The Eternal Breakfast Debate in a New Place

[Ein Heldenleben]

Funny you should mention Henry Moore. One of my own Christmas rituals (completed this morning) is to visit the magnificent Moore sculpture in our local park, just to touch it while looking out over the vista of London and the river. I hope that younger generations don't forget him entirely.

One reason he won’t be forgotten is that, aside from his great talent, he believed in public art often gifting works to the public realm at knockdown prizes. So his work can be found everywhere.

I’m off now to a concert where another of his works lies in the garden…
Any ideas anyone ?
Clue - it overlooks the medieval equivalent of a boxing ring …

[french frank]

Generic taxonomy has always created problems; and when this catch-all "classical music" (so lovingly spooned-out by Radio 3's polite presenters) takes hold, it obscures the huge number of different types and conditions of music which it so uselessly embraces.

True enough. But if communication is the goal, context and the specific audience have to be taken into account. So R3's polite presenters will be aware that their intended audience has its limitations and will have an understanding of the term 'classical music'; as would my brother, infinitely more musical and knowledgeable about the repertoire than me, and a ClassicFM listener.

[Master Jacques]

True enough. But if communication is the goal, context and the specific audience have to be taken into account. So R3's polite presenters will be aware that their intended audience has its limitations and will have an understanding of the term 'classical music'; as would my brother, infinitely more musical and knowledgeable about the repertoire than me, and a ClassicFM listener.

Dare I say, that the term we'd use in other contexts for this sort of simplification of realities is "misinformation"? To communicate that a Pérotin clausula sits in the same basket as Wagner's Ring, or that a Byrd Mass is essentially from the same genre as a Honegger Symphony, is profoundly wrong - in a word, those polite ladies and gentlemen are telling (and selling) porkies to their "intended audience".

[vinteuil]

... I suppose the categories I wd consider would be "music for grown ups and those aspiring to be grown ups" as opposed to "music for kiddiewinkies, sulky teenagers, and those happy to go thro' their lives as kidults".

But that wd be terminally 'triggering'....


.

[french frank]

Dare I say, that the term we'd use in other contexts for this sort of simplification of realities is "misinformation"? To communicate that a Pérotin clausula sits in the same basket as Wagner's Ring, or that a Byrd Mass is essentially from the same genre as a Honegger Symphony, is profoundly wrong - in a word, those polite ladies and gentlemen are telling (and selling) porkies to their "intended audience".

I think that's harsh Should Radio 3 be reserved for that percentage of the UK population for whom Perotin, the Ring, a Mass by Byrd or a symphony by Honegger have any meaning (in fact not for those for whom only the word 'symphony' has any vagueish musical resonance at all)? What percentage would you estimate it to be? Are they any more misinformed than someone who makes no distinction between pop, garage, thrash metal, grunge, grime, acid house, techno, trance, prog rock &c? From a linguistic point of view, if 'classical music' is commonly used as an umbrella term (comprehending Perotin, Byrd, Haydn, Schubert, Wagner, Debussy, Honegger, Stockhausen) that has become its 'meaning'; and it only confuses those who do appreciate the vast differences - and care.

It may be pearls before swine but what use are pearls to swine? Language - or meanings - is use.

[Serial_Apologist]

My experience too with the 30-40s in the family. They live very much in their present, in the bubbles of their immediate acquaintance. The past and the beyonds are other countries which they feel no pressing need to explore. Everything they want is close, familiar and on tap.

Listening to Poulenc's Les Biches just now, a work which had me in stitches at the age of 15, I was saddened for the first time at the thought that the satirical references and parodyings the composer roped together to create his piece of "modern music" for 1920 would probably go right over the heads of most young listeners of today, who, lacking knowledge of music history or feeling for period context would assume the whole piece to be in one consistent idiom to be taken at face value.

