Has all the beautiful music been written?

I've been on the road a lot the past 3 months. It's my busy season, what with rendezvous and re-enactments. My Rodney the Younger character is always outside, performing magic that is over 100 years old, and taking in the sights and sounds of the 18th and 19th Centuries. As I sit in my hotel room in Nashville, TN, I have on Classic Showcase. This highlights great music, art, dance, and a myriad of other things that make life worth living.

I was just watching/listening to Handel's Fireworks Music. I've loved that for many years. I wonder of the royal commission that brought it about and what it was like to sit with a king or queen, watching the light and boom from this most Dionysian of art forms. The music highlights the explosions. It's beautiful and I wonder if all the beautiful music has been written.

Composer John Adams composed a new work for the new conductor of the Los Angeles Symphony Orchestra. It was very modern, with lots of dissonance, quick time changes, and a challenging score for the musicians. I saw the premier on PBS and wondered while I was listening if this was going to become "classic." I can't judge such things. What I did notice was that it was rarely pretty or beautiful. Was Adams being clever and writing something just to show off the talents of the orchestra? Will it be played in 300 years like Handel's music is? If not, why? And I ask myself why are folks only writing clever stuff and not beautiful things? Do you write to make folks feel clever and serious or do you want to entertain and raise the emotion of love and beauty?

And if someone writes something to just be beautiful, will I know it when I hear it? How does the artist get known when they don't want to challenge the listener and just want to write a pretty tune? As a magician, I have the same problem. Do I want to fool or surprise the viewer? Do I just want to make the coin disappear or do I want it to suddenly become a flower? Which would sell better, the mundane or the beautiful?

It's the challenge of any artist. Can you sell beauty or do you have to be clever these days? I'll see what happens next.

THM