People obsessed by categories: "Soundtracks are not classical music!!!"

[Luke]

He also apparently doesn't find Mozart innovative despite being a fan of Mozart.

Well I think his point is that innovation isn't important. It is style that is important.

My take on it is that a) being a worthwhile and interesting composer automatically entails innovation in that, in order to be worthwhile and interesting, you have to do at least some things differently to others - this is why, in his own way, someone like e.g. Saint-Säens is an innovator, b) that style does not tell the whole story (e.g. my Telemusik/Canaxis example - two pieces comparable in almost every easily definable way (medium/source/style/material/sound/date/background) but belonging to two stylistic camps because of the aesthetic behind them)

[Karl Henning]

Well I think his point is that innovation isn't important. It is style that is important.

My take on it is that a) being a worthwhile and interesting composer automatically entails innovation in that, in order to be worthwhile and interesting, you have to do at least some things differently to others - this is why, in his own way, someone like e.g. Saint-Säens is an innovator, b) that style does not tell the whole story (e.g. my Telemusik/Canaxis example - two pieces comparable in almost every easily definable way (medium/source/style/material/sound/date/background) but belonging to two stylistic camps because of the aesthetic behind them)

Very good. Going back to John Williams, I don't seem to find any marked difference in "accessibility goals" between his film scores and concert works. My sampling size may be too small (three pieces, in effect: the concertante cello piece he wrote for Yo-Yo Ma (Heartwood) a celebratory fanfare (For Seiji!) and a brass ensemble piece. Of these, I think best of the brass piece.

[Luke]

Here are more examples of music which is stylistically similar but aesthetically very different. Pieces that prove (to my mind) that style is not everything:

(most of the stylistic variance there is attributable to the fact that I couldn't resist putting the Doucet in)

[SimonNZ]

The most performed LIVING composer
1. Williams, John
2. Pärt, Arvo
3. Widmann, Jörg
4. Adès, Thomas
5. Glass, Philip
6. Adams, John
7. Gubaidulina, Sofia
=8 Shaw, Caroline
=8 Chin, Unsuk
10. Clyne, Anna

Given how much you like name number 1 on that list and of its methodology and its reflection of his quality, have you considered a deep dive into the other 9 names there?

Or are you going to also sweepingly dismiss them as "avant-guarde" because they employ a range of techniques from Hildegard to today as they see fit and need? And remain stubbornly unaware of their unique beauty. Because one thing you'd know if you had any familiar with contemporary classical is that none of it is avant-guarde - if for no other reason than there is no longer any "guarde" left to be "avant". You'd know that if you really made an effort to try.

And I see you side-stepped an important point in my previous post - the need for cherry-picking to make the case for classical-style soundtracks as classical: take out John Williams and just a couple of other names and take out Star Wars and just a dozen or so other soundtracks and your case for these being The New Classical goes from being merely unconvincing to being ridiculous.

[Karl Henning]

Interesting that Caroline Shaw made that list.

[SimonNZ]

From the start of an Alex Ross article Composing For Hollywood:

"Afew years ago, I heard a film composer tell of a director's reaction to his labors: "O.K., now make it twenty per cent more Cuban." Such is the humble lot of composers in Hollywood: they enter the creative process late, they write on dire deadlines, and they grapple with all manner of vague or arbitrary demands. The scourge of their existence is the "temp track"—the temporary soundtrack of preëxisting musical selections that is used to assemble a rough cut, and that the composer is then encouraged to mimic. Temp tracks help to explain why Hollywood scores are too often a lazy Susan of fixed formulas: in fantasy movies, metallic percussion clanging over horns and male choruses in the minor mode; in romantic comedies, a one-handed piano noodling behind a scrim of strings; in period pictures, neo-Baroque arpeggiation in the manner of Philip Glass. Granted, the limited palette of film scores sometimes results from the limited abilities of the practitioners, but almost any Hollywood tunesmith could achieve more distinctive results if the iron fist of cliché were to relax just a little. "

[Karl Henning]

