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

[Maestro267]

Are ya winning, son?

[W.A. Mozart]

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

Because my main admiration for a composer is based on craftmanship and on the ability to write inspired themes.

Now, if you take for example the fourth movement of Jupiter, is it innovative in terms of style? It sounds like typical Classical music, to my ears. There are other pieces of Mozart that sound more romantic, for example his Violin Sonata No. 27.

The point is that in the fourth movement of Jupiter there is an incredible craftmanship combined with nice melodies.

What I'm saying is that originality/innovation is overrated. I'm not saying that it shouldn't be considered at all, but together with many other parameters.

If people are totally obsessed with originality/innovation, as if it was the exclusive value, I'll say that it's overrated.


In the works of the most known composers of classical soundtracks there is craftmanship and nice melodies, so they deserve my attention.
I don't care if ther isn't a so great stylistic reinvention/originality in their music. After all, romantic-style music is beautiful, so it's still a valid style to choose.

[DavidW]

Now, if you take for example the fourth movement of Jupiter, is it innovative in terms of style?

Yes due to the riveting five theme fugue themed sections which is highly atypical of high Viennese style.  You should spend more time listening carefully to music and less time worrying about labels.

[Florestan]

Yes due to the riveting five theme fugue themed sections which is highly atypical of high Viennese style.

Indeed. There is nothing like the finale of "Jupiter", neither before it nor after it. It's in a league of its own and I'm flabbergasted that a self-proclaimed Mozart afficionado can fail to see its original and innovative features.

You should spend more time listening carefully to music and less time worrying about labels.

Amen!

[W.A. Mozart]

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.

What do they have in common the two persons in this picture? Their physical appareance is very different.



Well, the first person is the result of the evolution of the second. It's the same person in different times.

I think that the musicologists put different styles of music in a unique category, called "classical music", because they think that it's the same person but in different times.

Basically, what you are saying is that the music of Tchaikovsky and Bach are two different persons because they are different, but according to this logic the little boy and the man in the picture here above are not the same person because they look different.


There is no need to explain that the classical music of the 1890 doesn't sound like the one of the 1700: it's an obvious fact.
What I'm saying is that there is a continuum between the music of Bach and the one of Tchaikovsky, in the same way as you will find a continuum in the physical appareance of the man and the little boy if you took a picture of him every day from the age of 9 to the age of 30-40.

If you take only two pictures in distant times, it looks like a different person, but if you have all pictures in a row you will realize that it's the same person.


Basically, classical music is the same style in different times. You will note it if you had many pictures of classical music in a row, ordered chronologically.

So, it's not true that the category "classical music" has nothing to do with style/aesthetic/form. The purpose of the category is precisely to be able to trace the different stages of life of a determined style, from childhood to adulthood.

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.

If you want you can pretend that the music of Tchaikovsky has nothing to do with the music of Bach (or that the man in the left picture has nothing to do with the little boy in the right picture), but if we decided to forget the historical continuum between baroque music and romantic music and pretend that they are completely separated styles, the fact that many soundtracks are romantic-style music would remain.

So, I don't know where you want to go with your argumentation. If soundtracks can be not classical music because classical music doesn't exist, it's also true that even the music of Bach, Mozart, Brahms, Prokofiev can not be classical.

[Florestan]

What do they have in common the two persons in this picture? Their physical appareance is very different.



Well, the first person is the result of the evolution of the second. It's the same person in different times.

I think that the musicologists put different styles of music in a unique category, called "classical music", because they think that it's the same person but in different times.

Basically, what you are saying is that the music of Tchaikovsky and Bach are two different persons because they are different, but according to this logic the little boy and the man in the picture here above are not the same person because they look different.

Your analogy is deeply flawed.

Basically, classical music is the same style in different times.

This could very well take the prize for the silliest, most historically unaware and uninformed claim ever made on GMG.

if we decided to forget the historical continuum between baroque music and romantic music

Just as I said. You seem to be completely unaware that "classical" music did not start with the Baroque, nor did it end with Romanticism.

the music of Bach, Mozart, Brahms, Prokofiev can not be classical.

