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

[Karl Henning]

It's clear that the purpose of the category "classical" is to trace the evolution of a determine style of music through different centuries. It's the only consistent definition, unless you can show the consistency of other definitions.

Your classic move of claiming that an assertion is de facto truth. You've just said "It's the only consistent definition, unless there are other consistent definitions. There have been other participants on GMG who would repeat their pet assertions ad nauseam out of apparent love for the sound of their own voice, but you really take the cake.

[SimonNZ]

The suggestion that not calling soundtracks classical is *censorship* really takes the cake as well. That one is a new low. And like many here I've seen this debate go round and round before (though never so obstinately), always relying on the same cherry-picking of a dozen or so soundtracks as though they make the case for the massive whole. And an even smaller number of cherry-picked composers. As someone said upthread the number of orchestral soundtracks that any people might want to hear in a concert hall would be 0.001 percent, if even that.

Why are orchestral soundtracks no considered classical? Because 99.999 percent of them function only to tell you if the situation is sad face or happy face, to beat you over the head with the mood of the moment.

Why are soundtracks different to opera and ballet as orchestral music in support of a visual medium? Because Home Alone would still be Home Alone if you replaced John Williams with Danny Elfman - and there's only those small number of cherry-picked films where that might not be true. Change the composer on any opera or ballet and you've got an entirely different work, or rather you're starting over from the beginning.


(Yeah, I know I've said goodbye twice already.)

[W.A. Mozart]

I am curious, do you have a points system or some other means of measurement? For example, what personal value do you hold that establishes that Dvorak's Symphony No. 9 is superior to No. 8 or 7? Or Mozart Piano Concerto No. 20 but not 24? Do the other works fall short in some specific fashion?

I agree about the fact that Dvorak 8 is close to 9. Perhaps the 9 is the absolute winner because of the iconic theme of the fourth movement and because it is an outstanding work, since it's inspired to american folk music and so it brings a new sound in respect to the classical romanticism.
I see Dvorak 9 as a beginning of a new era that I call "american neoromanticism", which is the primary source of inspiration for the classical soundtracks.

While in the modern era many composers were experimenting dissonance to various degrees, there were modern composers who were still composing tonal music with a new flavour. Atterberg, Joly Braga Santos, Copland.
I think that the "american sound" is recurrent there.



In regards to the Piano Concerto No. 24 of Mozart, I think that the tunes are not so convicing. Not as much as PC 20.
This is why I consider PC20 as a better piece in respect to PC24.

I speak about personal preferences. I don't have a formal points system. I can only say that the quality of the tunes for me is of a primary importance. However the quality of a melody is subjective, so I can not demonstrate my point of views.

[W.A. Mozart]

1) The OP's recent insistence that film composers are classical composers with their own styles had the opposite effect on me than intended, perhaps. Previously not hugely averse to thinking of e.g. John Williams as a composer of classical music, the OP has made me consider this matter of personal style more closely, and I think I may now be inclined to disagree more forcefully. In his concert works, sure, Williams allows his own voice through. No problem in accepting them as classical. But in his (massively skilful and hugely enjoyable) film scores that personal style is adulterated by other mannerisms and appropriations - other styles, in fact. He is not being fully himself (And nor should he be - that's part of his job). Same goes for other film composers. Just pointing it out.

Which of the two is the real Schoenberg?

My reply to this question is: both! The difference is that the first work is composed with a more accessible style.

In regards to John Williams, his film music is written in a more accessible style in respect to his concert works, but this doesn't mean that the one you hear in film music is not the real John Williams.


That said, I don't understand why you see "classical music" as the equivalent of "stylistic originality" or of "being innovative".

Of the three most important composers of classical music, only one was original and innovative: Beethoven.

Bach was still composing in early baroque style while other composers were moving towards galant style.

Most Mozat's music is written in the perfect fashion of the classical period.



If Mozart and Bach not only are regarded as classical composers, but even as a pinnacle of classical music, despite the fact that their music was not innovative, I don't see why the composers of soundtracks can't be the pinnacle to contemporary classical music only because they don't write avantgarde music. Do we want to apply double standards?


