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

[Karl Henning]

I don't have a strong view on this and am often told that the symphonic music that I like 'sounds like film music' - but so what? 
This thread has reminded me, however, of how much I enjoy Braga Santos's 3rd Symphony.

At first I was indignant on perceiving (as I thought) that Jas Horner's opening credits music for Aliens was a rip-off of Shostakovich. Impassioned debate here at GMG got me to reassess my "priors" and I freely owned that there isn't the plagiarism I first alleged.
Back when I worked in thw Museum gift shop, a co-worker (who was studying at Berklee) told me that a piece of mine which had favorably impressed him "sounded like film music." He clearly meant it as a compliment, and I simply took it as meaning that he founf that the music was suggestive of [whatever.]

[Roasted Swan]

I don't have a strong view on this and am often told that the symphonic music that I like 'sounds like film music' - but so what? 
This thread has reminded me, however, of how much I enjoy Braga Santos's 3rd Symphony.

Me too!!

[Karl Henning]

This thread has reminded me, however, of how much I enjoy Braga Santos's 3rd Symphony.

How was the reminder triggered?

[DavidW]

I never heard of Braga Santos before!

[Karl Henning]

I never heard of Braga Santos before!

One of my favorite scores of his:

[SimonNZ]

No. However, Alma Deutscher is a successful composer (and for good reasons: her violin concerto is one of my favourite pieces) and for sure there are many people who speak about her.


I haven't disparaged post WW2 classical music. I actually like it. Infact, I've just written that the violin concerto of Alma Detuscher is one of my favourite pieces, so it's clear that I don't have any bias towards contemporary music.

Perhaps what you wanted to say is that I don't like determined styles of classical music. If I don't like something doesn't mean that I disparage it.
If someone writes that he doesn't like the style of the classical period, I take no offense. But you can not touch avantgarde music otherwise the world ends.

It's you, if anything, who despised determined music: the soundtracks. There isn't any attack towards avantgarde music in the OP or in any post written by me. In your first two posts of this discussion there are clear attacks towards soundtracks.

*sigh*

Alma Deutscher writes ersatz Classical/Romamntic like she's been living in a cell with no listening or life experience except hearing those few c.1800 works. She's not innovating on that style, merely reproducing it. The composers she's imitating put their actual lived experience and personal worldview into their music and it represented an engagement with the time and place and even the foreign cultural fads of the world they were living in. Sometimes even the politics of the moment. And an engagement with the other arts of their moment. Like it if you want, but it doesn't give you a pass on dismissing so much of modern classical.

And I like soundtracks just fine. A handful I have on cd, most others I would no more want to hear away from the rest of the film than I would want to hear an isolated audio of the dialogue or an isolated audio of the foley work.

(hmm...actually...please all join me on my new thread: Is Foley Work The New Classical?)

[steve ridgway]

I guess if someone has the appropriate credentials in composition then you can justify calling any of their creations "classical music" if you wish, such as the electronic and tape works of Stockhausen, Cage and Xenakis.

[Roasted Swan]

I never heard of Braga Santos before!

Seriously - you must try and listen to some of his work.  Instantly appealing I reckon....

[vandermolen]

How was the reminder triggered?

First post on the thread Karl.

[vandermolen]

At first I was indignant on perceiving (as I thought) that Jas Horner's opening credits music for Aliens was a rip-off of Shostakovich. Impassioned debate here at GMG got me to reassess my "priors" and I freely owned that there isn't the plagiarism I first alleged.
Back when I worked in thw Museum gift shop, a co-worker (who was studying at Berklee) told me that a piece of mine which had favorably impressed him "sounded like film music." He clearly meant it as a compliment, and I simply took it as meaning that he founf that the music was suggestive of [whatever.]

There is a similarity, I think between, the 'March' from Prokofiev's 'Love of Three Oranges' and 'Parade of the Ewoks' from Star Wars: Return of the Jedi.  

