I think older music had different pressures....

When I think of who’s really set the bar for music I think of the old composers… and I think this for several reasons. They didn’t have movies and pictures and they might be lucky to have someone just hear their song ONCE, so it HAD to impress!!! That’s a different selective pressure than modern music (when recording started) because you can hear the same thing over and over and start to like it… but back then, the selective pressure was different, and I think the misuc was of a higher quality because of it.

youtube.com/watch?v=LdH1hSWGFGU

I’ll give this as an example…

Then you have the example of someone names Godowski who took the idea of etude “study” to it’s extreme… he wrote most of Chopin’s Etudes for the left hand alone, and when that wasn’t enough, he’d take 2 Chopin Etudes and mash them together in one song so the played both at the same time in polyphony. Crazy genius.

youtube.com/watch?v=LuEa1XLEVSw

And then you had hermits like Alkan who wrote amazing shit like this…

youtube.com/watch?v=xJPyX03bQPs

Lewenthal is the best Alkan player… you can all thank my 20 year obsession with classical piano for these performances. I actually compose music myself, and piano is my favorite instrument… I did the leg wprk to give you stellar performances from an encyclopedic knowledge of all of the performances that have been recorded for various songs and what’s available on youtube. Some of the best aren’t.

Alkan actually was the most influential classical composer for modern music, not many people know about him, and it’s a shame…

This guy does an alright job with “le vent” which translates as “The wind”, of course it wasn’t played by lewenthal…

youtube.com/watch?v=TGzG6nPWSro

Lot’s of Alkans stuff is reminiscent of what people play on movie scores in modern times, he was well ahead of his time… this barcarolle is beautiful but fuzzy because of the recording… It’s Lewenthal.

youtube.com/watch?v=rMT-D5lDRBA

The paradox with Classical music, is that despite what you say, listening multiple times offers the listener ever more things. With each listening is uncovered fresh and exiting things unheard.

Most modern music is instantly accessible and instantly forgettable. You mistake the audience in your text here. A performance was generally attended by the intelligence, and they would go to listen carefully and with full attention.
I do not think much in the Classical genres had instant appeal. If you want that look at Strauss, or Gilbert and Sullivan.

A modern song has to grab attention from the mountain of dross pouring out of every audio orifice, from cafe speakers, to elevators radio, tv, Internet. It has to be CATCHY.
There is very little music made recently that can approach Classical. I would suggest YES’s Tales of Topographic Oceans, or Close to the Edge. for listening that endures, and does not bow down to 'catchiness".

Interesting take… since video, the videos have been more important to music success than the song. I agree that “catchiness” is what we’re talking about here, and i don’t think there is more selective pressure on catchiness today than there was in the past… in the past, you had one shot and that was it, today, you get 500 shots… Think how catchy Scarlatti was… That’s some serious selective pressure… People don’t have the same selective pressure anymore, pop music has just become mild techno now… some of the real techno is amazing.

I actually met Jon from YES in a coffee shop… he invited me to play in his studio after listening to my variations on the moonlight sonata… and i thought he was some kind of creep so I said no. Then he asked if I had heard of Yes before, and I said that I wasn’t too familiar, but I think I’ve heard the name, and he said “That’s me!” Anyways, we didn’t get together… but he was VERY impressed with my piano playing.

We’re talking about Jon Anderson here… who’s actually a really short man. He’s the lead singer of yes, the reason i thought he was a creep is because he kept humming to my bach and had some strange fixation on me, and people approach me all the time wanting me to join their bands in this coffee shop… so I figured he was just another one of those. The story of my life is not being published or recorded. I actually find it funny.

Where did you meet him?

Yes, is a collection of world class musicians many trained in the Classical tradition, such as Rick Wakeman realising that his chances of getting a job as a classical pianist were diminishingly small joined Yes. He is credited with inventing the idea of Stacking multiple keyboards.

Try and listen to this without prejudice. Enjoy the harmonies.
youtube.com/watch?v=DKftiJS30Cs

He lives in the Central Coast of California… I won’t reveal more than that. I think the central coast of California is hell, but I’m here for reasons not of my own design. It was a coffee shop with a piano that I play at regularly… they love me there.

I love Gypsy music, Russian

youtube.com/watch?v=wucD8Ej_d8E

a lovely combo with a modern film The Incredible Lightness of Being

youtube.com/watch?v=3fgAMKdxGjQ

without the film

I think Jon Anderson is gay. If you found him creepy maybe because he was hitting on you?

I won’t speculate on that. I think he has a wife.

That’s pretty music Shieldmaiden, though technically Liszts hungarian rhapsody is gypsy music too.

Many gay people have conventional relationships, how else would he have got his children?

I just thought he liked my variations on the moonlight sonata… I even showed him a song I composed, he said it sounded somewhat like Chech music, and that he liked it. But who knows…

Did he mean Czech?
Have you made a Youtube of it (or similar)?

PS. He’s not admitted being gay, and he may well not be. When he teamed up with Vangelis it was just assumed by some.

Yup… I mispelled it. No I’ve never put anything on youtube… Maybe i should.

The other reason he might have seemed ‘creepy’ is due to his accent. Originally he had a rich North- West Lancashire accent, which as been Americanised. It’s sounds weird to my ear.

youtube.com/watch?v=D5cjN9oaET0