Definitions - music

[mercia]

Vaughan Williams Symphony 7 classical ? Vaughan Williams music to Scott of the Antarctic not classical ?

[Roehre]

I am afraid "Classical Music" can not be defined.
The border lines are fluent (depending on the era) and on top of that the blurring grey areas at both sides of the border lines not particularly narrow

It is very well possible to describe what is meant, but as (classical, but not exclusively so: Jazz-, operetta-, film- ) music itself cannot be divided into strict categories, it is even more difficult -if not impossible- to do the same with composers.

Whatever is "defined" or described, there will be a discussion whether a piece or a composer is "classical" .

IMHO the best we can do is using a workable "working thesis" about what is meant, and use it as consistent as possble, as SC excellently has done IMVHO.

[Stanfordian]

Hybrid No to all. Once you get to the point of 'hybrids of hybrids' I think you can define them as something else. And my 'core definition' would exclude them.

I accept that Suffy made his rules and stuck to them for the purpose of consistency. But whether everything a composer produced should be regarded as 'classical' just because a minor proportion of his output is - not in my book. When John Williams' 'classical' works become part of Radio 3's basic repertoire, then reconsider Star Wars. Until then ... (Similar with George Gershwin and, more arguably, Bernstein). I'm afraid it just doesn't hold water, logically, to say that because Gershwin composed a piano concerto, Girl Crazy is therefore 'classical'.

Hiya French Frank,

What with the increasing popularity of performers such as John Wilson Orchestra and Carl Davis's popular proms with their music from the movies being broadcast at the BBC Proms and on Radio 3 it is already close to becoming part of Radio 3's basic repertoire if it hasn't become already. One might say that the differentiation between what is and what isn't classical music is becoming increasingly blurred. A number of people I know from my local Recorded Music Society seem happy to consider this type of film music as classical music. Many see performers such as Katherine Jenkins, Russell Watson and Alfie Boe as classical music singers and see little difference between them singing say 'Abide with Me' or 'Ave Maria' to Elin Manahan Thomas or Lesley Garrett singing the same songs.

[Alison]

I am afraid "Classical Music" can not be defined.
The border lines are fluent (depending on the era) and on top of that the blurring grey areas at both sides of the border lines not particularly narrow

It is very well possible to describe what is meant, but as (classical, but not exclusively so: Jazz-, operetta-, film- ) music itself cannot be divided into strict categories, it is even more difficult -if not impossible- to do the same with composers.

Whatever is "defined" or described, there will be a discussion whether a piece or a composer is "classical" .

IMHO the best we can do is using a workable "working thesis" about what is meant, and use it as consistent as possble, as SC excellently has done IMVHO.

Surely this is the perfect summation.

[MrGongGong]

I am afraid "Classical Music" can not be defined.

Why be 'afraid' ?

The definition that many use (which obviously doesn't just relate to music from the 'classical period') seems to be more to align 'classical' music with 'court music' (to include religious music). So North Indian 'classical' music, Javanese Gamelan, Gagaku etc ARE 'classical musics' . The problem (which is interesting ) comes when one encounters musics from cultures with no 'court' or building based religion , Tuva being a case in point IMV.
One of the interesting trends in Ethnomusicology is the way in which it has been turned back onto the west and used to study the indigenous musics of 'tribes' in our society... (http://www.city.ac.uk/arts-social-sc...ephen-cottrell)

I always used to think of myself as being outside 'classical' music until a piece I wrote was chosen as a recommended performance in Classical Music Magazine (which has resulted in endless teasing from my children for selling out my experimentalist principles , though i'm not sure that they should complain as it paid for a rather good holiday !)

[french frank]

Hiya French Frank,

What with the increasing popularity of performers such as John Wilson Orchestra and Carl Davis's popular proms with their music from the movies being broadcast at the BBC Proms and on Radio 3 it is already close to becoming part of Radio 3's basic repertoire if it hasn't become already.

Yes, but that's a different point. Radio 3 playing non classical music in order to increase its audience may be highly influential in getting people to accept what Radio 3 says. But that isn't the same as playing John Williams' classical pieces as part of its basic repertoire which was the point I was making.

