Richard Taruskin: The Demise Of Classical Music

With rich historical context and sharp rhetoric, Richard Taruskin argues against a misconception about the impending demise of Classical Music. In doing so, he exemplifies three authors who argue for the ongoing crisis in Classical Music and why in their minds, Classical Music should be preserved at all cost. Taruskin then methodically dismantle their attempts to save Classical Music and instead provide his own view and its place in society. His main thesis is that classical music is undergoing a change that cannot and should not be intervened. Instead, we should allow it, observe it, and be a part of it. Taruskin begins his essay by recounting an experiment done by the Washington Post. In this experiment, Joshua Bell dresses up in civilian clothes, goes down to a subway station with his Stradivarius, and play concert material Bach for the busy commuters. As the outcome was a general disinterest from the people rushing to their jobs, Taruskin begins his disapproval with the subsequent articles that used this experiment to argue for the irrelevance of classical music in a modern society. Instead, Taruskin explains that it was perfectly normal for people to rush by because they have completely different purposes in their mind than to recognize exquisite music.

This subject of classical music being a symbol of the past, awake worries in Taruskin as he finds himself defending nostalgia with double standards and hypocrisy. Thus, to avoid defending an art that perceives itself as superior to other, Taruskin remarks that we have to see that the damage is coming from the defenders of classical music and not the music