Does Star Wars soundtrack count as classical music?

[Sergeant Rock]

(* proceeds to hatch evil musical plots *)

Sarge

[Ken B]

(* proceeds to hatch evil musical plots *)

d

Jeez Louise, he's already ripping off Stockhausen!

[Rinaldo]

...but it also means that comparing these film scores to classical music is something of a grapefruit-to-tangelos affair.

Agreed!

And, yes, my attitude would probably be different if I had heard any concert work by Williams which doesn't niff a bit even on ice.  Which is to say, even when he has the complete control which is the composer's preference, the result does not shine.

Not only do they not shine, they suck big time. And after reading Williams' crybaby comments on how the classical world treats him soooo badly, I lost quite a bit of respect for the guy.

That said - was he handcuffed by the director's vision?

George Lucas:  I want a classical score. I want the Korngold kind of feel about this thing. It's an old-fashioned kind of movie, and I want that grand soundtrack that you used to have in movies.

Leonard Maltin:  Didn't you at first want him to use existing classical music?  Is that true?

George Lucas:  No, I had written it to certain pieces of music. I write to music. So, when I'm writing a scene I have the music there and I'm writing it to the music, and then in a lot of cases we'll use that same music as a temp track.  So there was temp tracks of classical music in the score.

(Use the Holst, Luke)

Lucas made the temp track from his classical music collection. It was comprised of 'Holst, Dvořák, Walton, Miklos Rozsa's score for Ben-Hur', and others such as Ravel and Stravinsky.

'..."You have no idea what John's music contributes to the films," says actor Anthony Daniels, who plays the golden tin man, C-3PO. "The first time I saw any of Star Wars, Ravel's Bolero was still on the soundtrack."

(Creative Borrowing in the Score of Star Wars)

I'd say that's a yes. And he still delivered a brilliant score that elevates the movie to tremendous heights and can also be enjoyed on its own / in the concert hall. Is it classical music? I think the right question should be - is it good classical music? To quote Obi-Wan Kenobi, from a certain point of view..

And about those legal issues:

Legal action occurs frequently in the pop realm but I can't think of a single instance where classical composers (and here I include Williams) have sued one another for plagiarism. Has there been? Specifically, has Williams been sued?

Hans Zimmer's soundtrack for Gladiator was actually sued by 'the Holst foundation' and music publishers 'J. Curwen & Sons' who claimed he borrowed directly from "Mars: Bringer of War" and was in violation of copyright laws.

(...)

Williams was never sued by anyone.

[Karl Henning]

No, he would not have been;  per Neal's observations, there is enough independent material to clear Williams.  And the man certainly has great talent, within a specific range.

[Sergeant Rock]

And about those legal issues:

Thanks for that. Who won? Here are comparisons between Zimmer and Holst:

https://www.youtube.com/v/cFswFI7fqxU


Sarge

[Jaakko Keskinen]

"The golden tin man, C-3PO". Ok, that was priceless. 

[Monsieur Croche]

How might this differ from Prokofiev's Alexander Nevsky  and Lt. Kije scores or Walton's Henry V or Bliss's Things to Come ?

There are a but a handful of film scores and incidental theater music where a career classical composer was asked to compose because the distinct musical style for which they were already known was what was being sought. The scores by those composers you've named sound completely unique and do resonate with the composer's "original voice."  Aaron Copland and a number of other classical composers who have written for film could be added to that list.  You can also toss in with this lot those 'incidental' musics written for theater productions by earlier composers, such as Mendelssohn's Midsummer's Night Dream, Grieg's Peer Gynt, etc. -- also music in the utterly distinct style of each composer.  And but of course when someone wishes to argue that other film scores 'are classical' these aforementioned composer's works are trotted out as the usual suspects and evidence in the argument that film scores 'are classical music.'

John Williams is a master craftsman whose film scores are, in their majority, almost entirely derivative of earlier works by earlier classical composers, at least when they are not jazz or some other genre; while he is clearly and fully in command of his craft as required and expected of the job -- which includes writing convincingly and at great speed in that myriad of styles and genres [and that often enough in one film from one scene to the next] -- what comes from that is radically different to the still current expectations and tradition of the classical composer having and maintaining a distinct and unique individual voice.