Is the definition of 'classical music' to be 'music played on Radio 3'? In which case, essentially one person has the power to dictate what classical music is. Well, that's World on 3, Late Junction, Jazz Record Requests all part of the same thing.

Similarly, is the definition to be dictated by those people who prefer Katherine Jenkins singing Abide With Me to DFD singing Du bist die Ruh? The agenda is big sales, big audiences, increasing the popularity. As long as people find that a satisfactory motivation... But many contemporary composers may as well make up their minds that they're just amusing themselves for as long as they live, and as long as it pays the bills, well, why not go over to electronic versions of Abide With Me? It's all just one big happy family

[french frank]

Vaughan Williams Symphony 7 classical ? Vaughan Williams music to Scott of the Antarctic not classical ?

But that's a fairly easy example to unravel, where categories blur. Just because you lure someone into saying RVW's Scott of the Antarctic "is" 'classical music' doesn't mean Star Wars is classical music because both are 'film music'. Scott of the Antarctic "is" classical music because it's as near as dammit the 7th symphony (core definition), not because it's film music.

[mercia]

Shostakovich Jazz Suites ?
Scott Joplin piano rags ?
Christmas carols ?

[french frank]

Shostakovich Jazz Suites ?

I dealt with that in the first paragraph of #24.

The mistake people make is in thinking that because there are no hard and fast boundaries, there can't be 'categories'. Back to the old example of the colour spectrum. Blue merges into green to such an extent that people will disagree as to whether something is 'blue' or 'green'. But that dosn't alter the fact that in the dead centre of the categories blue is blue and green is green, and most people would be quite certain as to which is which. The mistake is insisting on trying to include every individual example in one category or another. That is what doesn't work. You don't have to do it.

[LeMartinPecheur]

Scott of the Antarctic "is" classical music because it's as near as dammit the 7th symphony (core definition), not because it's film music.

ff: ummm, at some risk of going over ground well-trodden in the threads on film music in the summer (or opening old wounds?), I'd stick out for Scott of the Antarctic not being classical because it's really not part of the classical concert repertoire. Some film music is definitely classical in my book (Walton's Henry V suite for example) on this criterion, but not very much.

I suppose I am in some difficulties on something like RVW's other film music, e.g. that for The England of Elizabeth. Previn recorded a suite from it, but Ahah! that was a suite arr. Muir Mattheson, so definitely intended for the concert hall.

So I stick with the proposition that film music isn't classical music simply by virtue of being played by a SO (or chamber ensemble, piano etc): there has to be some adaptation by the composer or some sympathetic arranger for performance to 'ordinary classical music lovers'...

...like us (me), obviously

[Alison]

You're doing well Frankie, keep up the good work.

[french frank]

Hee, hee - thanks Ali!

LMP, I put "is" in inverted commas especially to flag up a sort of 'is it, isn't it'. But:

http://seenandheard-international.com/2012/02/city-of-london-sinfonia-pay-fitting-tribute-to-scott-of-the-antarctic-in-symphony-hall/

"Stephen Hogger’s reconstructed Suite from Vaughan Williams’ most celebrated contribution to the genre of film music will be familiar to VW devotees through the superb Chandos recording released a few years ago."

And:

"The 41-minute suite is distinct from the symphony, containing as it does extensive passages of music that have never been played before" elsewhere.

[MrGongGong]

If one finds it necessary to use the C word to describe music that isn't from the Classical Period
then it would seem to be fairly obvious that RVW wrote 'Classical' music , including the music he wrote for film

What is more interesting are the edges, where one supposed 'style' becomes another

Is Evan Parker a "Jazz" musician ?
Why is Glen Millers music in the "Jazz" section when it contains less improvisation than many performances of the Matthew Passion ? and so on

Is every string quartet 'classical' (or even 'Classical' ?) music ?
If I write a piece for an ensemble that plays predominantly 'Classical' music , will my piece be perceived as part of that tradition ? If i transcribe the same music for Big Band will it become "Jazz" ?

and so on

[french frank]

All those questions can be answered fairly straightforwardly. And provoke new questions.

