Does Star Wars soundtrack count as classical music?

[Monsieur Croche]

What is classical music? And what exactly falls under its sway? The core is easier to identify. But what about the periphery? On the one hand we have church music and polyphony. Much, if not all, music from the Middle Ages and the period preceding and following it was written with one primary purpose - use in the church. Today, we usually consider this classical music. Based on some explanations in this thread, this would not be the case.

At the other end, we have film scores, light music and other crossover efforts. Personally, I am happy to call it all classical music, as classical is probably the closest in nature to it. And this is how most people seem to classify it - though whether from laziness or true thought, I cannot say.  I have always felt that film music was simply a natural extension in many ways of 'traditional' classical music. 

The discussion is not as black and white as some are making it. Here's an interesting example:
[asin]B005FNJL7K[/asin]

Calling this a symphony is like a kid naming the piano improv he's posted on youtube, "a concerto," lol. Of course, there is probably hardly a person on the planet who would not think, if they saw the CD or an advert for a live performance, that they were in for anything like a HaydnMozartBeethovenSchubertSchumannBrahmsMahlerDebussyShostakovich-ProkofievVaughnWilliamsSibeliusNielsenStravinskyBaxTubinBerioIvesSchuman kinda Symphony thingie, so why worry if is called what it is not? Naw... because,
hey, its is all the same.

It is a long play soundtrack, arranged and orchestrated with [sometimes] added joining / connective material, and if anything, it is a five-movement -- or more -- sequence of tone-poems. [I read somewhere that three composers contributed to the job of orchestrating the LOTR Symphony, which is a normal bit of business for film scores. I can not recall that source, and the farming out of some of this work is not a big deal.] Again, it is stylistically all over the map, those again, all old established and 'already done' and once strikingly original styles, and genre writing of one sort or another is the flavor throughout. "New Music," with no real news in it.

Do you think it would ever be programmed on a symphony's classical subscription main season subscription series, or rather be scheduled as an apart event, like a symphonic pops or 'movie score night'? It is / was popular enough when it came out. The parallel of the Lord of the Rings score being presented this way is the orchestral concert presentation of Legend of Zelda. A good part of the audiences for these programs are people who do not otherwise attend classical concerts, or purchase a lot of classical recordings. They are there because it is film music -- not a bad thing -- but they are not there for what they think of as classical music.

If calling it "a symphony" makes those who like it feel more uptown about themselves, does that somehow enhance their musical experience? I.e. naming this soundtrack suite 'Symphony' was all about the marketing.

[relm1]

My first point (well, perhaps my entire post) is less a matter of "classical music VS. other," and more ... something else.

Inarguably, if Williams has written a concerto for flute or violin, we are invited to regard it as concert music. I've not heard them, so I cannot comment; perhaps they are great pieces. The two concert pieces of Williams's which I have heard, were weak.

Why, then, were these two weak pieces given, on two separate occasions, time in Symphony Hall? Because Williams is a famous and popular composer of film scores. If pieces that weak had been submitted by a no-name composer to the orchestra's management for consideration, they would never have been programmed.

The Bernstein Symphonic Dances make a great counterexample, because I first heard them when (a) I had never seen a stage production of West Side Story, and (b) if I had seen the movie version, it was at an age where I remembered the plot, but probably not the musical specifics of the dance music. The Symphonic Dances work as concert music, I should say, because the listener does not require the experiential context of the movie, to consider the music good music.

25 years from now, if Williams's "concert suites" are still programmed, let's judge whether audiences who haven't grown up with the movies find it good music.

Edit :: left out a crucial not

There is a lot of expectation of what a concert work by someone with the name of John Williams would sound like and the concert music does not sound like what we would expect based on his popular film scores.  Case in point, listen to any of this and if the name had been Schnittke or some other 1960's composer, it would fair better than it belonging to Williams.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NRLKIe81HyI

You probably heard of Freakenamics buying a $200 bottle of wine and a $2 bottle and switching the labels but submitting the $2 one (with the expensive fancy label) to "Wine Connoisseur" magazine and it got the top prize.  This goes both ways and Williams is a brand...there is an expectation of his sound that comes from his blockbuster scores but this points rather to how far ranging he is. 

