This week on VH1’s ‘We Love the 1790’s’ : Classical music

That’s right, classical music. You’re probably wondering, do they even make that stuff anymore?

The answer is, yes, they do, and it’s some of the newest, hippest music that you’ve never heard of.

You’re also probably wondering, didn’t they stop making that back in the 1800s or something? Now you’re wondering how it is I’m reading your mind. The answer to your first question is, not really.

People have been writing classical music right up through this century. Someone probably finished a piece yesterday. Unfortunately, “classical music” isn’t the best description for something that’s also modern, but I’ll stick with it for convenience’s sake.

Around the turn of the 20th century, classical music began to mutate away from the romanticism of the late 19th century. Igor Stravinsky wrote “The Rite of Spring,” an unbelievably raw and violent portrait at pagan Russia.

At the same time, Arnold Schoenberg and his pupils were experimenting with atonality, a complete departure from the major and minor keys that had been a fundamental part of music.

Later in the century, this atonal music was given its own set of rules to follow.
Another group of postmodernists, led by John Cage, began to experiment with the most fundamental part of music — determinism — and in turn created works of chance that might never be performed the same way twice.

Not everyone was comfortable with the experimental path classical music took, and a group of minimalists led by Terry Riley, Steve Reich, Philip Glass and John Adams returned to tonal music and an exploration of rhythm and texture through repetition.

While these latter developments took place, rock music had already claimed its dominant position as the music of now. Hip-hop and rap help out too, but for the most part, rock is still the music that stands for everything new.

In reality, it’s always a step behind classical music.

The most important rock band of all, The Beatles, had been exposed to contemporary composers, and the influence is obvious in every backward guitar part and tape loop of their later albums. “Revolution 9” owes more to Karlheinz Stockhausen than to Chuck Berry.

In the late 1960s and 1970s, progressive rock bands copied the structures and grand scale of classical works while The Velvet Underground was influenced by the works of John Cage. Frank Zappa even wrote his own thorny modernist works for orchestral and rock instrumentations.

Today, bands such as Animal Collective couldn’t exist without Steve Reich. Noise and experimental bands openly list their classical influences. At every step, classical music is egging on rock to reach ever-greater heights.

So next time you’re looking for a band that none of your friends have heard of, maybe check out that composer they’ve never heard of instead. Find a recording of Stravinsky’s “Rite,” or Reich’s “Music for 18 Musicians.”

Perhaps explore Cage’s works for prepared piano or electronic music from Stockhausen or Xenakis. It might be called classical music, but it’s looking towards the future.