Does Star Wars soundtrack count as classical music?

[kishnevi]

Amen to both the previous posts.

And btw
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[amw]

How then can we say that any kind of music is, or is not, "classical"?

Well, just because the boundaries are fuzzy doesn't mean the category itself is fuzzy. This is an incredibly common mistake people make about categories, though. "Classical" is easy: music written in a continuous span, intended for live performance using a score of some kind, reproduced the same way each time, and characterised as the 'main event' ie you're generally not supposed to be doing anything else except spectating while at a classical concert. Or more concisely but perhaps more elliptically, classical music is music written for classical audiences and performed in a classical manner. The two definitions say more or less the same thing, for me.

[Florestan]

"Classical" is easy: music written in a continuous span, intended for live performance using a score of some kind, reproduced the same way each time

My name is Sviatoslav Richter and I just want to say that I strongly disagree.

[Florestan]

My name is Sviatoslav Richter and I just want to say that I strongly disagree.

Oh, I am not. I just wanted to know if you really ignore me. 

[Florestan]

I un-hid your response on the off chance you had something interesting to say on this topic. I guess not.

I am honored, anyway. 

[(poco) Sforzando]

and btw

So?

[Rinaldo]

It's all just fucking music. Whether it's film, classical, jazz, rap or gagaku, while there may be certain stylistic conventions or whatever, the only actual difference is in how it's put together. Film scores are written differently from classical scores. But arranging a film score into a classical score is certainly possible? Like it's not a film score if there's no film, no cues and etc?

Yes you can take the same music and dress it up differently and the genre will change, this isn't a new thing. People have been turning classical pieces into jazz standards and pop songs and film scores for ages. That's why I say it's a high art/low art thing—it's of course perfectly acceptable to turn high art into low art because that's seen as raising the level of discourse, whereas trying to turn low art into high art? Know your place, peasant!!!

[Monsieur Croche]

It's all just fucking music film, classical, jazz, rap or gagaku....

Okeedoh, if that is the stance, why care at all who calls what anything?

I don't expect show music, lounge ballads, ragtime, jazz, pop, rock, new-age, Gamelan, Gagaku, bluegrass, folk, etc. to be classical, why Film music, then?

Yes you can take the same music and dress it up differently and the genre will change, this isn't a new thing. People have been turning classical pieces into jazz standards and pop songs and film scores for ages.

N.B. the direction from the source to the 'reworkings.' That is water from the well into a bucket, not water from a bucket into the source. A slightly edited film score, with bridges or extensions, say, very often stays a film score, like Star Wars Concert Suite or like Symphonic Dances from West Side Story remains the same music written for a Broadway show.

As long as it is reworked enough to not be a mere quote or pastiche, spins on classical themes going into other genres is a reworking into the other genre which makes the themes, the song, etc. into something else, with the original departure material but a source of variation and invention: the same holds if the source to genre direction goes from popular to classical.

This is an entirely different ball of wax than the a symphonic orchestration of a pop tune, and that is no more different from a realized orchestration of the original midi score for Legend of Zelda, innit? Does that concert presentation, with full orchestra and chorus, of Legend of Zelda instantly somehow turn that video game score into "classical?" [I think it is so obviously a 'no' that a 'yes' is laughable. -- others, it seems, have other opinions and think my point of view is laughable.]

That difference of opinion is why this thread, in the Beginner's Section, now runs so many pages .The situating of the poll in this section, with its middling split of opinion, I think may have something to do with the 'yes' vote disproportionately higher than if the same poll was made asking those who hold a season ticket subscription to the classical programming of a major symphony orchestra. [That would be a pretty interesting thing to do, actually.]

The 'high art/low art' thingie, better leave that off completely and say there are genres, and within those genres something is excellent, or not. I'm interested, not concerned, that listeners be able to discern genres, for one reason, to better assess the merits of whatever they are listening to for what it is, vs. what the any particular genre is not and was not 'trying to do,' in the first place.