[Serial_Apologist]

I think that's harsh Should Radio 3 be reserved for that percentage of the UK population for whom Perotin, the Ring, a Mass by Byrd or a symphony by Honegger have any meaning (in fact not for those for whom only the word 'symphony' has any vagueish musical resonance at all)? What percentage would you estimate it to be? Are they any more misinformed than someone who makes no distinction between pop, garage, thrash metal, grunge, grime, acid house, techno, trance, prog rock &c? From a linguistic point of view, if 'classical music' is commonly used as an umbrella term (comprehending Perotin, Byrd, Haydn, Schubert, Wagner, Debussy, Honegger, Stockhausen) that has become its 'meaning'; and it only confuses those who do appreciate the vast differences - and care.

It may be pearls before swine but what use are pearls to swine? Language - or meanings - is use.

Surely whether a certain kind of music with characteristics in common and part of a lineage which covers all of the abovementioned composers can be grouped together can define a generic name, in the same way the term "a home" can be used to describe a multitude of domicile types with few common characteristics ranging from castles to igloos? We don't say "you can't call a cave a home because a home has at least to include windows or doors"; so what is wrong with using a classical way for describing a body of music? In using the term "classical" one would be distinguishing one particular type of music from others based on or primarily derived from non-western musical cultures, (possibly excepting "Indian classical music", many or most of whose practitioners and devotees accept or use this term). But it does presuppose definitional agreement on authoritative consent: jazz and blues fall into the non-western-originated types since howevermuch their evolution has absorbed "classical" forms and features they would never have existed were it not for pre-existent pre-Eurocolonial African musical cultures. And - to anticipate the argument "neither would what I describe as 'classical music genres' I would delineate the latter as having a starting point, perhaps the 12th century, whereas we have no way of knowing how far back non-European music cultures go.

[Master Jacques]

Surely whether a certain kind of music with characteristics in common and part of a lineage which covers all of the abovementioned composers can be grouped together can define a generic name, in the same way the term "a home" can be used to describe a multitude of domicile types with few common characteristics ranging from castles to igloos?

We can define all these styles, from so many centuries and so many cultures, as "music", for sure, as the semantic equivalent of "home". But beyond that they have too little in common to be regarded as one, big "classical family", given their disparate manners of notation, polyphonic v. melodic styles, vocal or instrumental casting ....

Lumping them together creates serious misconceptions about how best to listen to them. These confuse the unwary, and do nothing to clarify these hugely disparate musical worlds. When "classical" has become such a tarnished label, a matter of "lifestyle" chic rather than substance, I agree with Nigel Kennedy (and others) who feel that we desperately need to get away from it, for the good of the music(s) we love, and which we wish to help others see and hear for what they are.

[Master Jacques]

Listening to Poulenc's Les Biches just now, a work which had me in stitches at the age of 15, I was saddened for the first time at the thought that the satirical references and parodyings the composer roped together to create his piece of "modern music" for 1920 would probably go right over the heads of most young listeners of today, who, lacking knowledge of music history or feeling for period context would assume the whole piece to be in one consistent idiom to be taken at face value.

By neat coincidence, we listened to the (not entirely satisfactory) complete Pretre recording of Les Biches yesterday over high tea. Aside from thinking how very well it had worn, 100 years on, we were pondering whether it would communicate easily to people who knew little of its period, homages or balletic conception. Our own conclusion was more optimistic than yours: namely, that a good tune is a good tune, and that there are more than enough of them here to make sure Les Biches will continue to communicate for a good while yet, to anyone with half an ear. I hope so!

[Andrew353w]

One reason he won’t be forgotten is that, aside from his great talent, he believed in public art often gifting works to the public realm at knockdown prizes. So his work can be found everywhere.

I’m off now to a concert where another of his works lies in the garden…
Any ideas anyone ?
Clue - it overlooks the medieval equivalent of a boxing ring …

One of my regular pilgrimages is to the Henry Moore House in Much Hadham. Seeing those magnificent sculptures in beautiful surroundings is an oasis of calm in a hectic world!

[Serial_Apologist]

We can define all these styles, from so many centuries and so many cultures, as "music", for sure, as the semantic equivalent of "home". But beyond that they have too little in common to be regarded as one, big "classical family", given their disparate manners of notation, polyphonic v. melodic styles, vocal or instrumental casting ....