Extracting a suite from a film score for concert presentation does not in any way wave a magic wand over the score which turns the general film-score genre into classical.  [Bernstein's suite, Symphonic dances from West Side Story, including its jazz-inflected dodecaphonic fugue, remains a symphonic suite from a Broadway Musical; the recording he made of the entire show with a line-up of some of the best operatic singers of the day remains a recording of a Broadway musical, as would a similar performance in an opera house leave the genre unaltered.]

Extracted concert suites of film scores are rarely -- while there are a but a very few exceptions -- performed on other than a symphonic 'pops' concert program. That programming is not done out of some innate snobbery or draconian minding of the classical store, but simply because the film-scores which are not from those aforementioned almost exclusively classical composers who were composing using their own voice do not sit very well on a program next to, say, a symphony by Mozart, or Ives, or a piece by Berio. If not for a different audience, the film score on a concert program makes for one part of a very different overall meal.

One "blurred line category" score I can think of: John Corigliano re-worked his material for the film, The Red Violin into a concertante work for solo violin and orchestra.

That all said, lines have been, and are continually being, blurred, but on a case-by-case basis, lol.

[Monsieur Croche]

[Williams' scores] Not only do they not shine, they suck big time. And after reading Williams' crybaby comments on how the classical world treats him soooo badly....

This reminds me of a similar scenario wherein Andrew Lloyd Webber complained vociferously that the classical music establishment was not taking his works seriously.

One critic responded in a publication that if Webber desired for the classical music community to take him seriously, all that would be needed was for the composer to write a work of classical music, and that piece would then be considered by the classical music community

[SimonNZ]

One "blurred line category" score I can think of: John Corigliano re-worked his material for the film, The Red Violin into a concertante work for solo violin and orchestra.

Corigliano also reworked parts of his brilliant atypical Altered States score into a concert piece Three Hallucinations.


(and that's a very familiar looking avatar, monsieur, which I'm glad to see again, and look forward to seeing more of.)

[Monsieur Croche]

Corigliano also reworked parts of his brilliant atypical Altered States score into a concert piece Three Hallucinations.

... and to bring it back home to my point of distinction, Corigliano is primarily a classical composer, the majority of his work unquestionably classical, and he has done several film scores as well. Just sayin' 

(and that's a very familiar looking avatar, monsieur, which I'm glad to see again, and look forward to seeing more of.)

Je vous merci, Monsieur, and likewise, to be sure. So briefly far, this place is looking like it has quite good company, including some old familiars I have been much missing.

[71 dB]

Some 100 years ago a new art form was born. It's father was theatre and it's mother was opera. The father and mother were brought together by another relatively new invention: Photography.

When we look at soundtracks in movies, it's only logical that they are based on theatre and opera music. John Williams is Wagner of movies. How much do we demand from Wagner to be called classical music? How much do we demand from opera music in general to be called classical music? How much do we demand from Bizet's Carmen or Offenbach's Orphée aux enfers? How much do we demand from Carl Nielsen's theatre music?

In my opinion not counting Star Wars soundracks as classical music would logically lead to re-evaluation of a lot of opera and theatre music we have considered classical music.

[Monsieur Croche]

John Williams is Wagner of movies. How much do we demand from Wagner to be called classical music? How much do we demand from opera music in general to be called classical music? How much do we demand from Bizet's Carmen or Offenbach's Orphée aux enfers? How much do we demand from Carl Nielsen's theatre music?

In my opinion not counting Star Wars soundracks as classical music would logically lead to re-evaluation of a lot of opera and theatre music we have considered classical music.

^^^Sorry, there is just no real logic in this last sentence. Wagner wrote non-stop music and sung dramas, not incidental music to accompany scenes in a play.^^^

Wagner was a distinct and unique musical voice, period. [For the sake of discussion, we'll leave out his additional great importance as having unbuttoned the hierarchy of chord function of common practice harmony and the tremendous influence that had on the directions classical music took because of that.]