From the start of an Alex Ross article Composing For Hollywood:

"Afew years ago, I heard a film composer tell of a director's reaction to his labors: "O.K., now make it twenty per cent more Cuban." Such is the humble lot of composers in Hollywood: they enter the creative process late, they write on dire deadlines, and they grapple with all manner of vague or arbitrary demands. The scourge of their existence is the "temp track"—the temporary soundtrack of preëxisting musical selections that is used to assemble a rough cut, and that the composer is then encouraged to mimic. Temp tracks help to explain why Hollywood scores are too often a lazy Susan of fixed formulas: in fantasy movies, metallic percussion clanging over horns and male choruses in the minor mode; in romantic comedies, a one-handed piano noodling behind a scrim of strings; in period pictures, neo-Baroque arpeggiation in the manner of Philip Glass. Granted, the limited palette of film scores sometimes results from the limited abilities of the practitioners, but almost any Hollywood tunesmith could achieve more distinctive results if the iron fist of cliché were to relax just a little. "

Entirely to the point.

[SimonNZ]

Fram a talk between Philip Glass and John Corigliano in Gramophone: Debate: When is film music 'classical'?

"JC I think also you can see the difference between concert music, theatre and film if you work in all three genres. You relate to the projects differently; it's like a balancing act. When I write a symphonic piece, the orchestra, the conductor, and the soloist, no matter how famous or important they are, all try to express my artistic vision. When you write an opera, it's in the middle. They sort of want to honour your vision, but the diva wants this, the director has his or her ideas, the stage designer wants such and such. When you get to film...

PG (laughs) You've lost it completely and utterly!

JC It's the director who's in charge and you're supposed to write music that makes that director happy and the studio happy."

[Roasted Swan]

From the start of an Alex Ross article Composing For Hollywood:

"Afew years ago, I heard a film composer tell of a director's reaction to his labors: "O.K., now make it twenty per cent more Cuban." Such is the humble lot of composers in Hollywood: they enter the creative process late, they write on dire deadlines, and they grapple with all manner of vague or arbitrary demands. The scourge of their existence is the "temp track"—the temporary soundtrack of preëxisting musical selections that is used to assemble a rough cut, and that the composer is then encouraged to mimic. Temp tracks help to explain why Hollywood scores are too often a lazy Susan of fixed formulas: in fantasy movies, metallic percussion clanging over horns and male choruses in the minor mode; in romantic comedies, a one-handed piano noodling behind a scrim of strings; in period pictures, neo-Baroque arpeggiation in the manner of Philip Glass. Granted, the limited palette of film scores sometimes results from the limited abilities of the practitioners, but almost any Hollywood tunesmith could achieve more distinctive results if the iron fist of cliché were to relax just a little. "

As a comment on the above..... do try to hear the score written for Poor Things by Jerskin Fendrix.  Apparently its his first film score and genuinely its quite unlike ANY score I have ever heard.  Precisely because it does avoid all of the "conventions" Ross references above.  To say it is quirky is an understatement yet because the film itself is equally quirky in terms of script/design and performances for me it worked really well.  Whether or not it would make for such a satisfying listening experience shorn of the visual associations I don't know but I was knocked out by it!

[W.A. Mozart]

let's go the other way around: I give you the coordinates, you tell me the style, ok?

1. Symphony, 1350

2. String quartet, 1500

3. Madrigal, 1850

4. Lute music, 1930

Why do you want to speak about forms that didn't exist? We should analyze the stylistic evolution of vocal classical music from 1300 to baroque music and the evolution of instrumental and vocal music from the baroque period to today.

[Florestan]

Why do you want to speak about forms that didn't exist?

It's YOU who insist on defining "classical" music as an evolutionary dualism of form-cum-style. I did nothing else than point out the inconsistency of such a definition.

We should analyze the stylistic evolution of vocal classical music from 1300 to baroque music and the evolution of instrumental and vocal music from the baroque period to today.