My problem with Monsieur Croche's argument is that he presumes pastiche should disqualify it from the sacred concert hall but there are many works written intentionally to sound like something else (Prokofiev Classic Symphony for example) that are brilliant examples of compositional dexterity and an individuality of the composer though their pastiche is clear.   There is not a good objective reason why some pastiche is ok and others are not.  A better argument that can't be debated is "i just don't like that kind of music" but that is not what is said.  Similarly, music written to accompany another vision does not disqualify it from concert halls.  Rite of Spring outlasted its inspiration and so will Star Wars music which is very good music to mostly silly kids films.

By the way, to everyone including M Croche, I don't take offense at any of this and I hope it doesn't sound like I do...I happen to think this is a very interesting discussion about the periphery of art and people are being respectful even when disagreeing.  I think this topic is worthy of its 40 pages.

[Karl Henning]

There is a lot of expectation of what a concert work by someone with the name of John Williams would sound like and the concert music does not sound like what we would expect based on his popular film scores.  Case in point, listen to any of this and if the name had been Schnittke or some other 1960's composer, it would fair better than it belonging to Williams.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NRLKIe81HyI

You probably heard of Freakenamics buying a $200 bottle of wine and a $2 bottle and switching the labels but submitting the $2 one (with the expensive fancy label) to "Wine Connoisseur" magazine and it got the top prize.  This goes both ways and Williams is a brand...there is an expectation of his sound that comes from his blockbuster scores but this points rather to how far ranging he is.

I appreciate your point.  I honestly believe that I gave Williams's Heartwood a fair aural shake, but I also understand if we want to discount my experience as somehow jaundiced.

In my own defense    I do not by any means automatically shunt "film composers" into second-class citizenry.  One of my favorite pieces to play is Rózsa's Sonatina for clarinet unaccompanied, which is an unqualifiedly good composition, and expertly idiomatic.

[71 dB]

25 years from now, if Williams's "concert suites" are still programmed, let's judge whether audiences who haven't grown up with the movies find it good music.

Why does John Williams' music have to be good to be classical music? Most people here consider Dittersdorf and Glass very bad (thinking it has to be bad because they don't like it), but still call it classical music.

[Karl Henning]

Why does John Williams' music have to be good to be classical music?

That point has already been conceded.

[Monsieur Croche]

There is a lot of expectation of what a concert work by... John Williams would sound like and the concert music does not sound like what we would expect based on his popular film scores.  ...listen to any of this and if the name had been Schnittke or some other 1960's composer, it would fair better than it belonging to Williams.
[John Williams ~ Flute Concerto
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NRLKIe81HyI
You Williams is a brand...there is an expectation of his sound that comes from his blockbuster scores but this points rather to how far ranging he is.

You may be correct about the freakonomics regarding the general reception of William's classical fare, while I feel and think when I hear those contemporary concerti of his that they are generic in the same fashion I hear his film scores to be, as if a director told the composer to write a "contemporary classical score" for a film scene the duration of William's piece, i.e. a film score composer who by nature and the job requirement is a musical chameleon with a very wide range simply fulfilled yet another commission with a specific genre named and required, and it is as generic as the rest of what he has composed. Those concerti show he has the skill to produce a piece of a greater extended length and development, but I find those classical pieces really forgettable, where Schnittke's music has a clearer point of view and a very distinct and unique voice, and whether you like it or not it is distinctly memorable.

This 'not having one's own voice' can and does happen when a composer has been writing to order, it should be said writing well, in so many genres across the board for the majority of their life. Williams may have a recognizable signature as an orchestrator, but to my ears that is as far as it goes. His gift for the immediately catchy and memorable tune or theme is great, and he has used that to his advantage, and to his credit, in his film scores. It is so often the dictates of writing for films, as we hear in the Star Wars scores and the one concert suite, to 'write like this composer or piece,' and Williams fulfilled the job requirement commendably. Upon request, he wrote something very like a Korngold style segment sounding like from when Korngold was writing for films and was virtually parodying himself, a segment as close as possible to Host's Neptune,, another segment as close as possible to a bit of Le Sacre du Printemps, etc. all without infringing upon any copyrights. The level of skill needed to pull that off is not in dispute.