John Williams' score for star wars is excessively derivative. That is not necessarily a dis as much as it is simply the nature and state of the job of contemporary film-scoring, the score result very shaped by the musical directives of the film's director. Lucas, while writing the screenplay, played existing music as a helpful stimulus. He requested from Williams, then, music very much like;
Erich Wolfgang Korngold -- which is from the direct line of Wagner and later German romanticism.
a segment from Stravinsky's le sacre du printemps.
Holst's Neptune from The Planets.
etc.

The Star Wars score is music from an expert of pastiche; though 'original' [not exactly those other musics] the score was written with those direct references as criteria, and Williams the craftsman did the job meeting the requirements as per the criteria.

This is nowhere near the way the theater music, ballet music, or operas by the classical composers you mentioned came about. Each of those wrote those scores in their own style, using their unique voice. They composed original non-derivative music with a readily identifiable musical personality.

Williams composing highly derivative incidental music for a film puts him no where in the league of a 'Wagner of film composers,' and there is no logical argument that will ever place the Star Wars scores anywhere near.

The put-forth examples of the older classical composers composing for theater, opera and ballet is useless, if nothing else because those composers were writing in their unique style and voice, and not composing a stream of movements each a pastiche of some other composer. The earlier film scores which are regularly cited in this sort of discussion were from a time when film makers sought out a particular classical composer for the style of music for which that composer was known, and were not asking those composers to write 'something like this other composer, something like that other composer.'

A lucid example of 'write like this,' is Richard Addinsell's Warsaw Concerto for the film Dangerous Moonlight. The director had wanted to use Rachmaninov's second piano concerto, but the royalties could not be afforded within the film's music budget. Enter Addinsell, who was required to write something 'very like Rachmaninov.' Et voila... the piece became wildly popular, got performed in concert halls, and for a while it spawned a modest spate of a specific genre of brief neo-romantic piano concerti, which became known as "Tabloid Concertos." lol.

Your Ears Will Inform You:
Side-by-side auditions of bits of William's scores next to very like well-known precedent classical pieces [you can not say that Williams does not know the rep.]
Some of the following in this link are more tangential associations, while others are close enough that, for instance, the Holst rip-off was subject to a law suit which found in favor of the Holst copyright owner.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b9IV5u9iwuQ

Did Williams compose a decent, rousing film score which many find catchy, and has that score become popular?
Sure.  Did he, or has he, composed anything with a unique musical voice and distinct musical personality original enough to stand out in either the pop or classical realms? Imo, and in the wide realms of what is the classical music community, that is a resounding "Not."

"But he has composed "legitimate classical music," concerti for classical ensembles."
Yes, and they are eminently forgettable pieces which sound as if the composer took a film director's directive: "John, we've got a twenty minute scene in one take of an instrumentalist playing a concerto. I want a conservatively contemporary classical sounding score there." -- this state of affairs -- jack of all styles, master of none -- is more than possible to arrive at when your entire life and career has been composing 'music like,' vs. finding a voice of your own; you end up having no distinct musical personality, even if your pastiche works have stylistic traits enough to identify them as yours.

Some film score segments can be lovely, stirring, but above all, whatever they are, they are brief and need to be 'catchy' and immediately effective within a matter of a very brief moment. The requisite skill and talent for that are not to be glibly dismissed, but those are specifics none of which much apply very directly to the parameters of the classical repertoire, whatever the era.

So, we have this pleasant enough bit by Williams, Harry Potter rides the Hippogriff... where the ride, and the underscoring -- a not at all fresh melange vocabulary of late and later romantic -- lasts but a few minutes.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MKbr3o36IpY
Q: Based on the length of the underscored flight segment, how many round trip flights can Harry take on the hippogriff Buckbeak before Wagner's sustained rolling single E-flat chord introduction to Das Rheingold has ended?
A: Two

That Williams is highly successful, and financially successful -- and that was not 'overnight,' he's worked for it over decades -- has garnered many industry and other awards does not either validate him as a classical composer or make him or his film scores anything but what they are... highly popular film score music from a highly successful film score composer.

