Classical Music is not just OLD music

I like to think of classical music as a style.  During the explosion of its growth somewhere around the Renaissance, it encompassed full orchestras, small groups (string quartets, chamber groups), church music including great organ works and choral works, and solo performances on percussion instruments such as the harpsichord and clavichord.  With  this breadth of style, it is not too much of a jump to say that instrumental folk and mountain music, with and without singing (think arias and choruses and transition to solo singers and small groups), is a form or outgrowth of classical music.  Let's face it, it is tough to find a full orchestra in the Appalachian mountains in the late 1700's.  Likewise, as I noted in a previous post, much of rock-and-roll finds its roots in classical music (as does big band of the middle of the last century).  Of course, classical as defined above, being part of the Renaissance and flanking either side of it, could easily be traced back to what is classified as ancient music - recent ancient such as the 13th and 14th century and really ancient as in Greece, Rome, China, Native Indians.

So, where is the new classical, though?  I am not too much of a fan of some of the "NEW" classical.  These are the works of some composers who want to challenge the rules of tone and harmony and rhythm.  They generally sound like the output of a cat running across a keyboard or a mouse getting stuck amongst the piano strings.  They generally inspire tension, which is not the reason I choose to listen to any music.

If not these works, then what?  Where are the great orchestra works of modern times?

I would say that the answer lies in movies.  After the 1970's, and the fear that electronic music a la Robert Moog would replace the human orchestra, it seems that great movie producers/directors learned that truly orchestral music could set the mood for a movie or different points in movies.  This is truly an art form that challenges composers and has given us a wide variety of musical scores, enriching both the genre and the aural palate.  A few examples follow:

This first example embraces the timbral range of the music, evoking the vision of the start of a new day or a new exploration.  Gradually becoming more bright and complex, the vision is as if you are bursting into an opening of a new experience and culminating with the choral voices that could be the sounds of angels ... you will know the movie well.

Example 1

This next piece is the perfect example of the juxtaposition of two moods - serenity and the explosion of a sudden forceful event, complete with a tensional crossover ... (note the meaning of the choral insertion in the context of the film)

Example 2

Finally, a piece that does not match the mood of the title of the film, but one that perfectly brings you into a central tenet of a recurring theme in the movie ...

Example 3

This last one is a particularly useful one for me to listen to when I am thinking through the interpretation and meaning of a large swath of data that, at least at first, don't seem to tell a story ...

So, I think the new classical, as referenced to orchestral works, lies in the movies.