[pjme]

Alma Deutscher writes ersatz Classical/Romamntic like she's been living in a cell with no listening or life experience except hearing those few c.1800 works. She's not innovating on that style, merely reproducing it.

The German composer Moritz Eggert has had unpleasant "collisions/altercations" with Almas father....

https://blogs.nmz.de/badblog/2019/12/11/dealing-with-guy-deutscher/

It is not a pleasant read.

P.

[SimonNZ]

The German composer Moritz Eggert has had unpleasant "collisions/altercations" with Almas father....

https://blogs.nmz.de/badblog/2019/12/11/dealing-with-guy-deutscher/

It is not a pleasant read.

P.

That was fascinating. Thank you for that.

[W.A. Mozart]

The most salient element of that sensible definition of classical music is "imprecise." Getting worked up over what is and isn't classical music seems like a very poor way to expend mental energy and time.

I agree with this and this is is basically what I'm trying to say in this discussion. If the definition of classical music is generic and not scientific, why do many people swear for the fact that some film music is labelled as "classical"?

[71 dB]

I don't have a strong view on this and am often told that the symphonic music that I like 'sounds like film music' - but so what? 

Exactly. Who cares? So what? If you enjoy the music you are listening to, whatever it is, you are doing it right. My advice to people: Explore music, broaden your taste and make discoveries, but make your own discoveries. How is film music defined anyway? Music used in movies vary a lot. Some of it is heavily influenced by classical music. Some of it isn't. Some movies use "real" classical music. So what? We like what we like...

[W.A. Mozart]

At first I was indignant on perceiving (as I thought) that Jas Horner's opening credits music for Aliens was a rip-off of Shostakovich

I don't know, but I think that James Horner (not Jas Horner) took inspiration from "The Planets - Jupiter" for the main theme of his score for Braveheart.
Infact there are similarities between the epic theme of Jupiter and the main theme of Braveheart.

[71 dB]

I never heard of Braga Santos before!

I see people talk about Braga Santos a lot here, but I don't know his music myself.
Could be one of the next composers to check out someday...

[W.A. Mozart]

People, be warned: the exactly corresponding thread on TC, started by exactly the same guy, ran for 243 pages (!) over two years (!!).

Why do you speak about my highly successful discussion as if it was a criminal act?

Many of my discussions were successful, with 20+ pages. Some users have written that they don't understand the reasons of the ban and that they have missed me, since I created interesting debates.

They don't understand the reasons because infact they are silly reasons. TC is highly authoritarian.

HansZimmer is not ArtMusic. 


P.S. what's your nickname there?

[Florestan]

Why do you speak about my highly successful discussion as if it was a criminal act?

If by highly successful you mean that people who adore to hear themselves talking (or rather, to read themselves) went on and on and on making the same and the same and the same points over and over again and over and over again and over and over again, not a single one of them having changed their initial views by the end --- then yes, that discussion was highly successful. In the real world, though, that is called intellectual masturbation a huge waste of time and mental energy.

P.S. what's your nickname there?

It doesn't matter because I never posted anything.

[pjme]

The title is just clickbait, nothing more. And yes, I have bitten the bait, deal with it.

A reminder:

Clickbait is a term used to describe deceptive and misleading link texts and thumbnails, created with the mere purpose of seducing link clicks.
Multiple questions or exclamation marks stand out among the rest of your newsfeed items, attract attention and create a sense of importance.
However, after the over-promise in the headline, we tend to face disappointment upon clicking.

Etc. https://www.link-assistant.com/seo-wiki/clickbait/

[W.A. Mozart]

You just want to rant. I get it. You can't assume that any of us find it entertaining.

No, this discussion is about people who rant.

I'd like to paste some texts that people have written in an other discussion to understand what I've read, otherwise you all think that I'm speaking about ghosts.

