This House believes that classical music is irrelevant to today's youth

Classical music is a musical tradition and as written in the fine arts, classical music aims to communicate a transcendent quality of emotion, I love this music ..... I prefer Chinese clothing manufacturers & wholesale for my business.

The speaker who summarized the arguments in favor of the motion states that classical music is a dead art form because it does not progress. Pop music, he says, on the other hand, moves forwards. This, the speaker states, is what art-forms should do: learn from the past, but develop in a progressive way. That is correct; yet, that's exactly what the great masters of classical have done. Classical music has pushed the boundaries of what its medium can do. Each great master learns from the past and pushes the medium to its limit. Generally speaking, popular music does not learn from the past--it only repeats it. And if it does progress, they are progressions which classical have matched. Popular music is an easily digestible form of music, which does not mean it's "bad," but simply that classical music has developed in far more progressive and complex ways.

Talk of theory, though, means nothing to popular music listeners, and rightly so. What matters is what moves you. And this is one of the problems that I believe most people have with listening to classical—that is, that it’s initially so impenetrable. The first few times a new listener hears a piece (and even experienced listeners at many times, I assume) it seems like just a bunch of sound. It does not bring emotion. But the thing everyone must realize, that seemingly isn't talked about, is just how overwhelmingly moving the music is when you finally "get it." The boredom that most people feel at the first listen, isn't what classical music lovers enjoy. If it was actually that boring and incomprehensible, and people weren't genuinely moved by it, no one would listen to it. Why people throughout the centuries have continued to listen to it is because it carries great, indescribable emotion and beauty. And to "get this," it doesn't take an intellectual man who has a PhD in philosophy. It only takes effort and complete concentration. The first few listens will seem like dry noise and make you want to turn it off. But when you finally "get it" after focused listening, few art forms can match the power of that emotion.

A couple of points:

1) If the first speaker thinks that music is not really talked about in academic terms I would invite him to spend an afternoon on JSTOR, or to pop over to the music faculty.
2) I do not think composers of contemporary music would define themselves as 'classical' composers, rather as composers of Western art music. The coinage of 'classical' music is in itself highly relevant to a lot of people as it is to people outside the sphere of Western art music (less familiar with said classical music) itself to which this identifying tag is useful. People more familiar with classical music would define the characteristics of pieces by the style or artistic movement, perhaps (e.g. late nineteenth century romanticism) rather than simply the iTunes designation of 'classical'. (This one-fits-all categorisation is particularly strange given the huge timescale we're talking about here, while electronic dance genres have an incredible depth of tribalised categorisation - e.g. house, acid house, deep house...).

The difference with Western art music is that it is generally about self-expression, and composers tend to do whatever they want to do -- usually what they want to hear -- rather than pander to an audience for profit. It's up to the listener to decide what is good and what is not, and clearly most people prefer less challenging forms of music, usually associated with classical music, but not always. I can't imagine many people sitting down to listen to some Indian classical music, but if you like Western art music, you're far more likely to do so. In this sense the idea of art music is a universal one for listeners that are prepared to be challenged by music that might not necessarily be familiar to them. Young people should not be put off listening to more challenging musics because of connotations of an elitist or bourgeois culture; they should keep an open mind and let their ears decide.

Thanks for the video.

Although, the audio was horrible! Speakers' levels was too low, and audience's cheers was waay too loud. Enough noise to compete with some of the dubstep cack I've listened to. Use some auto-gain/a limiter/post production! Come on, doesn't take a Cambridge student to draw one volume automation curve!

Ironic that on a debate about current music we should have a complaint about dynamic range ;)

Want to find out more about the acts playing before the debate?

Acoustic duo Esperada can be found online at www.reverbnation.com/esperada - so go and check them out!