, boring, pedestrian, but crap?
Only 10% of classical music ever written has _not_ been _crap_? (And
Tako,
do you make any distinction between "crap" and "not to my taste"?)
If I hadn't seen your name at the top of this post, I would have thought
this was the pronouncement of a teenager of very little experience
indeed, which I know you not to be - so, to stop me twitching, please
could you tell us why you think the proportion of quality is divided in
this way?
This is not an argument that "the old is by definition better than the
new" - I agree completely with you about sublime music also having been
written in the past quarter of a century, and indeed during that time
the line between popular and "serious" music (whatever that means) has
become admirably blurred.
--
Linda ff, Cambridge
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