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

[prémont]

A booktuber that I liked it called it the Twitter/social media effect.  People these days think that if you just shout the same lie over and over it becomes true by repetition.  And since people on social media end up in an echo chamber they become convinced that truth is whatever they want it to be.

Is this what some call "the Donald effect"?

[W.A. Mozart]

No, I don't. I have never expressed my opinion about John Williams' music, or about film music in general. My disagreement concerns you flawed and fluctuating definitions of "classical" music.

Basically, you are trying to show that classical music is nothing so that it's not possible to say that soundtracks are classical music.
By logic, if classical music is nothing, as you put it, even the statement "the music of Brahms is classical" is invalid.

I might tell you that even if the word "classical music" didn't exist in the past, the musical tradition that the modern word tries to describe existed.
Mendelssohn, a composer of romantic music, was infact inspired by Bach, and I read that the popularity of the music of Bach was infact relaunched by Mendelssohn.

I might tell you that Tchaikovsky praised Mozart and even wrote a piece inspired to Mozart's music, which shows the historical continuum between Classical music and late romantic music.

These are good examples to show the historical continuum between the different periods/styles of what we call "classical music".

Finally, I'm not sure about this, but I read that some late romantic composers started to use a lot of dissonances and that someone told himself "Why do I have to resolve the dissonances?". In practice, the atonal music of the 20th century would be the the further evolution of the tonal but higly dissonant romantic music, from what I read.
And of course, the avantgarde music of today is the evolution of the atonal music of the beginning of the 20th century.


I'm not a musicologist, but your idea that the various styles of classical music have nothing do with each others, that every style is born from scratch and has stylistically nothing to do with the previous styles, is not convincing, because even if I'm not an expert, I know at least two or three things of music history.

So, I also know, for example, that Schönberg at the beginning of his career as composer was writing romantic-style tonal music. This an other element which shows the historical continuum between the different styles.



That said, I don't care about this, because to show what I'm trying to show I don't need to defend the category "classical music".

Once the category "classical music" has been broken in many different parts, I can say that John Williams can be placed in the same musical category of Mendelssohn, Brahms, Dvorak, Tchaikovsky, Atterberg, Joly Braga Santos, the late Arond Copland: the romantic/neoromantic tradition.


I don't see how exactly this detail changes what I'm saying.

If the category "classical music" is a valid category and the romantic tradition is a part of it, the music of John Williams is classical for the simple fact that the romantic tradition is a part of classical music.

If the category "classical music" is not a valid category, the music of John Williams can not be classical, obviously.
The same is true for the music of Mendelssohn, Brahms, Dvorak, Tchaikovsky, Atterberg, Joly Braga Santos, Copland.

Their music, however, can be categorized as ROMANTICISM.



In order to destroy my thesis, you have to show that the music of John Williams has nothing to do with ROMANTICISM. So, I'll wait for your arguments against the notion that the soundtracks of John Williams and many other composers of Hollywood can not been seen as a NEOROMANTIC WAVE. @San Antone @DavidW @SimonNZ @Maestro267 @Karl Henning @steve ridgway

[Florestan]

A booktuber that I liked it called it the Twitter/social media effect.  People these days think that if you just shout the same lie over and over it becomes true by repetition.  And since people on social media end up in an echo chamber they become convinced that truth is whatever they want it to be.

To think freely is a great thing. To think correctly is a greater thing.

Internet and social media have done more service to free speech than any other media combined. The drawback is that any idiot with an internet connection thinks himself a smart person, if not a genius.

I haste to add that this is a general observation which does not concern anyone in this thread.

[Florestan]

Basically

Ain't it? 

you are trying to show that classical music is nothing so that it's not possible to say that soundtracks are classical music.

Calomniez, calomniez, il en restera toujours quelque chose!.

You're pretending to read my mind.

[W.A. Mozart]

To think freely is a great thing. To think correctly is a greater thing.

Internet and social media have done more service to free speech than any other media combined. The drawback is that any idiot with an internet connection thinks himself a smart person, if not a genius.

I haste to add that this is a general observation which does not concern anyone in this thread.

Intelligence is the ability to understand and apply logic. Logic is my profession (I'm a computer programmer), but for this debate we only need the logic of the primary school.

In the picture here below you can see a Venn Diagram. The set A is a subset of the set B.




We can add a further subset of the set B: we can call it "C".



Now, the widely recognized classification tells us that there is a set called "classical music" (the equivalent of the set B in the image here above) and that this category has various subcategories, as for example Classical music (Mozart, Haydn, Beethoven) which is the equivalent of the set A in the image here above, and romantic music (Mendelssohn, Brahms, Dvorak, Tchaikovsky), which is the equivalent of the set C (the one we've just added to the diagram).


A bit of elementary logic.

If the music of John Williams is inside the set C ("romantic music"), then by simple logic it's also a part of the set B ("classical music").

Once you show that the set B ("classical music") doesn't exist, the set B dissolves, but the set A ("Classical music" ---> the style of the classical period) and the set C ("romantic music") still exist as indipendent sets.
In this case, the music of John Williams belongs to the set C ("romantic music"), but not to the set B ("classical music"), but the same thing is true for all artists/pieces placed inside the set C ("romantic music").


So, unless someone doesn't want to tell me that I'm wrong about the fact that many soundtracks of John Williams are romantic music, the basic logic of primary school tells us everything we have to know.