My problem with Monsieur Croche's argument is that he presumes pastiche should disqualify it from the sacred concert hall,

I should probably also put beside the signature motto in my profile, "Nothing Sacred."

but there are many works written intentionally to sound like something else (Prokofiev Classic Symphony for example) that are brilliant examples of compositional dexterity and an individuality of the composer though their pastiche is clear.  There is not a good objective reason why some pastiche is ok and others are not.

There is no question of there ever being one good objective reason when it comes to pastiche, and I doubt there ever will be one

The Prokofiev Classical Symphony is cast in a very straightforward symphonic form from the early Classical era, and though a bit restrained in its harmony, is otherwise thoroughly Prokofiev. As you said, the composer's "personality," his musical DNA, is stamped all over the work. William's DNA seems to me to be that signature orchestration, and in the contemporary concerti for the classical venue, there is nothing distinct about either the musical content or its orchestration. [The vast majority of the classical repertoire is the opposite of pastiche, parody, or hommage works, all of those genres are but tiny percent; a uniqueness to the music and a distinct personal voice are both major criteria for classical.]

When it comes to something "well-written" yet that much less distinct than William's Star Wars, I cite the lately mentioned Symphony from The Lord of The Rings film trilogy; it is a suite, actually. It sounds to me like an Irish stew of everything from Carl Maria von Weber through to I don't know what, with a bit of generic Irish pennywhistle balladeering tossed in, and then left in a crock pot on slow cook for such a length of time that any flavor the ingredients might have had or had chance to effect the other flavors is long ago boiled away into a tasteless gruel. I really do not get, other than a deep affection for the film with the music as a mnemonic trigger to recall the film, why anyone who claims to like pretty much any kind of music would want that. It is devoid of any personality whatsoever. I wouldn't be surprised if it somehow works in the films, though those too were an exercise in inadvertently giving the viewer a very good idea of what it is like to sit through a freakin actual eternity.

My main 'complaint' about a lot of this generic, pastiche, 'borrowed,' or 'parallel to an already known classical piece' film score fare, is that to anyone who has a really well rehearsed familiarity with the classical rep, much of it becomes a direct and painful reminder of far stronger/better preexisting pieces and composers, the originals then coming to to the fore as what I would rather hear while the film score then pales and sounds to me like a tacky-corny-hokey generic substitute, [an inevitable result, I think, of decades of familiarity with 'classical.'] It is impossible to wipe the memory of the latter to enjoy the former, where when listening to Prokofiev's Classical Symphony I do not feel compelled to instead want to hear CPE Bach, Haydn or Mozart, because whatever that Classical Symphony is, it is Prokofiev all the way, the composer was not in the least cribbing from or imitating anything in any way.

Rite of Spring outlasted its inspiration and so will Star Wars music which is very good music to mostly silly kids films.

"Mostly silly kids films." B....b...but, those films are art. Or at the least, you have mortally offended several generations for whom those films have deeply affected their imaginations, having seen them as young children, and for whom the sentimental attachment with both the film and the music scores therefrom, is deep.
Do many who love the Peer Gynt suite have any attachment to, or knowledge of, the play for which the music was originally composed?
If the Star Wars films continue to be loved and effect future generations, the Star Wars concert suite will probably live on and continue to excite and please, at least please those who somehow have strong sentimental attachments to the films. It may be catchy enough to survive a disassociation from the films and still have some life of its own, but I somehow think it would not maintain its stamina without.

Film score fans are the ones who most keep the film scores of older films alive. From those older film score masters such as Bernard Herrmann and others have composed, it is often the theme music which still lingers in memory. These share what most film scores share, the quick hit necessary in the time allotted to grab the listener immediately, an goodly amount of repetition of the same material, etc.