[mc ukrneal]

^^^Sorry, there is just no real logic in that last sentence.

Wagner was a distinct and unique musical voice, period. [For the sake of discussion, we'll leave out his additional great importance as having unbuttoned the hierarchy of chord function of common practice harmony and the tremendous influence that had on the directions classical music took because of that.]

John Williams' score for star wars is excessively derivative. That is not necessarily a dis as much as it is simply the nature and state of the job of contemporary film-scoring, the score result very shaped by the musical directives of the film's director. Lucas, while writing the screenplay, played existing music as a helpful stimulus. He requested from Williams, then, music very much like;
Erich Wolfgang Korngold -- which is from the direct line of Wagner and later German romanticism.
a segment from Stravinsky's le sacre du printemps.
Holst's Neptune from The Planets.
etc.

The Star Wars score is music from an expert of pastiche; though 'original' [not exactly those other musics] the score was written with those direct references as criteria, and Williams the craftsman did the job meeting the requirements as per the criteria.

This is nowhere near the way the theater music, ballet music, or operas by the classical composers you mentioned came about. Each of those wrote those scores in their own style, using their unique voice. They composed original non-derivative music with a readily identifiable musical personality.

Williams composing highly derivative incidental music for a film puts him no where in the league of a 'Wagner of film composers,' and there is no logical argument that will ever place the Star Wars scores anywhere near.

The put-forth examples of the older classical composers composing for theater, opera and ballet is useless, if nothing else because those composers were writing in their unique style and voice, and not composing a stream of movements each a pastiche of some other composer. The earlier film scores which are regularly cited in this sort of discussion were from a time when film makers sought out a particular classical composer for the style of music for which that composer was known, and were not asking those composers to write 'something like this other composer, something like that other composer.'

A lucid example of 'write like this,' is Richard Addinsell's Warsaw Concerto for the film Dangerous Moonlight. The director had wanted to use Rachmaninov's second piano concerto, but the royalties could not be afforded within the film's music budget. Enter Addinsell, who was required to write something 'very like Rachmaninov.' Et voila... the piece became wildly popular, got performed in concert halls, and for a while it spawned a modest spate of a specific genre of brief neo-romantic piano concerti, which became known as "Tabloid Concertos." lol.

Your Ears Will Inform You:
Side-by-side auditions of bits of William's scores next to very like well-known precedent classical pieces [you can not say that Williams does not know the rep.]
Some of the following in this link are more tangential associations, while others are close enough that, for instance, the Holst rip-off was subject to a law suit which found in favor of the Holst copyright owner.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b9IV5u9iwuQ

Did Williams compose a decent, rousing film score which many have found catchy, and made wildly popular?
Sure.  Did he, or has he, composed anything with a unique musical voice and distinct musical personality original enough to stand out in either the pop or classical realms? Imo, and in the wide realms of what is the classical music community, that is a resounding "Not."

"But he has composed "legitimate classical music," concerti for classical ensembles."
Yes, and they are eminently forgettable pieces which sound as if the composer took a film director's directive: "John, we've got a twenty minute scene in one take of an instrumentalist playing a concerto. I want a conservatively contemporary classical sounding score there." -- this state of affairs -- jack of all styles, master of none -- is more than possible to arrive at when your entire life and career has been composing 'music like,' vs. finding a voice of your own; you end up having no distinct musical personality, even if your pastiche works have traits enough to identify them as yours.

Some film score segments can be lovely, stirring, but above all, whatever they are, they are brief and need to be 'catchy' and immediately effective within a matter of a very brief moment. The requisite skill and talent for that are not to be glibly dismissed, but those are specifics none of which much apply to the parameters of the classical repertoire, whatever the era.

