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

[Luke]

I seriously doubt that any serious musicologist would tell you that Classical music completely died after the 1820: for sure, he will be aware that even today there are still people who compose in that style.

I don't really have a dog in this fight; I suspect I probably would but tbh I'm not really sure what you are trying to argue and don't have time for all the screeds of conspiracy. I'm afraid that stuff makes me tend to tune out.

But odd things like the above catch my eye.

Even if there was a composer composing note for note like e.g. Haydn these days (there isn't) the simple fact of him/her doing so when so much time/music/history has passed under the bridge since then/the fact that Haydn was composing in a contemporary style whereas this theoretical composer would be composing in a knowingly archaic way - all this would mean that they were composing from a different aesthetic position. Like the examples I posted earlier (ignored by you).

But the fact is Patrick Doyle's S+S soundtracks are not written in a purely Classical style, for the very understandable reason I also posted earlier (also ignored by you)

[Florestan]

When a toxic and dumb culture becomes popular, someone must take the time to fight it.

Here below you see a picture of me.

[Luke]

Thanks @Luke !  Discovery of the year so far!

Glad you like it! It's a wonderful piece of satire (affectionate, I assume)

[W.A. Mozart]

No, really, your work here is done: Florestan, Karl, David and I all met earlier today and played Danny Elfman's Men In Black soundtrack, and with one voice we said "well if this isn't classical I don't know what is!"

So congratulations.

Where will you go next?

This is the suite published in my channel.

I'd say that except for the Opening Titles (that are clearily not classical music), the rest is modern-style classical music (the one closer to romantic music, not the atonal modern music).

The video, which contains a selection of the best parts of the suite, is structured as follows:
00:00 The Suit [main theme]
01:28 Opening Titles
04:26 Take Off - Crash
11:47 Finale [final reprise of the main theme with climax]

[Karl Henning]

When a toxic and dumb culture becomes popular, someone must take the time to fight it.

I may not be the man's greatest fan, but that's a heckuva harsh thing to say about Jn Williams!

[W.A. Mozart]

I continue to be baffled as to what the point of this thread is supposed to be.

The point is that there are people who rant for the fact that many soundtracks are generally considered classical music and that, therefore, are also promoted and played in contexts of classical music, as you correctly explained in your post.

I don't know if your question was for me or for the other users who deny the existence of classical soundtracks, but since I agree with you, you will have to wait for the responses of @Karl Henning, @SimonNZ, @San Antone and @DavidW who will probably tell you that we are all mad because classical soundtracks don't exist.

[W.A. Mozart]

I will not be going back to see what I missed here...


...but...

...let me pose this question to our 21st-century W. A. Mozart:

If a piece of classical music - Finlandia by Sibelius, which music was incredibly used in Die Hard II - or Wagner's operatic music, bits of which were used in Looney Tunes cartoons - or Schubert's Symphony #8, which was used in early horror movies from Universal Studios - has it become film music? 

Film music = music originally composed for a film

Since the music of Schubert has not been originally composed for a film, but it has only been USED in a film, it will never become film music. It's elementary logic.


The point is that your comparison doesn't work, because the word "classical music" doesn't describe the context of a composition, unlike "film music".

It's a category created to trace the evolution of a determined musical style-form, by collecting all the works created inside it.

@Florestan doesn't agree about this, but I'm still waiting that he explains how do I determine if something is classical music or not.
If it was true that the various styles of classical music (baroque, Classical, romantique, and so on...) were all born from scratch and there was no link between each others (and this sounds completely wrong to my ears), then the category "classical music" would be THE NOTHING.


If classical music is nothing, nothing can be classical music, including soundtracks of course.


However, the separate/independent styles-form born from scratch (baroque, classica, romantic,...) would continue to exist and I'd support that a lot of soundtracks fit one of them, more often the romantic and modern style (in rare cases, the baroque and the classical style).



In conclusion, I don't see what is the problem.

Film music = music originally composed for a film

Classical music = a collection of styles-forms


Film music composed in a style-form of classical music = classical film music

If a rock-'n'-roll song is played by a symphony orchestra, e.g. These Dreams by Heart, does it become Romantic music?

The original piece remains rock and roll, the orchestral version can be considered classical music only if it's actually classical music. Orchestral music doesn't necessarily mean "classical".

For example this orchestral piece is not classical music.

Now, this one is a videogame soundtrack arranged for orchestra... and even the orchestral version is not classical.

On the other hand, I think that we can all agree about the fact that the "Fantasia on Greensleeves" of Vaughan Williams is a good example of a classical arrangement (not only orchestral, but classical) of a folk song.

The original piece remains a folk song, but this version is classical.

If Vaughan Williams made a similar thing with a tune of a rock and roll song, I suppose that we might consider his version as classical music, although the original piece of course would remain rock and roll.


