Stockhausen and The End

Tom Service of The Guardian has compiled memories of the late Karlheinz Stockhausen from people associated with the composer in one way or another. The last line of the article is from a reminiscence of Barbican artistic director Graham Sheffield: In a way, his death marks the end of 20th-century music.

That struck me as having a lot of truth in it. Now I see that it struck Alex Ross more or less the same way:

The last line of the piece is absolutely right: the twentieth century, the epoch of vastly ambitious, at times megalomaniac musical conceptions, which really began with the late works of Wagner, is indeed over. But its echoes reverberate all around us. What next?*

What next, indeed. To that question I would add this: If Stockhausen's death signals the end of 20th century music, when did (or when will) the 21st century start?

*NOTE: What next? is the title of Elliott Carter's only opera, which ended a succesful run in New York Tuesday, the composer's 99th birthday.