Moshkito
Hi,
The funny thing is that I have ALWAYS considered a lot of the longer cuts in rock music, the "classical music" of today, if we put it into the context of the great composers.
I happen to think of "Echoes", "Atom Heart Mother Suite", "The Lamb Lies Down on Broadway", Tales of Topographic Oceans", "A Tab in the Ocean", "Solar Music Live", "Rockpommel's Land", "Yeti", "Dance of the Lemmings", "Phaedra", "Rubycon", Eruption", Tarkus", ... and a million other pieces the "classical music" of TODAY, by our generation ... and it is not necessary for you and I to have to go to Focus, or PFM, to hear their inclusion of classical music themes and not think that these compositions stand just as strongly along Strauss, Beethoven and Mozart, with one important detail ... you and I do not go around whistling any of those 3 folks except the opening of one symphony and one concert! And that's like 3 or 4 bars only!
It's kinda strange to hear this composer of that composer when in fact, if you and I were to sift through a lot of the more "progressive music", you would find at least 100 composers mentioned and worked into the piece in idea and concept.
Art music is different from engineered music. One the goal is transcendent or sublime the other is utility. Can useful music be art? Is home depot paint department an artist supply store? Anything can be art, but art can't be anything. OTOH Van Gogh wore overalls so sometimes pedestrian people make great art. Charles Ives was not pedestrian. Aaron copeland was not pedestrian. O just forget it. Anything can be art, but art can't be anything. (this is my nod to our leader as he picks his staff by how they look).