New Complexity Has Run Out Of Too Many Ideas

The movement of classical music composition most commonly known as “New Complexity” appears at last to have run out of too many ideas.

“This is quite a momentous occasion,” said John Man, classical composer and catalogue enthusiast. “I am honestly surprised that we could have had too many ideas for so long that we now can’t think of any more. That seems impossible!”

For some time now the movement has flourished, allowing composers to explore in great depth the seemingly endless ways of doing too much. However, they have now officially run out of it. Man was shocked. “Who knew that doing whatever you wanted could end up sounding like something nobody ever wanted?”

Composers will now have to reckon with a newer movement of new things, much as they might wistfully pine for the older movements of new things. “There was a time when it was fun to nest a rhythm inside another nested rhythm and then stand back admiringly to say ‘wow look at all my nested rhythms’,” said Bob Guy, classical composer and reciter of numbers. “In my symphony, A Nest of Nests, I was inspired by the architect Gaudi, who loaded his buildings with details inside other details and then stood back admiringly and promptly got hit by a bus.”

“What a coincidence,” said Aunt Sally. “That’s what I often feel like when listening to that symphony.”

A new chapter of music history will now need to be written. “It’s true that you can’t have too much of a good thing,” said Ripping Babushkin, famous musicologist. “But apparently you can have too much of not having had much of a certain thing previously such that the desire for that thing justifies attempting too much of what that thing is which was already a lot, really,” he said.

It remains to be seen what new movement will replace the old movement of new complexity. “There’s no going back,” said Herbert Merbert, classical composer and assorted bread crumb specialist. “If New Complexity were to survive at all it would need more of the old complexity, which isn’t new at all, though it might still be complex. But after all, that’s just old news now.”