Film scores are not 'trying to be classical.' There are a tiny handful of all film scores written by the primarily full-time classical composer, most of those from quite some decades ago. Film score composers are the first to say they are film score composers, that their scores are not classical.

Let's go back to that high/low art thingie. It could just be that people who get even a titch upset that "film scores aren't classical,' are more going for the class/snob thing, wanting to dress up a perfectly fine genre in order to pretend it, and they, are something else. There is nothing at all 'wrong' with film music, unless you expect it to instead be classical, lol.

I don't expect show music, lounge ballads, ragtime, jazz, pop, rock, new-age, Gamelan, Gagaku, bluegrass, folk, etc. to be classical, why Film music, then?

[relm1]

 
Okeedoh, if that is the stance, why care at all who calls what anything?

I don't expect show music, lounge ballads, ragtime, jazz, pop, rock, new-age, Gamelan, Gagaku, bluegrass, folk, etc. to be classical, why Film music, then?

N.B. the direction from the source to the 'reworkings.' That is water from the well into a bucket, not water from a bucket into the source. A slightly edited film score, with bridges or extensions, say, very often stays a film score, like Star Wars Concert Suite or like Symphonic Dances from West Side Story remains the same music written for a Broadway show.

As long as it is reworked enough to not be a mere quote or pastiche, spins on classical themes going into other genres is a reworking into the other genre which makes the themes, the song, etc. into something else, with the original departure material but a source of variation and invention: the same holds if the source to genre direction goes from popular to classical.

This is an entirely different ball of wax than the a symphonic orchestration of a pop tune, and that is no more different from a realized orchestration of the original midi score for Legend of Zelda, innit? Does that concert presentation, with full orchestra and chorus, of Legend of Zelda instantly somehow turn that video game score into "classical?" [I think it is so obviously a 'no' that a 'yes' is laughable. -- others, it seems, have other opinions and think my point of view is laughable.]

That difference of opinion is why this thread, in the Beginner's Section, now runs so many pages .The situating of the poll in this section, with its middling split of opinion, I think may have something to do with the 'yes' vote disproportionately higher than if the same poll was made asking those who hold a season ticket subscription to the classical programming of a major symphony orchestra. [That would be a pretty interesting thing to do, actually.]

The 'high art/low art' thingie, better leave that off completely and say there are genres, and within those genres something is excellent, or not. I'm interested, not concerned, that listeners be able to discern genres, for one reason, to better assess the merits of whatever they are listening to for what it is, vs. what the any particular genre is not and was not 'trying to do,' in the first place.

Film scores are not 'trying to be classical.' There are a tiny handful of all film scores written by the primarily full-time classical composer, most of those from quite some decades ago. Film score composers are the first to say they are film score composers, that their scores are not classical.

Let's go back to that high/low art thingie. It could just be that people who get even a titch upset that "film scores aren't classical,' are more going for the class/snob thing, wanting to dress up a perfectly fine genre in order to pretend it, and they, are something else. There is nothing at all 'wrong' with film music, unless you expect it to instead be classical, lol.

I don't expect show music, lounge ballads, ragtime, jazz, pop, rock, new-age, Gamelan, Gagaku, bluegrass, folk, etc. to be classical, why Film music, then?

One way to think of this is you are mixing genre's and technique.  A composer can use jazz, rock, pop, Baroque, Gamelan, folk, etc., as a means for expression or borrow elements from these to create something new.  It is a blurry line when something created in one genre is adapted for another or someone primarily known in one way writes in a different way.  I imagine most of us would consider Williams's Flute Concerto or Violin Concerto to be clearly in the bounds of classical music.  What if a composer's hugely popular and classic score is adapted to a suite for concert performance?  I am talking about Bernstein's Symphonic Dances that is a very popular and effective concert adaption of a popular Broadway and classic film musical.  Why wouldn't this be considered a concert piece?  It is programmed frequently and very well done.  I guess at this point I have a problem finding the difference between that and the Harry Potter suite which does develop it's melodic material over the 10 duration very effectively.  So why exclude Star Wars from doing the same?  I think some people (maybe not you) are too quick to dismiss the quality of the achievement because of its popularity and heart on sleeves but it is much more sophisticated and successful accomplishment than you give him credit for being. 

