Simon Hoggart

Who dares wins

Who dares wins

issue 04 December 2004

Two programmes this week made the case that popular music has taken over the tradition of the great classical composers. In Howard Goodall’s Twentieth Century Greats (Channel 4, Saturday) the composer told us that modern ‘serious’ composers had abandoned the Western musical traditions of melody and harmony. By going on their journey to nowhere, they had forfeited their claim to the public taste.

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