Lumping them together creates serious misconceptions about how best to listen to them. These confuse the unwary, and do nothing to clarify these hugely disparate musical worlds. When "classical" has become such a tarnished label, a matter of "lifestyle" chic rather than substance, I agree with Nigel Kennedy (and others) who feel that we desperately need to get away from it, for the good of the music(s) we love, and which we wish to help others see and hear for what they are.

The problem with that as I see it being that it leaves what arguably too broadly has been termed classical music for as long as anyone can remember unlabelled amid a sea of musical types, for better or for worse. I can see your argument to an extent, although any assumed category will include varieties, sub-genres, and call for different approaches. What might a solution be? To have no name for "it", or make use of commonly used terms for the differentiated styles - a concert, say, of 19th century Russian orchestral music? a series of talks on how and in what order the Baroque took over from the Late Renaissance? Etc.

[Serial_Apologist]

I’m off now to a concert where another of his works lies in the garden…
Any ideas anyone ?
Clue - it overlooks the medieval equivalent of a boxing ring …

The Houses of Parliament?

[Ein Heldenleben]

The Houses of Parliament?

Good guess as there’s a Moore in Parliament Square and St John’s nearby . But it’s Dartington Hall in Devon.

[Master Jacques]

The problem with that as I see it being that it leaves what arguably too broadly has been termed classical music for as long as anyone can remember unlabelled amid a sea of musical types, for better or for worse. I can see your argument to an extent, although any assumed category will include varieties, sub-genres, and call for different approaches. What might a solution be? To have no name for "it", or make use of commonly used terms for the differentiated styles - a concert, say, of 19th century Russian orchestral music? a series of talks on how and in what order the Baroque took over from the Late Renaissance? Etc.

I'm currently putting my money where my mouth is on this question, in editing a musical history from which the word "genre" is pretty much excluded. Contributors are encouraged to think in terms of individual works rather than "genres", of "patterns" (infinitely adaptable and mutable) rather than labels. Some of the academic contributors are finding this process very hard, as they think so generically; while our performer-contributors don't tend to have the problem in the first place. This is interesting data in itself, of course!

Musical history has become like one of those totally implausible stage costume dramas, where everyone is dressed in (say) twenties fashion, when the reality was that you'd have had a few people a la mode, and the rest dressed in fashions of their own day, dating back to the 1870s and producing a much more varied picture. It's impossible to say what "order" the Baroque "took over" from the late Renaissance, isn't it? when polyphony never disappeared, its patterns weaving in and out of time until our own day.

I remember an understandable (if embarrassing) faux pas made by the Martinu Society, who found a late manuscript of his choral music, written in a wonderfully "pure" and clean polyphonic style, which was duly published and recorded. Only then did somebody spot that it was really a hand-written copy he'd made of some motet or other by a renaissance Italian composer! The mistake was pardonable: patterns come round again and again, while genres are illusory critical constructs which confuse listeners and distort history.

[Pulcinella]

I'm currently putting my money where my mouth is on this question, in editing a musical history from which the word "genre" is pretty much excluded. Contributors are encouraged to think in terms of individual works rather than "genres", of "patterns" (infinitely adaptable and mutable) rather than labels. Some of the academic contributors are finding this process very hard, as they think so generically; while our performer-contributors don't tend to have the problem in the first place. This is interesting data in itself, of course!

Musical history has become like one of those totally implausible stage costume dramas, where everyone is dressed in (say) twenties fashion, when the reality was that you'd have had a few people a la mode, and the rest dressed in fashions of their own day, dating back to the 1870s and producing a much more varied picture. It's impossible to say what "order" the Baroque "took over" from the late Renaissance, isn't it? when polyphony never disappeared, its patterns weaving in and out of time until our own day.

I remember an understandable (if embarrassing) faux pas made by the Martinu Society, who found a late manuscript of his choral music, written in a wonderfully "pure" and clean polyphonic style, which was duly published and recorded. Only then did somebody spot that it was really a hand-written copy he'd made of some motet or other by a renaissance Italian composer! The mistake was pardonable: patterns come round again and again, while genres are illusory critical constructs which confuse listeners and distort history.

Martinu's Monumentum pro Gesualdo, without even having to add any missing part?