So, your question is too vague to give you a reply. Once you have an example of a rock and roll song arranged for orchestra, we can determine if it is classical music or not, but we can not say that the orchestral arrangement will necessarily be classical only because it's orchestral.


Finally, I'd like to remind to everyone here that the classical film music is not necessarily orchestral... this is a good example.

[San Antone]

Even if there was a composer composing note for note like e.g. Haydn these days (there isn't) the simple fact of him/her doing so when so much time/music/history has passed under the bridge since then/the fact that Haydn was composing in a contemporary style whereas this theoretical composer would be composing in a knowingly archaic way - all this would mean that they were composing from a different aesthetic position. Like the examples I posted earlier (ignored by you).

I am not aware of any calls for novelists to write in the style of Trollope or Austin; or that painters devote themselves to reproducing works in the style of Caravaggio or Raphael.

But I have seen more than once someone on GMG call for composers to do exactly this instead of composing in a contemporary style.

The vast amount of recorded classical music offers ample opportunities to hear music from the 18th, or 19th, centuries. Why on earth would a living composer wish to sacrifice his own innate expression undeniably informed by the modern world and instead attempt to re-enact the sound world that existed 200 or 300 years ago? Film composers do this, but for the express purpose of creating a sound world that matches the tone and drama of a narrative film.  Which alone would seem to explain why these composers are not writing classical music.

Otherwise, this suggestion is tantamount to rendering living composers musical eunuchs.

[DavidW]

I am not aware of any calls for novelists to write in the style of Trollope or Austin; or that painters devote themselves to reproducing works in the style of Caravaggio or Raphael.

I've found that even historical fiction is written in a more modern style.  Gone are the long, overly verbose sentences of the Victorian era even when the period novel is set for that time.

[Cato]

I will not be going back to see what I missed here...


...but...

...let me pose this question to our 21st-century W. A. Mozart:

If a piece of classical music - Finlandia by Sibelius, which music was incredibly used in Die Hard II - or Wagner's operatic music, bits of which were used in Looney Tunes cartoons - or Schubert's Symphony #8, which was used in early horror movies from Universal Studios - has it become film music?  


If a rock-'n'-roll song is played by a symphony orchestra, e.g. These Dreams by Heart, does it become Romantic music?

Apparently my puckish      above was not noticed.   

Last night I was at a classical concert for symphonic wind band, and besides works by Gustav Holst and Paul Hindemith stood a piece by a composer named Mamoru Fujisawa a.k. a. Joe Hisaishi a.k.a. "the John Williams of Japan," as he has provided music for 100+ movies.

Hmmm!   

[Cato]

I've found that even historical fiction is written in a more modern style.  Gone are the long, overly verbose sentences of the Victorian era even when the period novel is set for that time.

I am currently creating a novel written as the translation of a Roman writer c. 480 A.D.

It is an interesting exercise e.g. in the dialogue, one must be aware of avoiding certain phrases or words, which will sound natural in English, but are impossible for a Roman at the beginning of the Middle Ages.

However, extended periods are necessary to an extent, as the Romans, like their Italian descendants, were probably fast-talking jabberers at times!   

[Karl Henning]

I am currently creating a novel written as the translation of a Roman writer c. 480 A.D.

It is an interesting exercise e.g. in the dialogue, one must be aware of avoiding certain phrases or words, which will sound natural in English, but are impossible for a Roman at the beginning of the Middle Ages.

However, extended periods are necessary to an extent, as the Romans, like their Italian descendants, were probably fast-talking jabberers at times! 

While at UVa, one of my recreational reading books was titled something like The Emperor Speaks, and the conceit was that it was a new-found autobiography of Cæsar Augustus. Through whatever combination of my simply enjoying the read, and my "critical antennæ" being exercised more rigorously by the Music Department (and perhaps a little old-fashioned gullibility), some little period of time passed before it firmly occurred to me that this had to be a fiction.

[San Antone]

While at UVa, one of my recreational reading books was titled something like The Emperor Speaks, and the conceit was that it was a new-found autobiography of Cæsar Augustus. Through whatever combination of my simply enjoying the read, and my "critical antennæ" being exercised more rigorously by the Music Department (and perhaps a little old-fashioned gullibility), some little period of time passed before it firmly occurred to me that this had to be a fiction.

I had the same thing happen with the Carlos Castaneda books.  While his publisher spoke of them as non-fiction, I believe most, if not all, literary critics consider them entirely fictional.

[Karl Henning]

I had the same thing happen with the Carlos Castaneda books.  While his publisher spoke of them as non-fiction, I believe most, if not all, literary critics consider them entirely fictional.

And ... the reason @Cato 's post prompted my recollection is, one of the shafts of light which shone upon me was thinking, this idea is impossible for anyone in Augustus' era.