Whether it is Hermann, Howard Shore or Williams, what ends up lasting at all from the film scores is but a few scant minutes of all the music originally written.
Star Wars suite is ca. fifteen minutes.
Bernard Herrmann's Vertigo suite, all of ten minutes.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R_6euCUJ0Tg
North by Northwest, the theme music, really, three minutes, ten
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=db4LjufUY-Y

I happen to think this is a very interesting discussion about the periphery of art and people are being respectful even when disagreeing.  I think this topic is worthy of its 40 pages.

It is interesting, what people think is classical, what others claim to 'just know' is classical, and that contentious thing of what is art. Even if their are finite definitions for those, lines are always movable, so I think the biggest part of discussion is more like, "how far can those lines be moved before...."

[Monsieur Croche]

Why does John Williams' music have to be good to be classical music? Most people here consider Dittersdorf and Glass very bad (thinking it has to be bad because they don't like it), but still call it classical music.

If it does not have to be great or good to be film music, the same goes for classcal... I hold up anything by one Gabriel Pierné Piano Concerto as but one exhibit A, your honor.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jUjtXezU6cg
[There are dozens of other composers and/or particular pieces, of both film score and classical, that are interchangeable as exhibit A]

[jochanaan]

The point was made earlier that classical music was primarily made to be listened to, not as an adjunct to another form of entertainment. I am not sure that was inevitably so...

Opera?  Ballet?  Incidental music?  Sinfonia Antarctica?

[relm1]

You may be correct about the freakonomics regarding the general reception of William's classical fare, while I feel and think when I hear those contemporary concerti of his that they are generic in the same fashion I hear his film scores to be, as if a director told the composer to write a "contemporary classical score" for a film scene the duration of William's piece, i.e. a film score composer who by nature and the job requirement is a musical chameleon with a very wide range simply fulfilled yet another commission with a specific genre named and required, and it is as generic as the rest of what he has composed. Those concerti show he has the skill to produce a piece of a greater extended length and development, but I find those classical pieces really forgettable, where Schnittke's music has a clearer point of view and a very distinct and unique voice, and whether you like it or not it is distinctly memorable.

This 'not having one's own voice' can and does happen when a composer has been writing to order, it should be said writing well, in so many genres across the board for the majority of their life. Williams may have a recognizable signature as an orchestrator, but to my ears that is as far as it goes. His gift for the immediately catchy and memorable tune or theme is great, and he has used that to his advantage, and to his credit, in his film scores. It is so often the dictates of writing for films, as we hear in the Star Wars scores and the one concert suite, to 'write like this composer or piece,' and Williams fulfilled the job requirement commendably. Upon request, he wrote something very like a Korngold style segment sounding like from when Korngold was writing for films and was virtually parodying himself, a segment as close as possible to Host's Neptune,, another segment as close as possible to a bit of Le Sacre du Printemps, etc. all without infringing upon any copyrights. The level of skill needed to pull that off is not in dispute.
I should probably also put beside the signature motto in my profile, "Nothing Sacred." 
There is no question of there ever being one good objective reason when it comes to pastiche, and I doubt there ever will be one

The Prokofiev Classical Symphony is cast in a very straightforward symphonic form from the early Classical era, and though a bit restrained in its harmony, is otherwise thoroughly Prokofiev. As you said, the composer's "personality," his musical DNA, is stamped all over the work. William's DNA seems to me to be that signature orchestration, and in the contemporary concerti for the classical venue, there is nothing distinct about either the musical content or its orchestration. [The vast majority of the classical repertoire is the opposite of pastiche, parody, or hommage works, all of those genres are but tiny percent; a uniqueness to the music and a distinct personal voice are both major criteria for classical.]

When it comes to something "well-written" yet that much less distinct than William's Star Wars, I cite the lately mentioned Symphony from The Lord of The Rings film trilogy; it is a suite, actually. It sounds to me like an Irish stew of everything from Carl Maria von Weber through to I don't know what, with a bit of generic Irish pennywhistle balladeering tossed in, and then left in a crock pot on slow cook for such a length of time that any flavor the ingredients might have had or had chance to effect the other flavors is long ago boiled away into a tasteless gruel. I really do not get, other than a deep affection for the film with the music as a mnemonic trigger to recall the film, why anyone who claims to like pretty much any kind of music would want that. It is devoid of any personality whatsoever. I wouldn't be surprised if it somehow works in the films, though those too were an exercise in inadvertently giving the viewer a very good idea of what it is like to sit through a freakin actual eternity.

