The movie Yesterday sort of tackled this in an interesting way. Imagine a parallel universe where everything is the same but the Beatles never came together. Would someone releasing their exact music in 2021 still become highly successful and considered a musical icon? In the movie the answer is yes. In real life I imagine the answer would be no—the same exact music would no longer sound innovative and would thus not become particularly successful. This New-Beatles band might reach the level of a Top-100 artist but they’d never see the same level of admiration as the Beatles did and still do.
So I believe we’re simply not judging more recent art works by the same standards, resulting in a huge bias towards older works. Beethoven is only noteworthy because his works are a cultural meme at this point—he was a great musician for his time, sure, but right now there’s probably tens of thousands of musicians who could make music of the same caliber straight on their laptops. Today’s Beethoven publishes his amazing tracks on SoundCloud and toils in obscurity.
So I believe we’re simply not judging more recent art works by the same standards, resulting in a huge bias towards older works.
Why is it wrong to credit past art for innovations that have since become commonplace? If a musician’s innovations became widespread, I would count that as evidence of the musician’s skill. Similarly, Euclid was a big deal even though there are millions of people who know more math today than he did.
Beethoven is only noteworthy because his works are a cultural meme at this point—he was a great musician for his time, sure, but right now there’s probably tens of thousands of musicians who could make music of the same caliber straight on their laptops. Today’s Beethoven publishes his amazing tracks on SoundCloud and toils in obscurity.
This sounds like an extreme overstatement, at least if applied to classical music. Some modern classical music it is pretty good, and better than Beethoven’s less-acclaimed works. And the best of it is probably on par with Beethoven’s greatest hits. But much of it is unmemorable—premiered, then mercifully forgotten. The catalog of the Boston Modern Orchestra Project is representative of modern classical orchestral music, and I think most of it falls far short of Beethoven’s best symphonies. The concertgoing public strongly prefers the old stuff, to the consternation of adventurous conductors.
The movie Yesterday sort of tackled this in an interesting way. Imagine a parallel universe where everything is the same but the Beatles never came together. Would someone releasing their exact music in 2021 still become highly successful and considered a musical icon? In the movie the answer is yes. In real life I imagine the answer would be no—the same exact music would no longer sound innovative and would thus not become particularly successful. This New-Beatles band might reach the level of a Top-100 artist but they’d never see the same level of admiration as the Beatles did and still do.
So I believe we’re simply not judging more recent art works by the same standards, resulting in a huge bias towards older works. Beethoven is only noteworthy because his works are a cultural meme at this point—he was a great musician for his time, sure, but right now there’s probably tens of thousands of musicians who could make music of the same caliber straight on their laptops. Today’s Beethoven publishes his amazing tracks on SoundCloud and toils in obscurity.
Why is it wrong to credit past art for innovations that have since become commonplace? If a musician’s innovations became widespread, I would count that as evidence of the musician’s skill. Similarly, Euclid was a big deal even though there are millions of people who know more math today than he did.
This sounds like an extreme overstatement, at least if applied to classical music. Some modern classical music it is pretty good, and better than Beethoven’s less-acclaimed works. And the best of it is probably on par with Beethoven’s greatest hits. But much of it is unmemorable—premiered, then mercifully forgotten. The catalog of the Boston Modern Orchestra Project is representative of modern classical orchestral music, and I think most of it falls far short of Beethoven’s best symphonies. The concertgoing public strongly prefers the old stuff, to the consternation of adventurous conductors.