[Florestan]

Intelligence is the ability to understand and apply logic. Logic is my profession (I'm a computer programmer), but for this debate we only need the logic of the primary school.

In the picture here below you can a Venn Diagram. The set A is a subset of the set B.




We can add a further subset of the set B: we can call it "C".



Now, the widely recognized classification tells us that there is a set called "classical music" (the equivalent of the set B in the image here above) and that this category has various subcategories, as for example Classical music (Mozart, Haydn, Beethoven) which is the equivalent of the set A in the image here above, and romantic music (Mendelssohn, Brahms, Dvorak, Tchaikovsky), which is the equivalent of the set C (the one we've just added to the diagram).


A bit of elementary logic.

If the music of John Williams is inside the set C ("romantic music"), then by simple logic it's also a part of the set B ("classical music").

Once you show that the set B ("classical music") doesn't exist, the set B dissolves, but the set A ("Classical music" ---> the style of the classical period) and the set C ("romantic music") still exist as indipendent sets.
In this case, the music of John Williams belongs to the set C ("romantic music"), but not to the set B ("classical music"), but the same thing is true for all artists/pieces placed inside the set C ("romantic music").


So, unless someone doesn't want to tell me that I'm wrong about the fact that many soundtracks of John Williams are romantic music, the basic logic of primary school tells us everything we have to know.

Talk about being obsessed with categories...

[steve ridgway]

Sure, you can have "classical soundtrack music" as a sub genre of "classical music"; "classical style soundtrack music" would be too unwieldy as a label. That ought to lead some movie goers to investigate "classical music" while keeping it distinct for those who are looking for other sub genres such as "20th century classical music", "avant garde classical music" etc.

[DavidW]

Basically,

[Florestan]

Intelligence is the ability to understand and apply logic.

12+2 equals what?

[Florestan]

 

[DavidW]

A bit of elementary logic.

If the music of John Williams is inside the set C ("romantic music"),

"If"... last I checked John Williams was not a 19th century composer following the ideals of romanticism which you learned about in high school English if you were paying attention. Were you paying attention back then?  CS types usually don't see the value in English class.  Not all, just some.  And judging by your poor argumentation and lack of persuasiveness I would say you were probably in that camp.

[Karl Henning]

In this case, the music of John Williams belongs to the set C ("romantic music")

You never tire of making assertions and imputing to them the color of a fact, do you?
That, to be clear, is a rhetorical question.

[Florestan]

Are ya winning, son?

You never count your money
When you're sittin' at the table
There'll be time enough for countin'
When the dealin's done

 

[Maestro267]

I have no argument to make. I'm just morbidly fascinated by the progression of this thread, watching from the sidelines.

[Florestan]

I have no argument to make. I'm just morbidly fascinated by the progression of this thread, watching from the sidelines.

I know --- and understand --- very well.   

Oh, and "morbid fascination" is extremely well put. 

[Florestan]

what is the problem here?

Monomania.

[DavidW]

Points:

• These places are where people who like classical music go to hear it.
• This is not the first or only time I have seen programs like this offered.  Two together may be slightly unusual, but singly - not at all.
• Both of these events are tagged on their respective venue websites as "Classical" - meaning that if you do a search by "genre" for "classical music", they will both show up.
• I have also seen - and attended - concert programs which included soundtrack items alongside non-film music. Scott of the Antarctic is an obvious one, but others as well.

So what is the problem here?

I already told him many pages ago that my local orchestra regularly performs film music, show tunes etc.  And we even have a dedicated film music thread.

[Florestan]

we even have a dedicated film music thread.

Absurdity and snobism! It's all classical, stupid! 

[SimonNZ]

In order to destroy my thesis, you have to show that the music of John Williams has nothing to do with ROMANTICISM. So, I'll wait for your arguments against the notion that the soundtracks of John Williams and many other composers of Hollywood can not been seen as a NEOROMANTIC WAVE. @San Antone @DavidW @SimonNZ @Maestro267 @Karl Henning @steve ridgway

Is that what's happening here? We're not just having a discussion where if someone makes a valid point you say "yeah, that's a valid point, I hadn't considered that factor" (which should have happened already).

So you see this as a Debating Team debate where each side has to take an extreme stance that nobody fully believes in and tries to win just for winnings sake? Well, in one of those debates you'd lose points for sidestepping any arguments you found inconvenient. And you'd lose points for making the same argument twice (or twenty times).

And nobody has said that the music of John Williams has nothing to do with Romanticism. The problem is that its a facile imitation.

Now please address the Alex Ross and Corigliano quotes upthread. If we're meant to be "destroying" your "thesis".

In fact, go ahead and address my idea that all this might just be a deep insecurity about your tastes not being validated.

[Karl Henning]

Points:
These places are where people who like classical music go to hear it.
This is not the first or only time I have seen programs like this offered.  Two together may be slightly unusual, but singly - not at all.
Both of these events are tagged on their respective venue websites as "Classical" - meaning that if you do a search by "genre" for "classical music", they will both show up.
I have also seen - and attended - concert programs which included soundtrack items alongside non-film music. Scott of the Antarctic is an obvious one, but others as well.

So what is the problem here?

I already told him many pages ago that my local orchestra regularly performs film music, show tunes etc.  And we even have a dedicated film music thread.

And, while this division of emphasis will doubtless get on the OP's nerves, the Boston Pops has programmed film music for a long time.