The point is that being an avantgarde composer and being a classical composer is not the same thing: a classical composer can be conservative. Why do you want to use the two words as if they are synonims?

[W.A. Mozart]

Was it perhaps "professional" music that was taught academically, as opposed to "amateur" folk music?

It's anachronistic. Today what we call "popular music" is also taught academically. Do you realize that the day where everyone in the conservatoire will take lessons about hip-hop music, according to this definition you'll have to consider hip-hop music as classical music?

At that point which word will you use to differentiate the kind of music of Beethoven from the kind of music of Eminem?

[W.A. Mozart]

Your classic move of claiming that an assertion is de facto truth. You've just said "It's the only consistent definition, unless there are other consistent definitions. There have been other participants on GMG who would repeat their pet assertions ad nauseam out of apparent love for the sound of their own voice, but you really take the cake.

Instead of telling me that I'm wrong, you could write the correct, consistent definition of "classical music". The fact that you didn't makes me think that you are not able to put alternative definitions on the table.

Let's be honest: the word "classical music" is nothing else than an attempt to group together determined works composed in a similar form-style, which of course, like any other form-style, evolves with the time for the simple fact that some influential composers of each era insert innovations that set new standards.


However, if someone wants to support the idea that the "classical style" doesn't exist because classical music consists of many different styles, then at that point I'll support that classical music is THE NOTHING and that it would be better to simply speak about baroque style music, classical style music, romantic style music, impressionist music, and so on...

At that point I won't no more say that determine soundtracks are classical, since the word will be used to speak only about the music of the classical period.
I'll say that many soundtracks are romantic-style music.

I don't see what's the difference. You think that by playing with words you change the substance, but in reality the substance is always the same: many soundtracks are written in a form-style which belongs to the domain of classical music.
If you want to tell me that form-style is irrelevant, I respond that I absolutely don't agree and that the classification of music should be primarily based on form-style. This is infact how the classification works in the real world. This is why in the real world many soundtracks are classified as "classical music".

[Florestan]

the word "classical music" is nothing else than an attempt to group together determined works composed in a similar form-style

the classification of music should be primarily based on form-style.

What similarity of form and style is there between Josquin and Chopin, Bach and Offenbach, Boccherini and Puccini?

[W.A. Mozart]

The suggestion that not calling soundtracks classical is *censorship* really takes the cake as well.

The sentence must be changed with "The suggestion that omitting classical soundtracks in a database of classical music is censorship...".

First of all, I've added the word "classical" before "soundtracks" because I'm not speaking about soundtracks in general, but only about a subcategory of soundtracks that can be called "classical soundtracks".

I've never written that soundtracks are automatically classical music.



Furthermore, what I wrote is that if I search all the pieces of classical music composed in the last 50 years in a big database of classical music and I don't find the soundtracks of John Williams in the list, for me it's censorship. It's a disservice!

The concept is a bit different in respect to say that if a man in the bar of the corner of the street doesn't agree about the fact that William's music is classical, then it's censorship.

As someone said upthread the number of orchestral soundtracks that any people might want to hear in a concert hall would be 0.001 percent, if even that.

We're speaking about classical soundtracks, not about generic soundtracks.

If we speak about classical soundtracks, I wonder where exactly did you take that "0.001 percent".


Open these statistics of the website "Bachtrack": https://cdn.bachtrack.com/files/350970-Annual%20classical%20music%20statistics%202023.pdf

The most performed composer of 2023
1. Mozart, W.A.
2. Beethoven, Ludwig van
3. Bach, Johann Sebastian
4. Brahms, Johannes
5. Schubert, Franz
6. Rachmaninov, Sergei
7. Tchaikovsky, Pyotr Ilyich
8. Strauss, Richard
9. Schumann, Robert
10. Ravel, Maurice


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



So, John Williams doesn't belong to the category of the most performed composers of classical, but no living composer belong to that list.
However, among the LIVING composers he was the winner.


