What qualifies someone to be called a classical composer?

[Lateralthinking1]

o French Frank ! - surely you know how language-dependent our colour appreciation is? - not so far from us, linguistically, there is Russian - where there are two colours for 'blue' - basically Oxford and Cambridge - and Russians will 'see' these as 'colours' whereas English speakers will see them as variants of one 'blue' colour; and I believe Welsh divides up the spectrum quite differently from how English 'sees' these things....

.......and Bernstein, Ellington, Robyn Hitchcock, Ligeti, Liszt, Messiaen, Rimsky-Korsakov, Sibelius and Stevie Wonder are/were all synesthetes.

There have been a lot of good points and I have enjoyed them all. What I find difficult with the arguments for and against categories is that most people will at least accept a discussion about Irving Berlin whereas everyone would think it quite ludicrous to be discussing Eric Clapton or Tony Hatch.

This suggests that there really are borderline areas. Maybe those should be described as being in a classical tradition? I really do feel that time can play a part. The Great American Songbook is only there or thereabouts because of the passing of time. Burt Bacharach may have to wait 50 years.

[amateur51]

.......and Bernstein, Ellington, Robyn Hitchcock, Ligeti, Liszt, Messiaen, Rimsky-Korsakov, Sibelius and Stevie Wonder are/were all synesthetes.

I only knew about Messiaen, Lats - how fascinating.

The story goes that when Previn was rehearsing Turangalila with the LSO and with Messiaen present, during a pause the great man asked Previn "Could you make this passage a little more lilac?"

How I would have loved to have been a fly on the wall as Previn presumably turned to his hard-bitten charges and said "OK gentlemen - figure 24 and .. more lilac please"

[vinteuil]

.... I'm still not sure though because I really do feel that time can play a part there. The Great American Songbook is only there or thereabouts because of the passing of time. Burt Bacharach may have to wait 50 years.

I'm sure you're right here - that 'time' is an element.

We see John Dowland as a composer who rightly appears on a 'classical' channel. There were many other lute twanglers contemporary with him, of more or less seriousness. Perhaps at the time some of them wd have been considered as mere popsters of the day. But if their scores survived - their works will now be played with all the 'seriousness' that we accord to recognised Masters...

[vinteuil]

.......and Bernstein, Ellington, Robyn Hitchcock, Ligeti, Liszt, Messiaen, Rimsky-Korsakov, Sibelius and Stevie Wonder are/were all synesthetes.
.

Scriabin too, surely? And what about Szymanowski??

[Serial_Apologist]

I only knew about Messiaen, Lats - how fascinating.

The story goes that when Previn was rehearsing Turangalila with the LSO and with Messiaen present, during a pause the great man asked Previn "Could you make this passage a little more lilac?"

How I would have loved to have been a fly on the wall as Previn presumably turned to his hard-bitten charges and said "OK gentlemen - figure 24 and .. more lilac please"

But, how does Stevie Wonder manage to have synaesthesia?

[Lateralthinking1]

Scriabin too, surely? And what about Szymanowski??

Scriabin was a pseudo-synesthete*, unlike Kandinsky who was a synesthete and composed some of my favourite pieces of music. Like this one:





*Influenced by salon fashion and key individuals with unusual outlooks.

[french frank]

o French Frank ! - surely you know how language-dependent our colour appreciation is?

I do, I do! And there are languages which make no distinction between blue and green. And that - I would say - is their problem!

(There are colour terms in Old French which seem - to me - to be something like the colour of a bruise: sort of violet-blue-grey-green-yellow-ish). And Latin flavus - or yellow - appears to be cognate with blue/blau/bleu.

But the point remains that where this is a continuum, you can't pinpoint precise divisions, yet 'we' (whoever we happen to be) recognise differences at particular points. Different cultures may arrive at different solutions for differentiation but that basic point remains. And that's why colour categorisation is such an endlessly, joyously, fascinating area of language study!

[Lateralthinking1]

I'm sure you're right here - that 'time' is an element.

We see John Dowland as a composer who rightly appears on a 'classical' channel. There were many other lute twanglers contemporary with him, of more or less seriousness. Perhaps at the time some of them wd have been considered as mere popsters of the day. But if their scores survived - their works will now be played with all the 'seriousness' that we accord to recognised Masters...

