sound:

So long, and thanks for all the noise: 2010 and the end of musical history

It has already happened. Musical history spluttered to its demise somewhere near the start of the 21st century. The questions are: how? why? and can we do anything about it? There are few great compositional figures who aren't already vastly aged, from Steve Reich to Elliott Carter, from Philip Glass to Pierre Boulez, there's no single path for younger generations of composers to follow, it's all been done before in every context you can imagine, and there are no sounds to discover that haven't already been heard. All that, and you can hardly make a living from it. The doomsayers were right. Or - were they? Tom Service will be looking for symptoms and solutions in an era of musical post-history. Perhaps living at the end of time isn't such a bad thing, after all…

Tom Service first worked as a critic for The Scotsman. He now writes about music for The Guardian, and presents BBC Radio 3's Music Matters. His PhD was on the music of John Zorn, and he was Guest Artistic Director of the Huddersfield Contempor2005. His book on conducting will be published by Faber next year.

With kind permission of our speaker, a transcript for the sound lecture 2010 is now available.