My main 'complaint' about a lot of this generic, pastiche, 'borrowed,' or 'parallel to an already known classical piece' film score fare, is that to anyone who has a really well rehearsed familiarity with the classical rep, much of it becomes a direct and painful reminder of far stronger/better preexisting pieces and composers, the originals then coming to to the fore as what I would rather hear while the film score then pales and sounds to me like a tacky-corny-hokey generic substitute, [an inevitable result, I think, of decades of familiarity with 'classical.'] It is impossible to wipe the memory of the latter to enjoy the former, where when listening to Prokofiev's Classical Symphony I do not feel compelled to instead want to hear CPE Bach, Haydn or Mozart, because whatever that Classical Symphony is, it is Prokofiev all the way, the composer was not in the least cribbing from or imitating anything in any way.
"Mostly silly kids films." B....b...but, those films are art. Or at the least, you have mortally offended several generations for whom those films have deeply affected their imaginations, having seen them as young children, and for whom the sentimental attachment with both the film and the music scores therefrom, is deep.
Do many who love the Peer Gynt suite have any attachment to, or knowledge of, the play for which the music was originally composed?
If the Star Wars films continue to be loved and effect future generations, the Star Wars concert suite will probably live on and continue to excite and please, at least please those who somehow have strong sentimental attachments to the films. It may be catchy enough to survive a disassociation from the films and still have some life of its own, but I somehow think it would not maintain its stamina without.

Film score fans are the ones who most keep the film scores of older films alive. From those older film score masters such as Bernard Herrmann and others have composed, it is often the theme music which still lingers in memory. These share what most film scores share, the quick hit necessary in the time allotted to grab the listener immediately, an goodly amount of repetition of the same material, etc.

Whether it is Hermann, Howard Shore or Williams, what ends up lasting at all from the film scores is but a few scant minutes of all the music originally written.
Star Wars suite is ca. fifteen minutes.
Bernard Herrmann's Vertigo suite, all of ten minutes.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R_6euCUJ0Tg
North by Northwest, the theme music, really, three minutes, ten
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=db4LjufUY-Y
It is interesting, what people think is classical, what others claim to 'just know' is classical, and that contentious thing of what is art. Even if their are finite definitions for those, lines are always movable, so I think the biggest part of discussion is more like, "how far can those lines be moved before...."

Grrr, it's just not so easy to respond to large multi quote posts so don't interpret that as agreement with you!  Some people happen to like pastiche is done well. I LOVE Atterberg and he is a pastiche composer.  Some of his music is extremely engaging and totally derivative.  YOU tell me why that's bad for me to love?  I adore it.  There is an implicit egocentricity in your point of view that needs to be defended unless you become labeled as an elitist who is frankly outmoded and I expect you take issue to that. 

To me, the fact that you find "I find those classical pieces really forgettable, where Schnittke's music has a clearer point of view and a very distinct and unique voice, and whether you like it or not it is distinctly memorable" is irrelevant.  I disagree and this is purely a subjective matter.  I happen to enjoy Schnittke and Williams and find you to be lacking in understanding if you don't agree...see that isn't very productive point of view (even when true).  You are effectively saying "drama is art" and someone else can say "comedy is art"...now what?  You did clarity "to my ears" but this demands a challenge of what qualifies you to such an opinion?  If you tell me because you have spent your life as a composer of pure art, I will listen more than "because I just know". 

Your point about Prokofiev makes no sense.  You are effectively saying because he did a good job of imitating another style qualities him as original but another listener could say for that exact reason it is pastiche!  To me, when I hear Williams, I hear his DNA all over it even when he plays other styles and that is exactly why I call it unique.  It is like a Stravinsky version of Debussy.  He is an amalgamation of what he loved and grew up with.  That is what composers do.  You are misinformed and generalize too much.

