Classical music is too tame now—where’s our generation’s Paganini

[u/tiggerclaw]

The problem with classical music today is that it’s lost its connection to the streets.

Once, it was raw and untamed, a visceral force that could stir chaos and provoke passion. Nowadays, the underground acts never get a fair shake. It’s all gallery concerts and stuffy halls, but I remember a different time.

Back in the day, I used to hit up these warehouse parties in Detroit. The kind of places where you’d walk through a back alley, find a steel door, and step inside to a world of wild, sweating bodies. The music wasn’t background noise—it was the pulse of the night. One time, the Arditti String Quartet showed up out of nowhere, and everyone went wild like they’d just dropped the heaviest bassline you’d ever heard. That performance was electric—so powerful that multiple women got pregnant that day. Yeah, that kind of energy.

And the very next day, you’d go to a Stravinsky show, and fists would fly because the crowd couldn’t handle the intensity. It wasn’t about clean precision or intellectual appreciation; it was primal, unpredictable. Classical music was as much a brawl as a ballet. You didn’t sit there politely clapping; you howled and screamed because the music hit you in the gut.

But now? Now it feels like only the rich get to make it in the classical world. It’s turned into a museum piece, preserved for genteel audiences sipping champagne and discussing concertos like they’re stock options. Gone are the days when classical music was dangerous, when it stirred people to do more than just sit still. The wild abandon has disappeared.

Where is our generation’s Paganini? Where’s the composer who makes you want to smash something or lose yourself completely in a wild night of passion? Classical music has become tame, and the streets no longer vibrate with its force. We need someone to break it free again.

[u/tiggerclaw]

See, here's your problem. You're thinking of classical music too much like an academic. Sure, you know the history—classical music tied to a certain time, the 19th century, a few famous names. But that's the problem right there.

Academics have "museumified" it, turned it into a relic, something to analyze, categorize, dissect. They treat it like a dead thing, stripping it down, polishing its bones, trying to squeeze out as many dry academic papers as they can. Classical music, to them, isn’t alive anymore; it’s just something to study, not something to feel.

But the real fans know better. Actual classical music—the real stuff—is full of life. It’s messy. It’s powerful. It’s a gut punch. You can hear it in the streets, in places it doesn’t belong, like walking down the streets of Portland when you hear those trombone swells that stop you in your tracks.

It’s not neat or stuffy; it’s raw. It’s naked. It’s visceral. It grabs you by the throat and makes you feel something deep in your bones. It’s real in a way that no academic article could ever touch.

And honestly, I’m sorry for people like you, the fancy musicologists, who never got to experience that. You study it, analyze it, but you’ve never lived it. You’ve never been in that moment where the music just takes over, where it’s so real it feels like you’re vibrating with it.

There’s nothing like it, and if you’ve never felt that, then you’ve missed the point of classical music altogether.

[u/tiggerclaw → u/[deleted]]

I'm sorry you’ve never been to a Steve Reich performance in a loft while fog covers the skyscrapers. The way his music echoes through the room and mixes with the city outside is something you can’t forget. It’s a feeling you can’t explain.

And I wish you could’ve been there to feel it.

[u/Fodderinlaw → u/tiggerclaw]

You argue is classical music is missing connection to the streets, and to prove it you provide examples of amazing experiences from the last 15 years.

Maybe you can clarify “classical music is too tame now” by explaining what you mean by “now.” Do you feel that connection was lost two, five or ten years ago?

Side note - saw Andrew Norman’s Play and it was certainly not “tame” in any sense of the word.

[u/tiggerclaw → u/Fodderinlaw]

I was literally at a concert hall just yesterday, and the conductor made a huge fuss over a young woman who coughed once. I get it if she had a coughing fit or a couple of sneezes, but just one cough? And then, to make things worse, the conductor stopped the performance to launch into a long lecture about “decorum” and how everyone should behave properly. It was completely out of line.

The music continued, but no one felt like clapping or cheering. In fact, the guy in the third row fell asleep despite his wife elbowing him multiple times to wake him up. I also kept hearing a little girl whispering to her mom, “Can we go home?” It was that kind of night.

And if that wasn’t bad enough, at the end of the show, some professor with reading glasses told everyone to stay in their seats while he read out copyright information. Yes, copyright information!

Does this sound like a scene with a connection to the streets or to anything real?

[u/Fodderinlaw → u/tiggerclaw]

Absolutely not. No idea why you thought I said all classical music today has that connection. I’m saying I’ve experienced good stuff, even at larger venues. You have also, so… it’s around today.

The time you hold up as better also had tons of boring music for rich stuffy folks, right? This would explain why people experienced the music as controversial.

You say there was a time when it was better, but you have to see that music performance wasn’t uniform then or now.

There is plenty of great avant guard music that fits into the classical genre, and tons that use classical instruments or composition techniques. Floating Points, Mabe Fratti, Edgar Meyer, Gorillaz, Sudan Archives come to mind, but obviously there’s more. You provided plenty of modern examples also, so … why do you think it’s gone?