So, we have this pleasant enough bit by Williams, Harry Potter rides the Hippogriff...
where the ride, and the underscoring -- a not at all fresh melange vocabulary of late and later romantic -- lasts but a few minutes.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MKbr3o36IpY
Q: Based on the length of both the scene and the underscoring, how many round trips can Harry make on the hippogriff Buckbeak before Wagner's sustained rolling E-flat chord introduction to Das Rheingold has ended?
A: Two

That Williams is highly successful, and financially successful -- and that was not 'overnight,' he's worked for it over decades -- has garnered many industry and other awards does not either validate him as a classical composer or make him or his music anything but what they are... highly popular film score music from a highly successful film score composer.

Blah Blah Blah. Most of it the same old nonsense.

Most (if not all) composers in history are derivative in the sense that they take styles that predate them an use them in some form or another to create their own unique voice. That is exactly what Williams did in creating his own unique voice and style. You can hear his music and very often tell it is his. Just because you dislike this voice for some reason (or the man behind it) does not mean it is not there.

[SimonNZ]

When we look at soundtracks in movies, it's only logical that they are based on theatre and opera music. John Williams is Wagner of movies. How much do we demand from Wagner to be called classical music? How much do we demand from opera music in general to be called classical music? How much do we demand from Bizet's Carmen or Offenbach's Orphée aux enfers? How much do we demand from Carl Nielsen's theatre music?

In my opinion not counting Star Wars soundracks as classical music would logically lead to re-evaluation of a lot of opera and theatre music we have considered classical music.

Sorry, but I can't agree with this.

Wagner's music is the principal text. Its the thing that can't be substituted, or else Meistersinger isn't Meistersinger any more. Who does the sets and how, who does the costumes and how etc are secondary art forms to that. Soundtracks - even Star Wars - are secondary to the film, and while substituting one for another may be less helpful or incongrious in the film are not the principal artwork. Williams score is fine and certainly supported and added to the success of the film, but Star Wars would still be Star Wars - and Altered States would still be Altered States, much as I love that soundtrack - if Danny Elfman or Tangerine Dream scored them.


(I haven't read all 34 pages of this thread - I supose everything sensible and silly has already been said, including my comment)

[Monsieur Croche]

Blah Blah Blah. Most of it the same old nonsense.

Most (if not all) composers in history are derivative in the sense that they take styles that predate them an use them in some form or another to create their own unique voice. That is exactly what Williams did in creating his own unique voice and style. You can hear his music and very often tell it is his. Just because you dislike this voice for some reason (or the man behind it) does not mean it is not there.

If you really can not hear a vast difference in what Bruckner 'took' from his predecessors, or Mozart from his, or Beethoven from his [and he took plenty from Haydn and Mozart as well as others] -- and not hear how distinct those composers are one from the other vs. cribbed pastiche near copies directly based on other pieces, there is no worth discussing the difference of Williams' Star Wars scores, or caring to distinguish them as a genre other than classical.

I'm quite aware that once people think something is classical and find it is then categorized as another genre, that is too often taken as some sort of demotion of that music, or even more wrongly, personally as a direct dis of a person's taste -- none of which is part of the discussion, nor any part of the point at all.

It is only about
Species: Music.
Genus: _____.

One can not care about such an obvious difference if you hear no distinction, and then of course it follows there will be little or no interest in genre categorization either. "Sounds classical, must be," becomes good enough if you don't have any real interest in genre categorization.

On the other hand, If Williams' Star Wars is classical, then isn't James Horner's score to Titanic also classical? Ergo, genre distinction is useful.

I should have, I suppose, earlier reminded myself that this thread is in the beginner's section, where other very like classical genres are often mistaken as classical.

Unfortunately, there is and will never be a quick fix answer to "What makes it classical," and the long answer is that it takes years, sometimes decades, of listening to a lot of classical repertoire before some will recognize the palpable difference where on their own 'classical sounding' and a large symphonic orchestral palette do not instantly qualify a piece of music as something classical.

Categorization of genre apart, I can't believe that genre categorization on its own has any power to qualify whether the music is good or bad, or dissuade a listener away from whatever music they like.

Best regards.

[Rinaldo]

I'll just leave this here..