"This 'not having one's own voice' can and does happen when a composer has been writing to order, it should be said writing well, in so many genres across the board for the majority of their life. Williams may have a recognizable signature as an orchestrator, but to my ears that is as far as it goes."

Williams absolutely has a recognizable style that is uniquely his own.  Like any artist he is an amalgamation of his influences filtered through craftsmanship.  Name one artist who isn't that?   Composers don't create in a vacuum ignoring everything else, they meld what resonates with them (usually what they were influenced by in their youth) and in time they hopefully mature and shake off some of what once fascinated them or at least get a greater control of the elements to know how best to exploit what fascinated them in the first place.  What artist is this not the case for?

I do not consider the film scores to be classical music but the concert suites of these films are flushed out works that do qualify as stand along works like Bernstein's Symphonic Dances suite. 

[71 dB]

That point has already been conceded.

I'm done with this thread. Everyone can think what they want.

[Florestan]

This 'not having one's own voice' can and does happen when a composer has been writing to order

Bach and Haydn wrote by order throughout their whole life. Just saying.

a uniqueness to the music and a distinct personal voice are both major criteria for classical.

Drat! You have just excluded from "classical" the vast majority of compositions before Beethoven.

When it comes to something "well-written" yet that much less distinct than William's Star Wars, I cite the lately mentioned Symphony from The Lord of The Rings film trilogy; it is a suite, actually. It sounds to me like an Irish stew of everything from Carl Maria von Weber through to I don't know what, with a bit of generic Irish pennywhistle balladeering tossed in, and then left in a crock pot on slow cook for such a length of time that any flavor the ingredients might have had or had chance to effect the other flavors is long ago boiled away into a tasteless gruel. I really do not get, other than a deep affection for the film with the music as a mnemonic trigger to recall the film, why anyone who claims to like pretty much any kind of music would want that. It is devoid of any personality whatsoever. I wouldn't be surprised if it somehow works in the films, though those too were an exercise in inadvertently giving the viewer a very good idea of what it is like to sit through a freakin actual eternity.

Although your prose is as florid as Berlioz´s, it lacks any of his perfumes.

Do many who love the Peer Gynt suite have any attachment to, or knowledge of, the play for which the music was originally composed?

At least a cursory knowledge of the play is strongly advisable.

Whether it is Hermann, Howard Shore or Williams, what ends up lasting at all from the film scores is but a few scant minutes of all the music originally written.
Star Wars suite is ca. fifteen minutes.
Bernard Herrmann's Vertigo suite, all of ten minutes.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R_6euCUJ0Tg
North by Northwest, the theme music, really, three minutes, ten
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=db4LjufUY-Y

[/quote]

What do most people know of Mozart? The first two minutes from the 40th Symphony, the first two minutes of Eine Kleine Nachtmusik, the three-minute Marcia alla turca and the five-minute Non più andrai.

What do most people know of Beethoven? The first two minutes of the 5th Symphony, the two-minute main theme from the finale of the 9th and the three-minute Für Elise.

What do most people know of Haydn? Nothing, unless you consider familiarity with Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star as inadvertent familiarity with the 94th Symphony as well.

Just saying.

[Monsieur Croche]

What do most people know of Mozart? The first two minutes from the 40th Symphony, the first two minutes of Eine Kleine Nachtmusik, the three-minute Marcia alla turca and the five-minute Non più andrai.

What do most people know of Beethoven? The first two minutes of the 5th Symphony, the two-minute main theme from the finale of the 9th and the three-minute Für Elise.

What do most people know of Haydn? Nothing, unless you consider familiarity with Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star as inadvertent familiarity with the 94th Symphony as well.

Just saying.

...and ^^^all that kinda thing, I'm near certain enough to bet one whole dollar, is the reason a lot of folks think film music "counts as classical."

Addressing the Q of the OP (remember the OP?), the Wiki bio article on Williams says this about the Star Wars score:
"Both the film and its soundtrack were immensely successful—it remains the highest grossing non-popular music recording of all-time,"
Non-pop, but not classical. Even somewhat populist Wiki doesn't go so far as to call it "classical." The category is, ta-da,
Film music.

