What can I say?

[french frank]

I think part of this problem is that the very term "classical music" is about as meaningless, misleading and useless as ...

Semantics. The term is a convention, not a definition. Does it make more sense to talk about symphonies, opera, Renaissance polyphony, stochastic music? Popular music has a range that goes from rap to Ivor Novello.

who would suggest that such "classical music" as Varèse, Lachenmann, Ferneyhough and Hespos, for example, is for "old people"?

No one that had ever heard it (or heard of it) - but what percentage of the population is that? And is it likely to get heard more widely if you don't call it anything ('music', perhaps)? Will that get it played at rock concerts?

[MrGongGong]

There's still the tick-box Wider Opportunities, approved of by different governments, because it, er… ticks the boxes; i.e. most children do learn a musical instrument. A huge waste of time and money, in many instances, diverting resources from more worthwhile musical education projects.

Sadly i'm not going to be able to go to this (i'm doing some music with youngsters instead)

https://geoffbakermusic.wordpress.com/el-sistema-the-system/el-sistema-and-the-alternatives-social-action-through-music-in-critical-perspective/

BUT I suspect it will be very lively.....

What is lacking is a deeper examination (and almost everything Chris Small said)

[ahinton]

Semantics. The term is a convention, not a definition.

Indeed so. Does it make more sense to talk about symphonies, opera, Renaissance polyphony, stochastic music? Popular music has a range that goes from rap to Ivor Novello.

No one that had ever heard it (or heard of it) - but what percentage of the population is that?

A vanishingly small one, of course, but what I was referring to was the notion that people who don't know their Arne from their elbow and haven't heard of Schubert or Berlioz or Reger or Boulez or - er - Matthews(es) would likely assume that anyone talking about any of them was talking about "classical music"; semantics and a convention, as you say.

[ferneyhoughgeliebte]

No one that had ever heard it (or heard of it) - but what percentage of the population is that? And is it likely to get heard more widely if you don't call it anything ('music', perhaps)? Will that get it played at rock concerts?

Depends how you define "Rock". And "concerts".

[Serial_Apologist]

Depends how you define "Rock". And "concerts".

In the 1960s and '70s quite a number of black American writers would refer to "music of the Euroclasssical tradition". Although a bit of a mouthful, aetiologically it's a term I do quite like.

[french frank]

Depends how you define "Rock". And "concerts".

I take up the gauntlet, I accept your challenge: what definition of 'rock' and 'concerts' might include Varèse, Lachenmann, Ferneyhough and Hespos in a line-up? :-)

[ferneyhoughgeliebte]

In the 1960s and '70s quite a number of black American writers would refer to "music of the Euroclasssical tradition". Although a bit of a mouthful, aetiologically it's a term I do quite like.

Yes - I've used "Music(s) of the Western Classical Traditions" - the last definitely plural, even if the first isn't - before now. But, when introducing examples therefrom to adolescent listeners, I've avoided calling it anything - as soon as the word "Classical" appears, it's as if a curtain comes down. And it occurs to me that I've been doing this for over forty years now - a friend at school would play me Days of Future Past and I'd play him Threnody (for the Victims of Hiroshima). I still enjoy the Moody Blues, and he (as far as I know) still loves Greig - a composer he settled on from his borrowings from my LP collection.

[ferneyhoughgeliebte]

I take up the gauntlet, I accept your challenge: what definition of 'rock' and 'concerts' might include Varèse, Lachenmann, Ferneyhough and Hespos in a line-up? :-)

Sonic Youth?

DJ Scanner?

Goldie?

[MrGongGong]

Forgive me if i've said this before

For those unfamiliar with the nuances Xenakis, Bach, Mozart, Palestrina and Stockhausen are all "classical" music
For those unfamiliar with the nuances NWA, Can, The Beatles, Captain Beefheart and Orbital are all "popular" music

Which is fine until some from either group feel that they can't approach "the other" because of their unfamiliarity.
Genres do exist and are useful BUT not always, in the days of record shops I used to have to trail between departments to try and find the music I was interested in, it always seemed to fall between.

[Honoured Guest]

Sonic Youth?

DJ Scanner?

That's presumably two examples, and not a definition.

[Serial_Apologist]

Yes - I've used "Music(s) of the Western Classical Traditions" - the last definitely plural, even if the first isn't - before now. But, when introducing examples therefrom to adolescent listeners, I've avoided calling it anything - as soon as the word "Classical" appears, it's as if a curtain comes down. And it occurs to me that I've been doing this for over forty years now - a friend at school would play me Days of Future Past and I'd play him Threnody (for the Victims of Hiroshima). I still enjoy the Moody Blues, and he (as far as I know) still loves Greig - a composer he settled on from his borrowings from my LP collection.

Not Penderecki, though?

[MrGongGong]

Sonic Youth?

DJ Scanner?

Goldie?

Squarepusher being the most obvious to me....

[french frank]

to adolescent listeners

Too old, too late. The damage has been done

Very small children don't know they're supposed to recoil in horror at the mere name.

http://www.ioe.ac.uk/newsEvents/94987.html

[ferneyhoughgeliebte]

Squarepusher being the most obvious to me....

Of whom I regret I have never heard ... that I (with my principle Musical focuses) could immediately name two responses to frenchie's challenge (and a third after a couple of moments' thought) suggests that those more involved in the wider Musical worlds could also provide even more names. Not all Musicians isolate themselves from Musics outside their own traditions: many are more often eager to expand and enrich their knowledge and experience.

[ferneyhoughgeliebte]

Too old, too late. The damage has been done

I think this is too pessimistic an outlook, frenchie - and flies in the face of my professional life. As often, adolescents who have been exposed to "Classical" Music as young children associate "it" with little kids and old people. Slap on Bernard Lang's Differenz/Wiederholen 2 after they've tried to shock you with the Mars Volta, and they're humming Schönberg within a month!

As I mentioned, my friend (we were both 14) came to Grieg (and Penderecki) through the Moody Blues - and I did the reverse journey.