You have the causality reversed: it's not the stylistic evolution which was determinant for going from Middle Age to Renaissance to Baroque to Classical to Romanticism to Modernism to Contemporary, but the corresponding aesthetic shifts, which in turn caused stylistic (and formal) differences, some continuous, some discontinuous. The more distant in time two periods of "classical" music, the greater the difference in their aesthetics, hence the greater the formal and stylistic difference between them --- not the other way around as you suggest.

[W.A. Mozart]

I'll write one unique post to reply to the various considerations of the last pages.


1) Humans use the musical categories to group together pieces/artists which compose similar things in term of form-sound. This is the simple fact.

Why? Simply because the form-sound of the music is the ESSENCE of music, so a sensible categorization of music is based on its sound, not on other elements about which no one cares.

Classical music makes no exception: the essence of classical music is the form-sound. Some people try to find other definitions that elevate classical music above all other musical genres, such as "classical music = music that is real art", but they are not able to show the consistency of similar definitions and and they end up looking like snobs who think that only classical music is art and the rest is poop.

The case of John Williams proves that classical music can be a commercial product, and this is why the snobs try to expel his music from the category of classical music.

It's the fallacy of the no true scotsman

Person A: "No Scotsman puts sugar on his porridge."
Person B: "But my uncle Angus is a Scotsman and he puts sugar on his porridge."
Person A: "But no true Scotsman puts sugar on his porridge."


Person A: "Classical music is not commercial, unlike other musical genres"
Person B: "The classical music of John Williams is commercial"
Person A: "The music of John Williams is not real classical music"


The "no true scotman" fallacy consists in expelling from a determined category all the examples that disprove your thesis.

Do you know that when I was younger I wrote rap songs for myself, not for commercial purposes?


What about this?

Person A: "Classical music is the music created for pure artistic purposes and not for commercial purposes"

Person B: "The rap songs of W.A. Mozart were created for pure artistic purposes, so they are classical music and should be played together with Mozart's symphonies"

Person A: "The songs of W.A. Mozart are not real classical music"



My songs were even quite original, so if originality makes classical music, this is a further consideration that reinforces the idea that my songs are classical music, once you embrace ridiculous and snobbish definitions that reject the notion that the category "classical music" is nothing else than an attempt to group together works/artists that created similar music in terms of form-sound and that some of them wrote/write music for themselves (in the same way in which I created rap songs for myself), while other write/wrote music for commercial pursposes (a lot of classical composers, including Mozart, Beethoven... and YES, John Williams).






2) Do you realize that if you succeed at demonstrating that there is no such thing as a classical form-style, the logical conclusion is that classical music doesn't exist?

For me there is no problem. To have separate categories for different styles would be certainly less confusionary.
If we used the word "classical music" only to describe the style of music of Mozart, Haydn and Beethoven, we'd know exactly what we're speaking about when we use the word "classical music" and we would avoid all this steryle debate.


The debate we're doing here, however, it would still exist.

I would tell you that this soundtracks is classical music (it sounds like a slow movement of a classical piano concerto).

I would tell you that this piece composed for Indina Jones is romantic music.

I would also tell you that the the composer of soundtracks have even composed some of the best romantic music and that I don't care if it's commercial music, because for me the only relevant thing is the quality of the final product, and I think that in some soundtracks is very high.

Although I can understand that writing music for yourself is better then writing music for money because you have more freedom, I think that when it comes to speak about the quality of the end product this consideration is totally irrelevant.
To say: "The piece A is better than the piece B" only because the piece A has been composed for pure artistic purposes is a ridiculous concept, so if what you're trying to tell me is that the composers of soundtracks don't create great music because it's commercial, you are losing your time.


@Florestan @Luke @SimonNZ @Karl Henning @DavidW @San Antone

[Florestan]

to group together pieces/artists which compose similar things in term of form-sound.

Precisely my point: you cannot group together Josquin and Chopin because they did not compose even remotely similar things in terms of form-sound. (I notice en passant that you've shifted from form-style to form-sound. Why?) There is nothing, formal, stylistic or aesthetic, that unites them. They inhabit different planets and lumping them together under the umbrella of "classical music" is meaningless.

