Has art jumped the shark after WWI?

[Alex K]

I felt then as I do now that there was a schism around WWI between the "pop" and "classical" styles of music, one which had never existed prior, with the latter locking itself away in an ivory tower and looking down on the former.

As do I. This is where the spirit of my OP lies.

The Ivory Tower became obsessed with abstract theory and making theory guide the music instead of the other way around which is how it's supposed to be.

My dad studied music in the 60s and he always told me how his old professors scoffed at anything remotely "pop" in music and infinitely glorified academic music at the same time, and he as both a classically trained singer and huge Beatles fan was always underwhelmed by that. In the same sense I was referring to other types of art, although I know my way around music better than the others.

That you can have music education and never hear of Schönberg is strange to me, we did him in 12th grade in high school along with Berg, and were assigned to write some 12 tone music. Maybe it's because around here the curriculum is more eurocentric. Gershwin was mentioned a bit. The most avantgarde thing we covered in HS was John Cage.

---

I adore John Williams' music to no end. There's barely a day when I'm not humming is melodies at some point. But wouldn't it still be fair to say that he basically adapted romantic period composition to his needs and indeed added his huge talent for epic tunes, but without really developing anything conceptually new?