The first two were absolutely unaware of, and uninterested in, any such classifications. The labels currently attached to their music are not of their own making, not even of their own contemporaries making, and it is highly debatable whether they would have accepted them as meaningful and valid. (FYI, the first label ever attached to Mozart's music --- and Haydn's, for that matter --- was romantic, not classical, cf. E.T.A. Hoffmann)

[Karl Henning]

Are ya winning, son?

Do you know what is suddenly amusing me? Suddenly, as I've only just noticed, since sometimes the optical brain filters out unnecessary visual noise: all the exclamation points in " People obsessed by categories: Soundtracks are not classical music!!!"

[DavidW]

Basically,

Whenever someone online starts with "basically" it is usually followed by a strawman argument!

[Karl Henning]

You should spend more time listening carefully to music and less time worrying about labels.

He might also study Music History before opining on it.

Indeed. There is nothing like the finale of "Jupiter", neither before it nor after it. It's in a league of its own and I'm flabbergasted that a self-proclaimed Mozart afficionado can fail to see its original and innovative features.

And of course, Mozart's innovations in opera are numerous and pivotal. And we should mention, per Jas Russell Lowell's dictum, Creativity is not the finding of a thing, but the making something out of it after it is found, Mozart's signal contributions to the piano concerto.

[Karl Henning]

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)

Just as there's a difference between knowing that the sun is shining, and actually standing out in sunlight, I knew these examples would be worth sitting down and listening to, and so, I've just done. That Isoldina is a hoot!

[Florestan]

He might also study Music History before opining on it.

One thing I noticed, in several forums, and not only with respect to music: the lesser people know about history, the more peremptory they talk about it.

And of course, Mozart's innovations in opera are numerous and pivotal. And we should mention, per Jas Russell Lowell's dictum, Creativity is not the finding of a thing, but the making something out of it after it is found, Mozart's signal contributions to the piano concerto.

He invented the piano quartet and the quintet for piano and winds too.

[Karl Henning]

One thing I noticed, in several forums, and not only with respect to music: the lesser people know about history, the more peremptory they talk about it.


He invented the piano quartet and the quintet for piano and winds too.

I was thinking earlier that (barring some outlier from Mannheim) he had likely invented the clarinet quintet.

[Florestan]

I was thinking earlier that (barring some outlier from Mannheim) he had likely invented the clarinet quintet.

That too, but as you correctly implied before, his creativity manifested itself not that much in inventing new forms, although he did that, as in taking the existing ones to unprecedented levels of sophistication and expressiveness. In this respect he is a cut above all his contemporaries, save Haydn.

[Luke]

Just as there's a difference between knowing that the sun is shining, and actually standing out in sunlight, I knew these examples would be worth sitting down and listening to, and so, I've just done. That Isoldina is a hoot!

Great, isn't it? The Fauré/Messager  reminded me of it. It always raises smile after smile.

[San Antone]

I suspect that but for his extraordinary fame as a film composer, the concert works written by John Williams would go unnoticed.

[Maestro267]

Probably the reason why he gets commissioned for concert works. Having his name on a programme would put bums on seats. Come see the new work by Star Wars composer...and all.

[SimonNZ]

One thing I noticed, in several forums, and not only with respect to music: the lesser people know about history, the more peremptory they talk about it.

It's our old friend The Dunning-Kruger Effect.

[SimonNZ]

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

Chicken. For the second time you didn't address what I see as the need for cherry-picking from a very small number to try and convince us of a supposedly wider truth. Ironically, you're reusing the same small handful of still unconvincing examples.

You didn't address the Alex Ross quote about film composers commonly being required to imitate pre-made guide-tracks. Nor did you address the Corigliano quote about film composers working entirely to the whims of the director without being able to realize any vision of their own.

Nobody said working for money was the problem. That's a strawman of your own invention.

like snobs who think that only classical music is art and the rest is poop.

Absolutely nobody thinks this. This is some worrying drama that you have playing out in your head: that you're being "laughed at", that you're being "bashed" for liking the music you like, and you need your tastes to be approved and admired by the rest of us. But nobody cares what you like - just go ahead and like it.

250 pages on this forum after 250 pages on the other forum is still not going to satisfy that need.

[Florestan]

nobody cares what you like - just go ahead and like it.

That is not enough. Apparently, as long as there is even one single person in the world who doesn't like what he likes, he'll cry "Snob! Persecution!"

[DavidW]

But nobody cares what you like - just go ahead and like it.

That is part of being an adult after all.