Do you realize that if you succeed at demonstrating that there is no such thing as a classical form-style, the logical conclusion is that classical music doesn't exist?

Yes, and this is why I always write "classical" music instead of classical music. Classical music exists meaningfully only in the restricted sense of music written between 1770 and 1830 (or whatever chronological limits one wants to assign to it). Classical music as a musical continuum starting from the earliest Middle Ages and proceeding through evolution until present days, any two composers within this continuum presenting similarity of form-style (or form-sound), does indeed not exist.

[Luke]

I'll write one unique post to reply to the various considerations of the last pages.


1) Humans use the musical categories to group together pieces/artists which compose similar things in term of form-sound. This is the simple fact.

Why? Simply because the form-sound of the music is the ESSENCE of music, so a sensible categorization of music is based on its sound, not on other elements about which no one cares.

So address the examples I have recently given, please.

Classical music makes no exception: the essence of classical music is the form-sound. Some people try to find other definitions that elevate classical music above all other musical genres, such as "classical music = music that is real art", but they are not able to show the consistency of similar definitions and and they end up looking like snobs who think that only classical music is art and the rest is poop.

I don't know anyone who has made that statement, or one anything like it. Certainly not on this thread. That's the most dust-dry strawman I've ever heard. The post continues like a whole parade of strawmen, so I'm not going to address it.

but actually I have never once stated my opinion on this thread about the question of soundtracks and whether or not they are/can be classical music. All I've said recently is that the style of a piece of music is not the only thing which can lead us to put it in certain categories. Whether we wish it weren't so or not, as thinking human beings we are usually conscious of the aesthetic behind a piece of music. We are aware that John Cage and Debussy are coming from different places and can (should?) be listened to in different ways even when their music sounds similar (as in my previous post). That's all I've said.

[Florestan]

All I've said recently is that the style of a piece of music is not the only thing which can lead us to put it in certain categories. Whether we wish it weren't so or not, as thinking human beings we are usually conscious of the aesthetic behind a piece of music. We are aware that John Cage and Debussy are coming from different places and can (should?) be listened to in different ways even when their music sounds similar

Exactly.

[Florestan]

I would tell you that this soundtracks is classical music (it sounds like a slow movement of a classical piano concerto).

Well, it makes sense to illustrate musically Sense and Sensibility, whose action takes place cca 1800, with music composed in the style of that time (although it would have been even better to use music composed precisely at that time, but this is another story).

[Karl Henning]

1) Humans use the musical categories to group together pieces/artists which compose similar things in term of form-sound. This is the simple fact.

I've repeatedly noted your habit of stating an assertion as if it were a fact. A less elegant but apt description, especially as you persist in the practice is bullshitting.

[Karl Henning]

I would tell you that this soundtracks is classical music (it sounds like a slow movement of a classical piano concerto.)

If it deliberately imitates classical music, it is classical music. And a pirate knockoff of a Gucci bag is a Gucci bag.

[Luke]

Actually, a lot of the classical style pastiches in eg these Jane Austen period dramas are good examples of the way film composers reimagine the music of past styles to try to recreate the sensation they imagine it may have produced at the time. Something that was thrillingly new and exciting in 1800 may not sound so to many audiences now and so to recreate that feeling the music is filled with features it may not have had at the time.

In a similar vein it always makes me smile to think that the train being depicted in the terrifying headlong rush of Alkan's Le chemin de fer (1844) was probably going about 50 mph.

[Karl Henning]

Actually, a lot of the classical style pastiches in eg these Jane Austen period dramas are good examaples of the way film composers reimagine the music of past styles to try to recreate the sensation they imagine it may have produced at the time. Something that was thrillingly new and exciting in 1800 may not sound so to many audiences now and so to recreate that feeling the music is filled with features it may not have had at the time.

Indeed, not an equivalence but something other and a bit more than the OP is perceiving/allowing for, in his tedious insistence that the category film music is a subset of classical music, where the sober consideration is more of a Venn diagram.