Omniscient Mussel points to an article about war horse concertos and their enduring popularity. The interviewees suggest some fresher violin concerto alternatives by Andre Previn, John Adams, Philip Glass, John Corigliano, William Bolcom and Christopher Rouse.
But then Leonidas Kavakos makes this comment:
What survives goes beyond fashion, taste -- beyond aesthetics. You can find pieces from earlier centuries that are very Romantic, with wonderful themes and where everything's conceived in a wonderful way, but there's something lacking. That's why those works do not win against time.
I understand fashion and taste change over time. As evidence, look at my blog posts I wrote back in, say, 1947 -- not much mention of electronics and Radiohead and streaming, of course (although I'm surprised how much I blogged about the Schoenberg vs. Stravinsky issue at the time).
But I'm not sure music ever transcends aesthetics, in the Wikipedia definition as "critical reflection on art, culture and nature." Maybe a better way to say it is that I don't believe the reception of music is ever aesthetics-free. For that matter, I don't believe in composers-of-the-gods, nor even works-of-the-gods, this blog's mission notwithstanding.
All of which is a good lead-in to a quote from Michael Kimmelman in his New York Review of Books round-up of Richard Taruskin's On Russian Music and The Danger of Music and Other Anti-Utopian Essays:
Hanging judge may be more like it than Old Testament prophet, and by the way, he [Taruskin] lets the scribblers off too easily. His books locate much of the blame for the debased role high art has come to play in society at the feet of precisely those who try to shield culture from the hurly-burly of real life and debate. Art suffocates in thin air. Angry and prejudiced to the point of outrage, Taruskin wrestles it back to earth, where we live and die.
daniel stephen johnson on a particular bad review of books by charles rosen and richard taruskin.
aworks on a Kavakos outdoor performance that may have included rain.
