Classical Music Analysis

Walk up to any child enrolled in a graded music performance course and ask him or her, "Who is the greatest composer of all time?" Chance are that one will hear the names of Bach, Beethoven and Mozart recited alongside with a handful of other musical greats from the Western canon. Surveying a population of music professionals (comprising of ATCL, BMus, LRSM and LTCL holders), the melody remains unchanged. Tapping into my personal network of musicians pursuing postgraduate (either FTCL or MMus) studies in music, only two out of twenty named a composer not belonging to the Western canon - the 20th century Argentine composer Alberto Ginastera and the Chinese composer who wrote "The Butterfly Lovers' Violin Concerto".

Such an Eurocentric slant

Employing a two-pronged approach, Jon Pareles of The New York Times discussed and attacked the supposedly allegorical superiority of classical music by dissecting its pedagogical methods and material culture. His analysis revealed the weaknesses of a system rooted in canonic training and traditions. For example, the emphasis on reading music rather than improvisation makes musicians dependent on scores rather than their ears. Creativity is also stifled as the education favours the faithful reproduction of classics by the great composers. Thereafter, Pareles challenged the superiority of material culture by asserting that civilisations entrenched in non-material cultures are no lesser than their material counterparts. It is widely known that classical music boasts a gigantic inventory and library of music scores, piano rolls and phonograph records (CDs and digital format in the more recent years). On the other end of the spectrum, art music from say, the Hindustani sitar or the Javanese gamelan were predominantly oral traditions passed down from one generation to the next. Owing to the lack of formal documentation and record-keeping, the absence of physical evidence is therefore not

Heavyweights in classical music such as Edgard Varèse, Iannis Xenakis and Karlheinz Stockhausen have put out compositions and works using non-Western microtonal systems. Moreover, to label classical music as ethnocentric is equivalent to partiality. After all, those who play Debussy on the pianoforte will notice his hypnotic, gamelan-inspired textures. Furthermore, sitar maestro Ravi Shankar collaborated and performed with many big names in classical and contemporary music. To travel back further in time, how about the Cuban-esque habanera L'amour est un Oiseau Rebelle by Georges Bizet or the alla Turca (translation: in Turkish style) third movement of Sonata in A major, K. 331 by Mozart? Classical music, indeed, possesses a rich history and timeline of cross-cultural exchanges and understanding. This exchange of ideas across cultures is the key signature to weeding out any remaining traces of ethnocentrism and cross-cultural