[Karl Henning]

And I, for one, welcome our new film-score overlords.

[North Star]

Addressing the Q of the OP (remember the OP?), the Wiki bio article on Williams says this about the Star Wars score:
"Both the film and its soundtrack were immensely successful—it remains the highest grossing non-popular music recording of all-time,"
Non-pop, but not classical. Even somewhat populist Wiki doesn't go so far as to call it "classical."

That doesn't mean anything else than that the only recordings that have sold more are popular music. Classical music is obviously among the music classified as non-popular music. And pray tell how exactly is Wikipedia 'populist'?

[knight66]

Opera?  Ballet?  Incidental music?  Sinfonia Antarctica?

I assume that is a terse disagreement to what I wrote.

Opera is a musical artform, it survives very well the abscence of the visual.
Ballet cannot survive at all without the music.
Incidental Music is indeed akin to some film music. What we recall would be the likes of Greig, Sibelius, Strauss, Walton and Purcell. All substantial composers who like Prokofiev, Shostakovich and again Walton, provided music drwing on their classical abilities. It all sits like an iceberg above the run of film music which is mainly up-market sludge, at best.

We only really recall the well written Mendelssohn, Purcell incidental music: there was masses of this genre we never bother with now. The Symphony Antartica is a recognised symphony within the cannon, not sure what you are suggesting; it is not one of RVW's best I feel, but it survives its divorce from the visual.

Mike

[relm1]

We only really recall the well written Mendelssohn, Purcell incidental music: there was masses of this genre we never bother with now. The Symphony Antartica is a recognised symphony within the cannon, not sure what you are suggesting; it is not one of RVW's best I feel, but it survives its divorce from the visual.

Mike

That is true with classical music as well...only a small percentage of works created enter into repertoire and transcend their time, most are forgotten and it isn't always the ones the composers wish will speak to general audience. 

[jochanaan]

That is true with classical music as well...only a small percentage of works created enter into repertoire and transcend their time, most are forgotten and it isn't always the ones the composers wish will speak to general audience.

+1

[Monsieur Croche]

You're sitting at home listening to film-score recordings, a friend calls and hearing the music, asks, ''What you are listening to?'' ''Classical music,'' you answer.
This is like getting a call from your friend when you are in a favorite local eatery while chowing down with relished gusto on a tasty Italian beef sandwich dripping with oily jus/ and a side of fries drenched in ketchup, and when your friend asks you where you are and what you're doing, you say, ''I'm dining out in a four-star gourmet restaurant.''

Some will just insist, no matter what, that the made with recycled and inferior ingredients watered-down beverage they are drinking from the bottle with its label calculatedly made to look like the label on the classical bottle -- the look-alike label enough to fool enough people, anyway -- is the up-market / uptown / high end / real deal...

https://www.youtube.com/v/OMFNABbqWCw

[knight66]

That is true with classical music as well...only a small percentage of works created enter into repertoire and transcend their time, most are forgotten and it isn't always the ones the composers wish will speak to general audience.

It is true for almost any art, manufacturing, events in our lives etc, etc and basically indicates that the main point i was making has in your mind been divorced from this side issue that you have latched onto. The main thrust of my argument was that by far most film music is filler, gloop, an extra. A small amout is considerably more. But not much of it. The genre has pulled in a few significant composers to produce work for the medium and of those few a subset of works have been programed along side their usual work and that of the mainstream classical composers.

But I don't think Cinema has produced any great concert composers who have produced concert work that shows signs of being programmed up against LvB, Bach etc. Williams is very popular, but his material gets played in the concert hall by orcherstas in themed programs of Film Music which seems to me to be pretty much a genre in its own right, not to be confused in Classical.

And to reaffirm: my view remains that even most good film music does not in any extended form survive divorce from that which it was designed to accompany.

Mike

[Karl Henning]

But I don't think Cinema has produced any great concert composers who have produced concert work that shows signs of being programmed up against LvB, Bach etc.

Exactly; which is the inverse of the examples of Prokofiev, Vaughan Williams, Shostakovich:  expert composers, first of all, who have written music for film.