Keith_W
Major Contributor
I'm trying to remember the book I read concerning Star Wars and John Williams scores for various movies. The author attempted to make a case for considering William's scores as proper "Classical" scores while denigrating avant garde Classical/Concert music as some sort of a communist plot.
It's not far from the truth. John Cage was an actual communist. I don't really care about the politics or personal beliefs of the composer, all I care about is whether they wrote good music. After all I love Bach's religious music (even though I am an atheist), I love Wagner (even though he was an antisemite), and I like Khachaturian (who was a member of the Communist Party). I even listen to Karajan who was a member of the Nazi Party.
But John Cage's music was awful. There are two extremes with Classical music - on one extreme are things that are too populist and too commercial (like John Williams) and on the other are the avant-garde weird stuff that nobody understands (like John Cage).
There are "Pop" Classics I like, but they are more like Sir Thomas Beecham's "Bon Bons", short, sugary works suitable for encores. If I want pure orchestral bombast, I'll take Bruckner, thank you very much.
Interesting you should say that. Last night I lifted my self-imposed ban on Mahler* and listened to his 2nd symphony. It was wonderful.
(* I stopped listening to Mahler because his music is too depressing, it really drives you to drink)