What is Classical Music?

[jochanaan]

Okay, it's time for another one of those deep, philosophical discussions that some of us are so good at.  Blame the discussions about film music if you want something to blame.

To me it's apparent that the term "classical music" is both inaccurate and insufficient.  Technically, "classical music" should apply only to music written between about 1750 and 1800-1810--the Classical period.  (And some say that even that period really should be "neoClassical" since many of its ideals were based on perceptions of artistic rules from Classical Greece and Rome.)  And if that were not enough, there is the question of how to file living "classical" musicians, composers or performers.

Now, some will equate "classical" with "great" or "good," but that's a judgment based on perceived quality, not kind; and we have yet to define musical quality/greatness with any precision or universal validity.

Others will point to length, complexity, and a sense of structure as necessary to "classical music."  I would only point them to things like J.S. Bach's song "Bist du bei mir," Felix and Fanny Mendelssohn's "Songs Without Words," and any number of other very short, very simple pieces that must be catalogued with "classical music."

So what are we all talking about here?  What defining characteristics or parameters separate Classical from "other"?

I feel this is a very important discussion, even if we come to no conclusion.  And please: Those who know me know that I love this music as much as anyone; I wouldn't have made it my life's work otherwise.

[Philoctetes]

I personally think of the genre classical as a conceptual category.

[Scarpia]

I have to say I agree with James, it is a continuous tradition of composition and performance.  I would recognize it as starting principally with Bach and contemporaries and continuing to the current day (although musical styles before the time of Bach are the tributaries that converged to form the river).

[Szykneij]

I have to say I agree with James, it is a continuous tradition of composition and performance.  I would recognize it as starting principally with Bach and contemporaries and continuing to the current day (although musical styles before the time of Bach are the tributaries that converged to form the river).

I like the river metaphor, with many musical anabranches along the way.

[(poco) Sforzando]

It is essentially a written & learned musical tradition; as opposed to say a oral tradition.

As a collorary, Western classical music depends to an unprecedented degree on notation, which is not true of the music of India, China, Africa, etc., or for that matter of jazz. Without notation, for example, Western counterpoint is unthinkable.

[Sandra]

I'm glad that there's no easy answer to that question.
A strongly defined category is bad for music.

[some guy]

To me it's apparent that the term "classical music" is both inaccurate and insufficient.

But this is true for all terms of category. There are always exceptions to any of the qualities, as you mentioned yourself, and there are always outliers (or what appear to be at the time).

Technically, "classical music" should apply only to music written between about 1750 and 1800-1810--the Classical period.

You're talking about music written before the term was coined, you know. (Haven't we gone over this little historical point before?)

Anyway, to fulfill the "philosophical" parameter, I think that classical music is more a matter of attitude than anything else, a matter of purpose. The purpose of classical music is the same as the purpose of literature (as opposed to just fiction generally) or of poetry (as opposed to just verse generally). And, as with those categories, there will be exceptions and outliers. There will be things in either category that seem to belong to another or to both. And it is generally those things that will fuel discussions of this sort.

And it is generally the more recent things that seem to defy the categories.

I'd throw in a few specifics, as that's always nice, but I have to shower and go wander around Sevilla today.

[Sid]

Even if you say it's basically music that's notated, you get into a bit of a gordian knot, because there are many things in classical music that aren't, from cadenzas in concertos (some of them written well before the Twentieth Century) to the use of chance techniques in many works of composers working post-1945. So it's not all about control and notation, although generally that's what many people tend to boil their definition of classical music down to...

[Lethevich]

How about...

It's classical if: the composer in question is considered a major, recognised pinnacle of their field, and in terms of popular conscousness their music is all but non-existent (bar a few tune clips).

It's pop if: the composer in question is considered a major, recognised pinnacle of their field, and in terms of popular consciousness they make an impact, whether small or big.

One thing I've noticed about classical in general is its unpopularity. It's so pervasive that it is almost usable a definition. A person who likes music in general will obsess over certain bands of different kinds, but generally even if classical is on their radar they never delve into a composer's output the way they would their favourite bands.

Release a laboriously prepared, performed and documented classical record - it'll sell a few thousand copies.

Release a series of live tracks or workbench scrapings from all number of pop bands - it'll sell the same if not more.

Even "accessable" classical writing is still too within the tradition to find many fans outside of the medium - so there must be a shared group of ideals that composers have which other musicians do not, and these ideals must be considered undesirable to the average listener. Aside from pop, one thing that distinguishes it from other "classical" traditions is its sense of writing for posterity - I am sure that musicians in other traditions expect to have some of their ideas live on, but not in the rigorously conceived and outlined form that composers do.

[(poco) Sforzando]

Even if you say it's basically music that's notated, you get into a bit of a gordian knot, because there are many things in classical music that aren't, from cadenzas in concertos (some of them written well before the Twentieth Century) to the use of chance techniques in many works of composers working post-1945. So it's not all about control and notation, although generally that's what many people tend to boil their definition of classical music down to...

Not at all as serious a problem as you aver. We have, for example, various examples of cadenzas Beethoven wrote for his piano concertos and Mozart's D minor, Joachim's cadenza for the Brahms violin concerto, and more. We have written examples of ornamentation that singers in Rossini's time applied to his music. And yes, many composers were also noted improvisers -  Bach, for example, improvising the Ricercares from what became the Musical Offering, to a theme supplied by Frederick of Prussia. But Bach could not have improvised those fugues had he not had the experience of decades of writing notated fugues. And what's more he improvised as a soloist; it would be far less likely for say a string quartet to successfully improvise a fugue. In other words, orchestration as we know it is also impossible without a system of notation. Despite occasional examples of chance and random music, the dominant impulse in Western classical music has been to refine the notational system. One only has to look back 1000 years to when plainchant notation barely indicated rises and falls in pitch, and conveyed nothing about rhythm, to see where we've come. It is also notation that allows a canon (that hated word) of classical music to survive. We know the ancient Greek tragedies were sung, but nothing about how they sounded as the Greeks virtually no system of notation. We now have the benefits of both a powerful and flexible system of notation, as well as sound recording to fix an aural image of how the music is actually played.