I'm afraid that when you give your numbers you are projecting your PERSONAL interests on the entire population. Do you realize that your PERSONAL interests are statistically irrelevant?

Why are orchestral soundtracks no considered classical?

We're speaking about classical soundtracks, not about orchestral soundtracks, since orchestral doesn't automatically mean classical.

The concept that classical soundtracks are not considered classical is laughable, and infact it's not true that no soundtrack is considered classical.

A list of websites which list "soundtrack" among the subcategories of classical music, and not because all soundtracks are classical, but because the intersection between the categories "classical music" and "soundtracks" exist and so it's correctly listed.

https://rateyourmusic.com/genre/cinematic-classical/

https://www.allmusic.com/genre/classical-ma0000002521

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_classical_music_genres

https://www.prestomusic.com/classical/genres

https://halloffame.classicfm.com/2023/

Why are soundtracks different to opera and ballet as orchestral music in support of a visual medium? Because Home Alone would still be Home Alone if you replaced John Williams with Danny Elfman - and there's only those small number of cherry-picked films where that might not be true. Change the composer on any opera or ballet and you've got an entirely different work, or rather you're starting over from the beginning.

It's interesting to note that as an alternative for John Williams you give an other skilled composer: Danny Elfman.

Of course a skilled composer can replace an other skilled composer, but can a not skilled composer replace John Williams?

If the films also work with not excellent music, it's simply because cinema is an artform that combine many different elements, and if you don't care too much about one aspect you can compensate with the many other artistic elements.

This doesn't mean that the music doesn't partecipate in the determination of the overall quality, together with all other elements.


In this video you can see a scene of the Lion King with the wrong music.

The same scene with the original/correct music.

In this other video a scene of Star Wars without the music.

The same scene with the music.

Without music at all films don't work.

With the wrong music also don't work.


However, you might support the idea the scene of the Lion King would work even if the music was written by a mediocre composer.

It would probably work, but the quality of the scene would be lower. So no, a skilled composer can not be replaced with a mediocre composer if you want the highest possible quality of the overall artistic product.


That said, the score of "Home Alone" was nominated for the Oscar "Best Original Score", and for good reasons.
With a mediocre composer a similar result would have been improbable.

[San Antone]

What similarity of form and style is there between Josquin and Chopin, Bach and Offenbach, Boccherini and Puccini?

Exactly.  We recognize all of these composers, as well as those such as John Cage, Pierre Boulez, Karlheinz Stockhausen, and Missy Mazzoli, as writing music in the classical music tradition.  Yes, some people may balk at John Cage (some don't even consider him a composer, but more of a philosopher) - but his music is taught in classical music curricula and his music is recorded/performed by classical music ensembles and programmed at classical music venues.

In large part we have inherited the classical music canon and classification of composers and have had no say in who has been included or excluded.  Which is why this kind of thread, and debate, appears to me as futile and leading nowhere.

[W.A. Mozart]

What similarity of form and style is there between Josquin and Chopin, Bach and Offenbach, Boccherini and Puccini?

I have dealt with this issue in previous posts.

Let's be honest: the word "classical music" is nothing else than an attempt to group together determined works composed in a similar form-style, which of course, like any other form-style, evolves with the time for the simple fact that some influential composers of each era insert innovations that set new standards.

Now, if you want you can create a separate genre for each style, but if you do so the category "classical music" will disappear and we will speak about baroque-style music, classical-style music, romantic-style music and so on... as separate things.
I'd have nothing against this, but in that case I'd simply say that many soundtracks are romantic-style music and the concept wouldn't change.


However, the reason for which we don't create a new genre of music each time there is a stylistic evolution is that we want to trace the historical connection between the different styles.
Classical music is the result of the evolution of baroque music, romantic music is the result of the evolution of Classical music, and so on...
They are not separate things: there is a continuum!


Note that you have the same exact issue with rap music.

If this song is classified as "rap".

