Recently, the 250th anniversary of Beethoven's birth was celebrated around the world by those who have an affinity for the man's work and his place in the classical canon. (More amazing, to me, is that in 6 years it will be 200 years since the death of Beethoven and we still celebrate his work.)
It also brought out those who are angered by the predominance of dead white males in Classical music-which is somewhat odd as Classical music is mostly European in origin (Meaning what else would it be?). This isn't about that, though I will say that rather than bad-mouthing Ludwig Van, it might be better to actually schedule and play compositions by those commonly left out of the repertoires of leading orchestras.
But what I really find fascinating by this regular occuring hubbub, is that it's beginning to play out in Rock, just as it has in Jazz, which had its heyday in the first 70 years of the 20th century. There are the titans of Rock and everyone who followed. With the deaths of Eddie Van Halen, Lemmy Kilmister (Motorhead), and others, the pantheon of the Rock-n-Roll era continues to pass into history. The question then becomes will anyone take their place or like Beethoven, Mozart, Bach, etc., will they forever be the standard and the iconography of Rock music?
This isn't an idle question. Name a single recent rock band. If you can, can you say they're distinctive enough to stand out against what we've set up as the Rock standard? And if you think this is bunk, think of Jazz and how anyone coming up is inevitably compared to the titans of Jazz, be it Armstrong, Ellington, Parker, Coltrane, or Miles. Every genre has its glory period, and the greats of that period, whether you like it or not, dominate.
For those of us so blessed to have grownup with and seen, live and in person, these bands and performers, it is, in some sense, our gift, just as it was for all those who first heard something new and vibrant in classical music and Jazz. And it's hard to deny their place when their music, now some 40-60 years old, is still being played and the artists continue being venerated by young people, not just us geezers. That doesn't mean they always will; all greats go through periods of diminishment and reassessment, as Ludwig Van did, but he never went away and the quality of his works remains.
This doesn't mean people won't continue to play and write within the rock idiom and all of its subgenres, I imagine they will, but I also think that for the foreseeable future, and perhaps beyond, the greats will continue to be the standard.
©2021 David William Pearce