Classical music doesn't just have to be weighty epics that span the meaning of human nature and our place in history...sometimes it can be for entertainment or to accompany a benefactor's dinner party (Mozart) or a set of drinking songs for a university too.

[Monsieur Croche]

Many of us, including some with considerable knowledge and experience in music, recognize that the term "classical music" is imprecise and insufficient to describe the music we love.

N.B. "the music we love."

How then can we say that any kind of music is, or is not, "classical"? Especially when classically trained musicians cross genres all the time?

"Music we love."
I love Gamelon music, Chinese antique 'classical' music; Chinese for the Guqin, Japanese Gagaku, etc. Those aren't western classical.

"...classically trained musicians cross genres all the time." ... and they are highly cognizant of the fact of genres, and know they are crossing genres.

Film composers don't think they are writing classical; they know they are writing film music, identify themselves as film composers.
If and when they write a concert piece, original, not a suite from their film works, they know they are writing classical, not film music.

Just because a classical fan loves other genres... well, I'd like to think they'd also developed some sense through all of their listening experience to be able to differentiate genres, including film scores from 'classical,' that's all.

[Monsieur Croche]

One way to think of this is you are mixing genre's and technique.  A composer can use jazz, rock, pop, Baroque, Gamelan, folk, etc., as a means for expression or borrow elements from these to create something new.  It is a blurry line.

What if a composer's hugely popular and classic score is adapted to a suite for concert performance?  I am talking about Bernstein's Symphonic Dances that is a very popular and effective concert adaption of a popular Broadway and classic film musical.  Why wouldn't this be considered a concert piece?  It is programmed frequently and very well done.  I guess at this point I have a problem finding the difference between that and the Harry Potter suite which does develop it's melodic material over the 10 duration very effectively.  So why exclude Star Wars from doing the same?  I think some people (maybe not you) are too quick to dismiss the quality of the achievement because of its popularity and heart on sleeves but it is much more sophisticated and successful accomplishment than you give him credit for being.

"Why wouldn't this be considered a concert piece?"
"Concert piece" does not turn the genre of the music played in concert to classical. It is a concert piece, of dance music from a Broadway musical, with a harmonic vocabulary not usually expected from within the genre, and still music from a Broadway musical. So are the well-developed -- I'll take your word for it -- concert suites of John Williams. [Gershwin's Rhapsody in blue was / is, imo, more genre-bending than anything Williams has yet done, and yet the Gershwin is more 'classical' than anything else, it seems, lol.]

When it comes to Williams' film scores, they are, by the nature of what the director requested or by the composer's own choice, 'original' music which is such a re-hash of previous composers and styles that it is seriously difficult to consider them as anything other than what they are, original film scores which are a potpourri of new pieces in pastiche or an amalgam of very-well known previous styles all from earlier repertoire, including other composer's earlier film scores, even They are only genre-imitative, their only real genre is 'film music.' [N.B. this is wholly apart from anything to do with 'how well it is done.']

When nearly all classical and film composers, trained musicians, and the majority of those devoted and experienced classical fans all 'just know' film music is film music, suites from Broadway shows are suites from Broadway shows,[/i] just as they reflexively understand that, say, Thelonius Monk's music is 'not classical,' I seriously wonder why anyone other than the newest of neophytes who had just dipped their toes into the edge of classical music thinks there is a question about the genre at all.

[Monsieur Croche]

Ahhh, the character based on the real person who thought his wife was a terrific opera singer and who did not at all like hearing from the entire slew of professional critics, classical musicians and the general public who unanimously said she was not, so said they, all of them, were just wrong... 