How can this song of 2002 also be classified as rap?

Simply because rap, like classical music, evolves with the time.


The point is that if I give you the coordinates "genre + year" you will be able to tell me the style. The purpose of the genre is to keep together styles that are historically connected.

[Florestan]

The point is that if I give you the coordinates "genre + year" you will be able to tell me the style.

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

[Luke]

Which of the two is the real Schoenberg?

My reply to this question is: both! The difference is that the first work is composed with a more accessible style.

Both are 100% Schoenberg. The accessibility of style is irrelevant. Schoenberg may be influenced by other composers, but the influence is properly digested - as it is in Williams' concert works, I think. In neither piece is the Schoenberg written through a kind of pre-compositional filter of another piece in the way that (to state an obvious case) William's writes through the filter of Holst's Mars or Stravinsky's Rite in his Star Wars music. He's using their music so blatantly that it's a kind of dressing up, a make-believe, whereas the influence of Wagner et al on Schoenberg is thoroughly digested and doesn't sound like anyone else.

In regards to John Williams, his film music is written in a more accessible style in respect to his concert works, but this doesn't mean that the one you hear in film music is not the real John Williams.

Well, as I suggest, it's a matter of degree. How can the Tatooine music be the real John Williams when it is so much modelled on the Rite that it can be overlayed on it - it's an obvious example, but also still true, as this video shows from 1.22

That said, I don't understand why you see "classical music" as the equivalent of "stylistic originality" or of "being innovative".

I didn't say anything like that.

Of the three most important composers of classical music, only one was original and innovative: Beethoven.

Massively debatable.

Bach was still composing in early baroque style while other composers were moving towards galant style.

Bach did not compose in the style of the early Baroque, FWIW.

If Mozart and Bach not only are regarded as classical composers, but even as a pinnacle of classical music, despite the fact that their music was not innovative, I don't see why the composers of soundtracks can't be the pinnacle to contemporary classical music only because they don't write avantgarde music. Do we want to apply double standards?


The point is that being an avantgarde composer and being a classical composer is not the same thing: a classical composer can be conservative. Why do you want to use the two words as if they are synonims?

[/quote]

The real point is this - innovation is your word. I haven't used it. It's a strawman really; you are putting up Innovative vs Conservative as if they are being suggested as measures of a composer's worth. But IMO in finding ways to successfully be themselves, musically, to speak their own way and not through the mouth of someone else composers from Saint-Saens to Stockhausen are pushing at the boundaries of their own particular envelope.

[Luke]

If you want to tell me that form-style is irrelevant, I respond that I absolutely don't agree and that the classification of music should be primarily based on form-style. This is infact how the classification works in the real world. This is why in the real world many soundtracks are classified as "classical music".

Please apply this to my previous (ignored) point re Telemusik vs Canaxis (examples could be added).

[Karl Henning]

Of the three most important composers of classical music, only one was original and innovative: Beethoven.

Noch einmal

Your classic move of claiming that an assertion is de facto truth. [snip] There have been other participants on GMG who would repeat their pet assertions ad nauseam out of apparent love for the sound of their own voice, but you really take the cake.

[Florestan]

the three most important composers of classical music,

A concept which is in itself highly debatable and ultimately meaningless.

[Florestan]

Bach did not compose in the style of the early Baroque, FWIW.

I think it's by now obvious that the history of music is not WAM's forte. 

[Karl Henning]

I think it's by now obvious that the history of music is not WAM's forte. 

Starting out with the assumption that you already know it all is quite the handicap.

[Florestan]

Please apply this to my previous (ignored) point re Telemusik vs Canaxis (examples could be added).

I'll add two: jazz is clearly distinct from "classical" music, yet the differences in form and style between, say, Chopin and Oscar Peterson or Liszt and Bill Evans are much smaller than between Chopin and Josquin, or between Liszt and Vivaldi.

[DavidW]

I think it's by now obvious that the history of music is not WAM's forte. 

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

[Karl Henning]

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

With friends/fans like that ....