[(poco) Sforzando]

How about...

It's classical if: the composer in question is considered a major, recognised pinnacle of their field, and in terms of popular conscousness their music is all but non-existent (bar a few tune clips).

It's pop if: the composer in question is considered a major, recognised pinnacle of their field, and in terms of popular consciousness they make an impact, whether small or big.

One thing I've noticed about classical in general is its unpopularity.

I think this is valid too. Is "classical" music a conceivable concept unless it is opposed to "popular" music? A great deal of what is classical depends on context, in which one class of listener is pitted against another. Classical listeners often like to think of themselves as a chosen few, at once superior to other listeners in terms of the music they respond to, and always subject to attack and ridicule for being elitist and snobbish.

[karlhenning]

. . .  I would recognize it as starting principally with Bach and contemporaries . . . .

I'd be interested in your reasons for this decision.

[Scarpia]

I'd be interested in your reasons for this decision.

It was during the period immediately preceding Bach that all of the elements were established, including the modern system of notation, the system of major and minor diatonic harmony, concepts of dissonance and resolution, modulations, etc.  Modal counterpoint doesn't count, as I perceive it.

[(poco) Sforzando]

It was during the period immediately preceding Bach that all of the elements were established, including the modern system of notation, the system of major and minor diatonic harmony, concepts of dissonance and resolution, modulations, etc.  Modal counterpoint doesn't count, as I perceive it.

Most of that is already present in Monteverdi. But how do you then classify Josquin (not our Josquin, but the famous one), Lasso, Machaut, Palestrina, etc.? If they're not classical, I can't think of any one else who wants them.

[Scarpia]

Most of that is already present in Monteverdi. But how do you then classify Josquin (not our Josquin, but the famous one), Lasso, Machaut, Palestrina, etc.? If they're not classical, I can't think of any one else who wants them.

Proto-classical?  I haven't ever listened to Monteverdi in depth, but my impression is that he more or less defines the boundary between protoclassal and euclassical.

[jowcol]

I think this is valid too. Is "classical" music a conceivable concept unless it is opposed to "popular" music? A great deal of what is classical depends on context, in which one class of listener is pitted against another. Classical listeners often like to think of themselves as a chosen few, at once superior to other listeners in terms of the music they respond to, and always subject to attack and ridicule for being elitist and snobbish.

For this thread in general, I would fall upon Duke Ellington's approach of calling great music "beyond category".  I tend to think that a work should stand on its own merit.

Sforzando's comments I think are very insightful, as this raises what to me is the key question, which is not so much "what" is classical music, but "why" we need the category, as motivations differ.  Is it a tool to help us expand the music we listen to, or one used to restrict our explorations?  All to often, as Sforzando points out, it's the latter, and I find that a shame...

[Scarpia]

Even if you say it's basically music that's notated, you get into a bit of a gordian knot, because there are many things in classical music that aren't, from cadenzas in concertos (some of them written well before the Twentieth Century) to the use of chance techniques in many works of composers working post-1945. So it's not all about control and notation, although generally that's what many people tend to boil their definition of classical music down to...

The claim is not that "notation" is it.  It is the system of notation, and the tradition that developed around it.  There are things that branched off, like various varieties of popular music, folk music, jazz, Broadway shows, etc, but I think it is possible to identify a continuous stream of development from Bach to Carter.

[Grazioso]

My one-word definition: rigid.

***

Here's a longer disquisition, taking a different tack. I posted this recently in another thread, but it seems apropos here.

... I often think of musical genres or streams in terms of Wittgenstein's concept of family resemblances: in the absence of one universally shared, defining characteristic, certain overlapping (sets of) characteristics are pragmatically used to define genres.

A basic example:

You hear two different pieces of music:

Piece A has: swing feel, improvisation, traditional jazz instrumentation (such as Eyeresist's "saxophone, a trumpet, a plucked doublebass and a drum kit")

Piece B has: swing feel, improvisation, traditional classical instrumentation (let's say a string quartet playing arco)

Does the two traits in common suffice to call them both jazz? Or does the "classical" instrumentation in Piece B make it classical, or some hybrid?

Contexts, expectations, and perceptions of shared traits play a big role in how we perceive and define things. (This goes back to what Some Guy was noting about intention.)

[Todd]

I like definitions of things like 'classical music' to be simple, so I like the following definition I grabbed online: "Serious or conventional music following long-established principles rather than a folk, jazz, or popular tradition." 

One can go on for pages and pages discussing what classical music is or is not.  That takes too long.  For me it's a very broad "genre" of music, and one which I happen to enjoy immensely.

[jochanaan]

I like definitions of things like 'classical music' to be simple, so I like the following definition I grabbed online: "Serious or conventional music following long-established principles rather than a folk, jazz, or popular tradition."  ...

I respect your desire for brevity and clarity, Todd, but this particular definition might well leave composers like Schoenberg or Varèse out in the cold, since much of their music (indeed, almost all of Varèse's) certainly does NOT follow "long-established principles..."