In 50 years, will any "classical" composers remain?

Mendelssohn Choir is ready to get tangled up in Dylan | Pittsburgh Post-Gazette



In 50 years, will any "classical" composers remain?  Or go the way of Chaucer, and middle English?

The Canterbury Tales

General Prologue

 Whan that Aprill with his shoures soote
 The droghte of March hath perced to the roote,
 And bathed every veyne in swich licour
 Of which vertu engendred is the flour;
 Whan Zephirus eek with his sweete breeth
 Inspired hath in every holt and heeth
 The tendre croppes, and the yonge sonne
 Hath in the Ram his half cours yronne,
 And smale foweles maken melodye,
10 That slepen al the nyght with open ye
 (So priketh hem Nature in hir corages),
 Thanne longen folk to goon on pilgrimages,
 And palmeres for to seken straunge strondes,
 To ferne halwes, kowthe in sondry londes;
 And specially from every shires ende
 Of Engelond to Caunterbury they wende,
 The hooly blisful martir for to seke,
 That hem hath holpen whan that they were seeke.
 Bifil that in that seson on a day,
20 In Southwerk at the Tabard as I lay
 Redy to wenden on my pilgrymage
 To Caunterbury with ful devout corage,
 At nyght was come into that hostelrye
 Wel nyne and twenty in a compaignye
 Of sondry folk, by aventure yfalle
 In felaweshipe, and pilgrimes were they alle,
 That toward Caunterbury wolden ryde.
 The chambres and the stables weren wyde,
 And wel we weren esed atte beste.
30 And shortly, whan the sonne was to reste,
 So hadde I spoken with hem everichon
 That I was of hir felaweshipe anon,
 And made forward erly for to ryse,
 To take oure wey ther as I yow devyse.
 But nathelees, whil I have tyme and space,
 Er that I ferther in this tale pace,
 Me thynketh it acordaunt to resoun
 To telle yow al the condicioun
 Of ech of hem, so as it semed me,





etc etc