Alex Ross: Listening to "Star Wars"

[71 dB]

^^^Sorry, there is just no real logic in this last sentence. Wagner wrote non-stop music and sung dramas, not incidental music to accompany scenes in a play.^^^

Wagner was a distinct and unique musical voice, period. [For the sake of discussion, we'll leave out his additional great importance as having unbuttoned the hierarchy of chord function of common practice harmony and the tremendous influence that had on the directions classical music took because of that.]

John Williams' score for star wars is excessively derivative. That is not necessarily a dis as much as it is simply the nature and state of the job of contemporary film-scoring, the score result very shaped by the musical directives of the film's director. Lucas, while writing the screenplay, played existing music as a helpful stimulus. He requested from Williams, then, music very much like;
Erich Wolfgang Korngold -- which is from the direct line of Wagner and later German romanticism.
a segment from Stravinsky's le sacre du printemps.
Holst's Neptune from The Planets.
etc.

The Star Wars score is music from an expert of pastiche; though 'original' [not exactly those other musics] the score was written with those direct references as criteria, and Williams the craftsman did the job meeting the requirements as per the criteria.

This is nowhere near the way the theater music, ballet music, or operas by the classical composers you mentioned came about. Each of those wrote those scores in their own style, using their unique voice. They composed original non-derivative music with a readily identifiable musical personality.

Williams composing highly derivative incidental music for a film puts him no where in the league of a 'Wagner of film composers,' and there is no logical argument that will ever place the Star Wars scores anywhere near.

The put-forth examples of the older classical composers composing for theater, opera and ballet is useless, if nothing else because those composers were writing in their unique style and voice, and not composing a stream of movements each a pastiche of some other composer. The earlier film scores which are regularly cited in this sort of discussion were from a time when film makers sought out a particular classical composer for the style of music for which that composer was known, and were not asking those composers to write 'something like this other composer, something like that other composer.'

A lucid example of 'write like this,' is Richard Addinsell's Warsaw Concerto for the film Dangerous Moonlight. The director had wanted to use Rachmaninov's second piano concerto, but the royalties could not be afforded within the film's music budget. Enter Addinsell, who was required to write something 'very like Rachmaninov.' Et voila... the piece became wildly popular, got performed in concert halls, and for a while it spawned a modest spate of a specific genre of brief neo-romantic piano concerti, which became known as "Tabloid Concertos." lol.

Your Ears Will Inform You:
Side-by-side auditions of bits of William's scores next to very like well-known precedent classical pieces [you can not say that Williams does not know the rep.]
Some of the following in this link are more tangential associations, while others are close enough that, for instance, the Holst rip-off was subject to a law suit which found in favor of the Holst copyright owner.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b9IV5u9iwuQ

Did Williams compose a decent, rousing film score which many find catchy, and has that score become popular?
Sure.  Did he, or has he, composed anything with a unique musical voice and distinct musical personality original enough to stand out in either the pop or classical realms? Imo, and in the wide realms of what is the classical music community, that is a resounding "Not."

"But he has composed "legitimate classical music," concerti for classical ensembles."
Yes, and they are eminently forgettable pieces which sound as if the composer took a film director's directive: "John, we've got a twenty minute scene in one take of an instrumentalist playing a concerto. I want a conservatively contemporary classical sounding score there." -- this state of affairs -- jack of all styles, master of none -- is more than possible to arrive at when your entire life and career has been composing 'music like,' vs. finding a voice of your own; you end up having no distinct musical personality, even if your pastiche works have stylistic traits enough to identify them as yours.

Some film score segments can be lovely, stirring, but above all, whatever they are, they are brief and need to be 'catchy' and immediately effective within a matter of a very brief moment. The requisite skill and talent for that are not to be glibly dismissed, but those are specifics none of which much apply very directly to the parameters of the classical repertoire, whatever the era.

So, we have this pleasant enough bit by Williams, Harry Potter rides the Hippogriff... where the ride, and the underscoring -- a not at all fresh melange vocabulary of late and later romantic -- lasts but a few minutes.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MKbr3o36IpY
Q: Based on the length of the underscored flight segment, how many round trip flights can Harry take on the hippogriff Buckbeak before Wagner's sustained rolling single E-flat chord introduction to Das Rheingold has ended?
A: Two

That Williams is highly successful, and financially successful -- and that was not 'overnight,' he's worked for it over decades -- has garnered many industry and other awards does not either validate him as a classical composer or make him or his film scores anything but what they are... highly popular film score music from a highly successful film score composer.

