Is Western classical music coming to an end? Every good narrative must have an ending, and Richard Taruskin’s new six-volume Oxford History of Western Music is an epic story. So “why is the sky falling, according to Taruskin, whose motives are no doubt higher than to simply lend his work cultural resonance? To him, it is an ‘ashes to ashes’ sort of scenario, one that he describes without passing judgment. Simply put, it is electronic music, which needs no scribblers but rather “ear players” to compose, coupled with the advent of the recent phenomenon of “sound artists” which signals that this tradition is not so much headed for a dustbin, but destined to shake off the shackles of notation, free at last to simply be music.”