[71 dB]

Film music composed in a style-form of classical music = classical film music

I'm fine with that definition. It makes tons of sense. 

[Iota]

I had the same thing happen with the Carlos Castaneda books.  While his publisher spoke of them as non-fiction, I believe most, if not all, literary critics consider them entirely fictional.

Ah right, I read those books in my early 20s and hadn't thought about them much since, and it's only today with your post I find out they weren't (predominantly) autobiographical, as I'd thought. I assume the fictional Yaqui shaman's teachings were based on some kind of reality though (?) .. seems a spot of googling is called for ..

[71 dB]

John Williams doesn't have to show his value as a composer with concert music, since he has already showed his value as a composer of soundtracks.

John Williams could have retired from composing 40 years ago and still have showed his value as a movie music composer. I don't think composing concert music has been about proving his worth, but rather been something he has wanted to do.

Composing solid soundtracks is not easier than composing concert music, but harder, because while composing soundtracks requires the same craftmanship required to compose concert music (orchestration, melody, harmony, and so on...), soundtracks require additional craftmanship that is not required in concert music: the ability to write music that fits a scene perfectly.

Movie music also has to live with the other sounds in a movie. There can be a need to carve out a sonic hole for the sound effects in the movie. Such challenges are not present in concert music.

While in concert music there is not wrong music (but only music that doesn't satisfy your expectations), it's possible to support that in the field of soundtracks the concept of correct/wrong music makes sense.

Yes, because we have a pretty concrete context of what is correct or wrong.

If John Williams wanted to compose concert music that everyone likes he could simply compose an orchestral suite of romantic and epic music with nice tunes and orchestrations. Nothing else than what he has done for his entire life.

Yes, but the concert music is about doing what he can't do with the movie soundtracks. He doesn't need people to like his concert music, because people love his movie music earning him something like 300 million net worth according to the internet. John Williams could donate away 99 % of his wealth and still die richer than most composers of any music.

The point is that in concert music John Williams uses a less accessible style, and this is the only reason for which many people don't find his concert pieces satisfactory.

In my opinion John Williams' genius is in writing music for movies. That's his superpower. He is insanely good at that. As a concert music composer he is "just" competent/good and has to compete against all other competent/good and even great composers such as Arvo Pärt who can blow John Williams  out of the water with his avant-garde/tintinnabuli concert works, but Arvo Pärt's scores for Star Wars, E.T. or Jurassic Park could have been quite a disasters!     

I have to say that I don't care about this, because if I want to listen to the beautiful music of John Williams I know where to find it and if for his concert pieces he wants to compose more experimental, but also less accessible, music, let him do his experiments.

In TC there is a composer who praise his concert works, especially the Cello Concerto, so I guess that there is a public for it.

John Williams' concert music is solid and competently written. It is just that there is a lot of competition in this genre and Williams works without his superpowers.

[pjme]

spot of googling is called for ..

Just type in the words castaneda hoax...

Castaneda was never an especially powerful writer or thinker. His dialogue is repetitive, his landscapes are filled with generic, indistinguishable entities, and his insights are vague to the point of a blur. His genius consisted in a talent for seduction, which became a mania for manipulation and finally exploitation. His first books were brilliant because of the tension of his set-up as a tightrope between ordinary and non-ordinary reality. His permanent exile to the world of the non-ordinary meant the loss of suspension and the surrender to madness, however.
The last phase of his life saw Castaneda living in Los Angeles surrounded by Armani-clad "witches" who called Castaneda "the nagual". He had literally bewitched himself. Marketing extortionate workshops for a shamanic cult called Tensegrity, which simultaneously operated as a personal sex ring, he had become a cliché of the guru-as-tyrant — alternately fucking and abusing his acolytes for their own spiritual progress. "We think don Juan is lost in Infinity, in the second Attention," he sometimes said. Following his 1998 death, four of his inner circle disappeared with him: believed to have killed themselves, their bodies have never been found.
Today Castaneda is dismissed as a hoaxer, a fraud, a sexual predator, a cult leader and maybe a psychopath. His books continue to sell, but his academic credibility is zero, and his style of mysticism has gone out of fashion. The questions he faced haven't vanished, however, and the answers which he gave supply a warning.

Source : https://thecritic.co.uk/castaneda-the-sorcerer/
and many more.

[Luke]

...Arvo Pärt's scores for Star Wars, E.T. or Jurassic Park could have been quite a disasters!   
 

Wow, that's quite the thought experiment!

E.T., the Estonian Tintinabulist....
ArvoD2....
Jurrasic Pärt....

[71 dB]

Wow, that's quite the thought experiment!

E.T., the Estonian Tintinabulist....
ArvoD2....
Jurassic Pärt....

Hah! Nice ones!