I love the phrase "lute twangler". It reminds me of Syd Rumpo.

You might have convinced me vinteuil of being wrong about time. I am now thinking of the idea of one person being responsible for another gaining entry as it were, ie Berlin would not be there - and I don't mean on R3 as ff has addressed that point - but there as in being taken very seriously, if it were not for Gershwin etc.

Really liked ammy's story about lilac. S-A's question about Stevie Wonder - Quite simply, colour and sound are felt to be synonymous.

[Ian]

.
What I find difficult with the arguments for and against categories is that most people will at least accept a discussion about Irving Berlin whereas everyone would think it quite ludicrous to be discussing Eric Clapton or Tony Hatch.

This suggests that there really are borderline areas. Maybe those should be described as being in a classical tradition? I really do feel that time can play a part. The Great American Songbook is only there or thereabouts because of the passing of time. Burt Bacharach may have to wait 50 years.

Perhaps Tony Hatch should write a string quartet - I don’t know of any reason why he couldn’t.

Very recently music colleges have started to provide jazz courses, in others words you can now go to college to study jazz piano rather than piano. It’s not inconceivable that in due course students will be studying the electric guitar ‘classics’. Now I know that this doesn’t make rock music sound like Ravel but it might be an indicator that eventually these musics will come out of the same door. Who knows, in three hundred years historically informed performances of late twentieth rock music might be subsidized in order to keep it alive.

[Serial_Apologist]

Really liked ammy's story about lilac. S-A's question about Stevie Wonder - Quite simply, colour and sound are felt to be synonymous.

How can something invisible to a blind person be felt for comparative purposes with something which can be heard unless one is deaf? Or am I missing something here??

[Ian]

I am now thinking of the idea of one person being responsible for another gaining entry as it were, ie Berlin would not be there - and I don't mean on R3 as ff has addressed that point - but there as in being taken very seriously, if it were not for Gershwin etc.

Doubt it, they are both there because the world has decided it doesn't want to carry on without their music.

[vinteuil]

(There are colour terms in Old French which seem - to me - to be something like the colour of a bruise: sort of violet-blue-grey-green-yellow-ish). And Latin flavus - or yellow - appears to be cognate with blue/blau/bleu.

!

... and classically hyacinth - which seems variously to have meant blue - purplish blue - violet - red...

[Serial_Apologist]

Doubt it, they are both there because the world has decided it doesn't want to carry on without their music.

Rather than using rhetoric, can't you at least try and dignify your and other people's replies with more precision, Ian, otherwise you give all the appearance of enjoying argument for purely argument's sake, rather than having anything constructive to contribute?

[Lateralthinking1]

How can something invisible to a blind person be felt for comparative purposes with something which can be heard unless one is deaf? Or am I missing something here??

S-A - Stevie Wonder wasn't born blind but became blind shortly after his birth. Medical experts think that there is a neurological explanation.

I find Ian's point about a society's conscious decision to keep music forms alive convincing. That, of course, doesn't preclude further development. While many of us grew up to the soundtrack of rock; while it was current and evolved quickly; dance music has in many ways already taken over.

The zeitgeist can seem to be a powerful opposition to history but in the longer term all forms of popular music may simply be seen as small countries in the broader world of classicism. Some will be a part of the latter in the future and others will simply be irrelevant. It is the extent of coverage at any given time that distorts scale.

[Ian]

Rather than using rhetoric, can't you at least try and dignify your and other people's replies with more precision, Ian, otherwise you give all the appearance of enjoying argument for purely argument's sake, rather than having anything constructive to contribute?

I'm shocked that you feel I have not contributed any constructive (relevant?) thoughts to this thread, or indeed have not expressed them with precision.

If it helps I will paraphrase "73 for you:

I don't think Berlin is up for discussion as a 'classical' composer because Gershwin (essentially another songwriter) wrote a small handful of instrumental 'classical' pieces. I think they are where they are because the alternative would be for their music to disappear and I don't think that is what the world wants.

In what sense is that view merely rhetorical, in what sense is it not precise?