Wow! You really fear some of John Williams' music counts as classical music. Why else would you try to shoot my arguments down with a cannon?

[Monsieur Croche]

Wow! You really fear some of John Williams' music counts as classical music. Why else would you try to shoot my arguments down with a cannon?

I don't have a cannon, just an alpha-numeric keyboard.

I have no 'fear' that William's Star Wars counts as classical music, far to many know it just isn't to have me fearing a handful of opinions on a forum. That said, the craft involved in them is a solid display of someone who has deeply studied classical music, knows form, theory, 'sophisticated' compositional devices, and he deploys them as extensively as did the older-school classical composer emigres like Korngold, et alia, who also composed for films. BTW, Korngold, Rosa, Herrmann, etc. are also film composers when the music was for film -- both the category and the title are neutral, and neither pejorative or laden with implicit opprobrium.

Could it be said that you really fear that John Williams' Star Wars might just not be truly classical music?
And, I think this is important, if it is not classical music, does that in any way demean the composer or lessen the quality of the music in so far as your ability to enjoy it?

I do have some disappointment and irritation when those who seem or claim to know and recognize classical music then mistake Williams' Star wars for classical rather than recognize it as a well written and zippy film score which is a pastiche or parody of Erich Wolfgang Korngold's film scores, bits of Holst, Stravinsky, etc. and not recognizing that pretty much demonstrates that person isn't overall familiar enough with classical to make a legitimate genre call in the first place.

Classical "knock-off" is not classical, it is an imitation of classical; one is classical, the other a different genre, simples.

I've seen the same degree of personal upset over genre categorization when someone is informed that just because Yiruma is seen performing his piano pieces on a grand piano, that doesn't make his music classical. I've seen others upset that non-classical music played by a symphonic ensemble is not automatically classical just because it is played by a symphonic ensemble, often including the embedded misconception that there are 'classical instruments.'

[71 dB]

I don't have a cannon, just an alpha-numeric keyboard.

I have no 'fear' that William's Star Wars counts as classical music, far to many know it just isn't to have me fearing a handful of opinions on a forum. That said, the craft involved in them is a solid display of someone who has deeply studied classical music, knows form, theory, 'sophisticated' compositional devices, and he deploys them as extensively as did the older-school classical composer emigres like Korngold, et alia, who also composed for films. BTW, Korngold, Rosa, Herrmann, etc. are also film composers when the music was for film -- both the category and the title are neutral, and neither pejorative or laden with implicit opprobrium.

Could it be said that you really fear that John Williams' Star Wars might just not be truly classical music?
And, I think this is important, if it is not classical music, does that in any way demean the composer or lessen the quality of the music in so far as your ability to enjoy it?

I do have some disappointment and irritation when those who seem or claim to know and recognize classical music then mistake Williams' Star wars for classical rather than recognize it as a well written and zippy film score which is a pastiche or parody of Erich Wolfgang Korngold's film scores, bits of Holst, Stravinsky, etc. and not recognizing that pretty much demonstrates that person isn't overall familiar enough with classical to make a legitimate genre call in the first place.

Classical "knock-off" is not classical, it is an imitation of classical; one is classical, the other a different genre, simples.

I've seen the same degree of personal upset over genre categorization when someone is informed that just because Yiruma is seen performing his piano pieces on a grand piano, that doesn't make his music classical. I've seen others upset that non-classical music played by a symphonic ensemble is not automatically classical just because it is played by a symphonic ensemble, often including the embedded misconception that there are 'classical instruments.'

To me Star Wars soundtracks are classical music, no matter how much you try to prove they are not. End of discussion.

[Karl Henning]

To me Star Wars soudtracks are classical music, no matter how much you try to prove they are not. End of discussion.

"It is so, because I say it is so," is an empty assertion. End of discussion.