If one finds it necessary to use the C word to describe music that isn't from the Classical Period
then it would seem to be fairly obvious that RVW wrote 'Classical' music , including the music he wrote for film

What is more interesting are the edges, where one supposed 'style' becomes another

Is Evan Parker a "Jazz" musician ?
Why is Glen Millers music in the "Jazz" section when it contains less improvisation than many performances of the Matthew Passion ? and so on

Is every string quartet 'classical' (or even 'Classical' ?) music ?
If I write a piece for an ensemble that plays predominantly 'Classical' music , will my piece be perceived as part of that tradition ? If i transcribe the same music for Big Band will it become "Jazz" ?

and so on

[Serial_Apologist]

If one finds it necessary to use the C word to describe music that isn't from the Classical Period
then it would seem to be fairly obvious that RVW wrote 'Classical' music , including the music he wrote for film

What is more interesting are the edges, where one supposed 'style' becomes another

Is Evan Parker a "Jazz" musician ?

Yes, when he is playing jazz. (But he will probably disagree if I tell him so, acknowledging jazz influences but saying his emergence post-dates that of players describable as jazz persons and belongs to free improvisation).

Why is Glen Millers music in the "Jazz" section when it contains less improvisation than many performances of the Matthew Passion ? and so on

One could categorise GM as genetically modified - sorry! - commercialised jazz.

Is every string quartet 'classical' (or even 'Classical' ?) music ?

Possibly. But I haven't yet heard a piece titled string quartet that wasn't. On the other hand, string quartet accompaniments (eg to McCartney's "Yesterday") woud not be. Which raises further interesting questions, such as, is Berio's arrangement of this song "classical music" - to which I would say yes, intended as it is for performance in the concert hall rather than at a rock festival.

If I write a piece for an ensemble that plays predominantly 'Classical' music , will my piece be perceived as part of that tradition ? If i transcribe the same music for Big Band will it become "Jazz" ?

Yes to the first question, as long as that tradition continues to exist, (but see below for personal proviso); no to the second if no improvisational provision is offered in the big band arrangement.

and so on

I think the "so long as a separate tradition of classical music continues" may be the salient point re generic definitions. Thus far (just about!) what is agreed (by-and-large consensually) to constitute classical music has been determined by custom-and-practice-based agreement. As long as for the sake of this thread discussion we don't confuse "classical music" with music composed for court/concert hall/church in Europe between ca. 1750 and 1820, we can consider the definers of what constitutes classical music as those to whose culture and collective self-aggrandisement it was composed to boost up. Whenever it was that classical music started being aimed by its composers at working class people - by 19th century nationalist and particularly operatic composers, maybe, I've no idea? - it would be bound to follow that an interchange of influences between previously socially-perpetuated watertight compartments, would break down each area's exclusivity. I'm thinking as I go on this btw, so it's probably nonsense; but iif it isn't this would go a long way towards explaining the downmarket aspirations of 20th century composers turning th jazz and later rock music, and the upmarket aspirations of jazz and later progressive rock musicians seeking validation from accepted or previously accepted authorities - more a case of co-opting from the most advanced of what bourgois art has to offer (after all this is what capitalism's done to street culture) than embourgeoisement of proletarian tastes, since it's saying, look, we can do this just as well as you, and on our own terms.

The longterm outcome of this process of boundary breaking down should be the injection of comunal values of song, dance, "audience participation" etc into high art forms which lose nothing of their emotional, formal and technical "reach" as a consequence of every advance since... whenever; and of the latter qualities into what would once have been deemed lowlier musical forms - a process which started somewhere around the beginning of the 20th century with Satie and Ives incorporating ragtime into classical music and Eubie Blake incorporating classical idioms into ragtime numbers-based opera. The only thing that stands in the way of what would under more democratic circumstances be a natural evolutionary process is largely capitalist control of the means of dissemination - and in that I would include all the arts, judging by artists' communities being priced out of rented premises in London at the moment, which applies to music too.

The more one thinks about it the more subject outgrows narrow definitional boundaries.