Academic music is music that is composed primarily to be of interest to academicians in the music field rather than to the general public. Much or most of the art music that has been composed in recent decades falls into this category.
It is often said that the current emphasis on academic music began with Arnold Schoenberg, or that at least he played a major role in this transformation. Although mainstream audiences generally do not show much enthusiasm for academic music and greatly prefer tonal music (as evidenced by the vastly larger number of performances of tonal works at concerts), many academicians view composers of tonal music as relics from a bygone era with little relevance for composing today.