Through the 20th century, much gnashing of teeth and many tears were associated with the whole question of what classical music should be and who it should be for. Composers like Schoenberg, Stockhausen and Boulez in Europe and Cage and Carter in the USA felt they could not and should not write music which would be beautiful and easily comprehensible to the unsophisticated layman: they wanted the listener to come to them rather than the other way around.
In Britain and the USSR, on the other hand, two vastly different countries, composers felt, from within and without, the urge to write music for the Common Man. Of course, “formalism”, “muddle instead of music”, etc, etc were epithets flung at composers in the USSR only, when they failed to write catchy tunes in the style of Tchaikovsky for the peasants of the Steppes, but even in Britain, the pastoral tradition had a great importance and significance to composers like Vaughan Williams.
Looking back, in the 21st century, we can be thankful that big juicy concertos and symphonies in the old tradition were still being written 50 years ago (and even now!): they have enriched the core repertoire of classical music and allowed people outside the Conservatories to relate to contemporary “serious” music—all this, without necessarily compromising their integrity. The best music of those times, Prokofiev in his Romeo and Juliet, Shostakovich in his 1st Violin Concerto and 10th Symphony, Britten in his operas, all have used the old forms to anchor and elucidate their thoughts for the wider audience, while writing music that is filled with contemporary cultural allusions, music that is undeniably of its own time.
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