After the line, I'll paste some texts written by MANY DIFFERENT PEOPLE. The reasons for which I speak about this is that I think that this snobbish culture inside the classical music world is toxic and that we need to overtake it to relaunch the popularity of classical music.


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"Nate Miller is taking the right tack. There's no point feeding this view from children who are in love with and get excited over film music jingles and then want to bring them into the classical music fold on some personal mission."

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""if you are trying to say that video game music and TV spots are art music you have one more screw loose than I thought

I actually play, so you aren't going to be able to convince me that film music is on the same level as the Beethoven Sonata I was working on this weekend""

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""I bet he [John Williams] is referring to his classical/concert works, you know the pieces you don't like, the violin and cello concertos for example. He's not so stupid as to think his film work is written in totally the same manner and comes from the same place as his classical work.""

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"It's so hilarious that some posters think film music is as good as, or better, than the music of Bach or Beethoven. Sorry but just because you don't understand the depths of Bach's or Beethoven's music, it does not mean that it is comparable to film music. I'm reminded of a blind person trying to convince those who can see that stick men is better art than Monet (or pick your favorite painter)."

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«Further, hz [Hans Zimmer] is a brand and a name that people pay for now, which is a ridiculous concept created by this idiotic industry and has helped create this mess.
[...]
Or like saying we can conclude hitler had good ideas because he had millions of supporters so he couldn't have been that wrong.»

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«We can all call our music whatever we want and other people can laugh at us.»

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«The question for me is always, why would I categorize it as classical? Why would we teach young people that it's a classical work? What will happen if we do?[...]Young people can easily be turned off by the dumbing down and relativism all around them.»

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«This conversation is silly, with you and others acting like there is no difference between the market and audience expectations that all composers from Bach to John Adams write within and the work-for-hire that film composers are working under.»

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«I'm surprised that as an educator you're not concerned about the natural laziness of students and the dumbing down of categories»


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«Think about the consequences when any technical subject is dumbed down.»


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«I find Gladiator unwatchable because of the crudity of the soundtrack.[...]Films have been 'downgraded' to a certain extent because the audience is younger [and more stupid? or at least less educated]»


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"I have a keen ear. I am a musician.[...]The music to Pearl Harbor is trite output. I have to say now that I don't really care if someone says 'Oh but it moved me so much!' Big deal. That's not a critical appreciation. And with a carefully-crafted get-out clause of claimng to love the music for its own sake completely disassociated from the film. I don't even believe the get-out clause, I think it's just a made-up lie for the sake of argument.[...]I really don't care what awards are mentioned or what ratings of Classic FM say. Classic FM is not a serious classical music radio station, it is a 'classic pops' station. One that also has broadened out to include popular film scores for the sake of its middling listenership. It is largely concerned with revenue, not 'art'.

Hans Zimmer is a rock musician-turned-hack film composer. I know some people think his music is godly. I don't.»


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«That you think they are "the best soundtracks of the last decades" is laughable really and says more about the rapid decline of film music.»


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«Anyway, I'm not attacking your taste, I'm attacking your silly assertion that film music can stand with the best of what classical music has to offer. It can't and never will.»


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«You can argue for a myopic dumbing down of music and a return to a different age as much as you want though, fortunately it'll have zero impact on the profession.»


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«Right, so it's still running [the old tonal classical music] then. Best send in the clowns [composers of soundtracks] to divert everything.»

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«You "quote" me saying something I don't remember saying in this thread and something I certainly wouldn't have said because the music that accompanied the first Star Wars film gets played in concerts. I would have said "so what?" and "what has that got to do with its merit?" 22 years is nothing and there will always be a big audience for the trashy.

Personally, I think we can tell quite a lot about how well a piece will survive over centuries. Some will be popular as well while other pieces may - like much of Mozart and Beethoven - be for more refined tastes.»


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«This is madness of the sort [people who think that some soundtracks are excellent music like the best concert works of classical music] that might be expected in a thread of more than 100 pages on whether or not film music stands up as classical.»