[mc ukrneal]

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:
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[Karl Henning]

I imagine most of us would consider Williams's Flute Concerto or Violin Concerto to be clearly in the bounds of classical music.  What if a composer's hugely popular and classic score is adapted to a suite for concert performance?  I am talking about Bernstein's Symphonic Dances that is a very popular and effective concert adaption of a popular Broadway and classic film musical.  Why wouldn't this be considered a concert piece?  It is programmed frequently and very well done.  I guess at this point I have a problem finding the difference between that and the Harry Potter suite which does develop it's melodic material over the 10 duration very effectively.  So why exclude Star Wars from doing the same?

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

[mc ukrneal]

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 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.

A small point, but good or bad should not drive the classification of music. This is a subjective element in any case. And, out of curiosity, what do we call the music while we wait (those 25 years)?

[Karl Henning]

A small point, but good or bad should not drive the classification of music.

Of course, and while I seemed to start to spell that out at the beginning of my post, I did not make that small point plain myself (i.e., that whether the music is good or bad is a separate question).

But M. Croche's point is well taken, too:  that there is a fair amount in this thread of the soft category error of "It's music I like, that means it's classical."

I get your point about the subjective element, too.  But there are matters of the craft of composition and orchestration in which Williams's music is weak.  Doesn't change it from being hummable.  So there are layers of criteria for good VS. bad.  Here, too, the Bernstein counterexample is better written, in ways which are not dismissible as mere opinion.

[Karl Henning]

And of course, Neal, I own your point that there is a fuzzy definition at best of classical music.  And I wonder if that "enables" (in the parlance of our time) the category error ("I like it" = "it's classical music").

[mc ukrneal]

Of course, and while I seemed to start to spell that out at the beginning of my post, I did not make that small point plain myself (i.e., that whether the music is good or bad is a separate question).

But M. Croche's point is well taken, too:  that there is a fair amount in this thread of the soft category error of "It's music I like, that means it's classical."

I get your point about the subjective element, too.  But there are matters of the craft of composition and orchestration in which Williams's music is weak.  Doesn't change it from being hummable.  So there are layers of criteria for good VS. bad.  Here, too, the Bernstein counterexample is better written, in ways which are not dismissible as mere opinion.

I hear you. At the same time, I was immediately thinking of Schumann's symphonies and Beethoven's Fidelio, both of which are often cited as being weak in the craft of music making. But I think you may have hit upon it to some degree, when you wrote:

And of course, Neal, I own your point that there is a fuzzy definition at best of classical music.  And I wonder if that "enables" (in the parlance of our time) the category error ("I like it" = "it's classical music").

I would just add the opposite as well, meaning: I don't like it, therefore, it's not classical music. There seems to be a fair amount of that too. It's hard to be objective though when there are few (if any) set criteria.

[Karl Henning]

I would just add the opposite as well, meaning: I don't like it, therefore, it's not classical music. There seems to be a fair amount of that too. It's hard to be objective though when there are few (if any) set criteria.

Yes, I was just thinking . . . we at GMG have batted this around over so long a time, I think I very likely fell into the equal-and-opposite error way back in the Deeps of Time.  So I learn stuff here at GMG 

[knight66]

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; even classical chamber and chamber orchestra music was often treated as background music to a social gathering in earlier centuries. It was not inevitably listened to the the way we do in a concert hall today. The famous prominade concerts grew out and away from allowing people to walk about socialising whilst the concert was being played. But in the main, our idea of what constitutes classical music in live performance infers that we will be listening attentively and clearly, film music by definition is designed to heighten, comment on and to accompany the visual elements of film.

I have been very fortunate to spend many days wandering around the huge dead city of Petra in Jordan. It is spectacular and embraces vistas, rocky hills, ruins etc. One day I was on my own and went round in my own little bubble with my iPod and earpieces. The Mahler was OK in the context; but what substantially heightened the experience uncannily was when the Lord of the Rings music came on. I would happen to turn my head just as there was a surge, or a quiet moment. It really did accompany the visual element, basically what it was designed to do, whereas, the Mahler and the views distracted from one another.

I don't listen to the LotR music at home, but what happened reinforced to me what classical music was and one certainty is that it needs to be able to stand alone.

Mike