[AnAmericanMother]

I hope you're being sarcastic . . . but the best classical music is superior to the best R&B and bluegrass. Don't get me wrong, I've sung bluegrass (and Sacred Harp) for years and years, and it's good. But not as good as good classical.

There's some lousy classical music (people trying to write in the idiom and not succeeding), but the good stuff is superior to anything else. Its history goes back to the Greeks, Plato and Aristotle, and in theory and exposition it is centuries ahead of local folk music. Composers like Josquin and Ockeghem were writing stunningly complex and beautiful music before America was even discovered.

Josquin, "Tu pauperum refugium"

Ockeghem, "Gloria, Missa Mi-Mi"

A little closer to our own time, and more comfortable for modern ears, is the Elizabethan madrigal tradition: Weelkes, "Hark all ye lovely saints above"

Think of it as an edge in both 'time in grade' and sophistication. It's all those 'dead white guys' again.

[mrsmel]

I’m not educated in classical music, though I like it, but it’s my understanding that really excellent classical music isn’t really being composed anymore, as in, there haven’t been anymore Mozarts or Beethovens, not to discount composers from the 20th C? Could this be another aspect of the dumbing-down of the culture and suppression of individuality that was present in past centuries? I mean, men like Beethoven and Mozart didn’t sit in large classes learning “music” as people do today. They learned individually, and discovered their gifts individually. I’m not expressing this well, I hope you know what I’m trying to describe.

I would love to find a book or at least a long essay on this topic, even if it only touches music tangentially. The demise of genius, death of true heroism, that kind of thing. It seems to be as dead as nobility/aristocracy. Any suggestions would be gratefully appreciated.

[gibsosa]

Thank you for those links!!

[Brookhaven]

Composers like Josquin and Ockeghem were writing stunningly complex...

...the organizational effort and intellectual acumen required to compose and perform a symphony

Same error defenders of classical music always make: equating complexity with superiority.

In no other artistic endevour (painting, plays, poetry, writing) do we equate complexity with artistic superiority or sophistication. Yet, when it comes to music, we have one musical style--classical--that continues to try and make the case that because it is complex it is superior.

More complex is not more sophisticated.

More complex is not more artistic.

Complexity does not equate to superiority.