Does Star Wars soundtrack count as classical music?

[Grazioso]

Splendid, and we can all get back to listening to Schoenberg!

Who, incidentally, tried to bargain with MGM for $50 thousand to write a film score.

[DavidW]

Sure. Myself, I don't consider Thomas Kinkade an artist either; but an enthusiast for Kinkade's work (and there are many) would ask exactly the same question. He isn't an artist? What is he then?

I know, I know-- Kinkade is a shrewd businessman.

Anyway I think MN Dave is right-- defining classical music is elusive, which is these arguments don't end satisfactorily for anyone.

[MN Dave]

I was just saying the term "classical" has been bandied about until it's lost all meaning.

[(poco) Sforzando]

I was just saying the term "classical" has been bandied about until it's lost all meaning.

Well, that's quite a lot of meaning. I'm inclined to think that a work's status as being "classical" has as much to do with the context in which the work is conceived, performed, and listened to as with the actual content of the music per se.

[DavidRoss]

Well, that's quite a lot of meaning. I'm inclined to think that a work's status as being "classical" has as much to do with the context in which the work is conceived, performed, and listened to as with the actual content of the music per se.

That makes at least two of us.

[MN Dave]

Yea ... I dislike the term aswell, I prefer calling it Art Music myself ... for me it connotes 'the whole' as opposed to associating the legacy to a particular era or set of older composers.

Yes, "art music" or "serious music."

[karlhenning]

Alex Ross doesn't like any of them. Not that he makes the rules, of course. (Just saying.)

[DavidRoss]

Yes, "art music" or "serious music."

Doesn't work for me, since I regard lots of non-classical music as "art music" or "serious music."  But classical music works pretty well to describe music written by trained composers working in the centuries old Western tradition, intended for concert performance by trained musicians and expected to have lasting rather than ephemeral interest.  If someone like Williams were to take his film score and reduce it to a coherent concert suite, similar to Bernstein's Symphonic Dances from West Side Story, I would consider that "classical music"--but not the film's background music itself.

[Philoctetes]

Funny, but a lot of baroque and classical music that we still enjoy today was made to order, made to earn a buck, made for playing at specific occasions, and apparently ephemeral by your Romantic ideal of the artist as some "deep" thinker nobly expressing the inmost secrets of his soul for a select elite of listeners. There's nothing inherently wrong with music as practical, remunerative craft.

And while it's true there's plenty of bad sonic wallpaper film music to go along with bad films, there are plenty of films where the score is an integral part of an artistic unity. Better music in better films plays an enormous, if not indispensable, role in the emotional impact being made. It's not utterly subservient to the photography, acting, writing, production design, etc., but rather a partner. No shame there.

I support this post. I also would classify many composers of film music in the genre classical, same with video games as well.

[Philoctetes]

Video games?!?! You gotta be shittin' me! lol

Not at all. I'm thinking specifically of a game like Arcanum, but I'd also probably put someone like Jack Wall into the mix as well.

[karlhenning]

Better music in better films plays an enormous, if not indispensable, role in the emotional impact being made. It's not utterly subservient to the photography, acting, writing, production design, etc., but rather a partner. No shame there.

A perfectly good point. And in harmony with my ideas that what a film scorer does, is furnish materials which the film director/editor (the actual composer of the finished result, the film) uses as he sees fit.

A composer is one who can not only come up with a nifty musical idea, but who can shape that in a larger musical form.  And not just a cookie-cutter A-A-B form.

That is my larger point over whether someone is a composer. (Not that those who wish to disregard what I have to say, on the spurious basis that I allegedly hates, hates, hates John Williams, really care.)

Obviously there are different contexts for the word composer, as there are for other everyday words, such as day.  ASCAP is an organization which helps regulate the payment of royalties to writers, composers, & al.  In their scheme of things, John Williams is a composer;  and power to them.

[DavidRoss]

And I would consider Williams's pursuit of the art-form and that suite pretty easily falling into the 'ephemeral pop culture commerical' territory and outside of that tradition (whatever you want to call it); way outside & below the goal & integrity of serious musicians that the legacy is really built on, past & present; and certainly nothing musically valuable. Sure it can be fun & entertaining for people who enjoy that sort-of thing, but it shouldn't be confused with the 'real stuff', ever.

So Tchaikovsky's ballet suites, Sibelius's theatrical suites, Bernstein's Symphonic Dances, and so on, are ephemeral pop culture commercial...way outside & below the goal & integrity of serious musicians...nothing musically valuable...[and not] the real stuff?

[Philoctetes]

Here's some video game music I'd classify as classical:
Arcanum:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ftvpi-6Z6qw

Jade Empire:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zHYARoLPpDw

Chrono Trigger:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=caRKvQAyU7M

And one could go on and on..

[DavidRoss]

What do you think? You think those composers seriously fall into that?!?!?!

I don't, but you do and I wonder why...or would, if I hadn't learned shortly after you arrived here not to expect rationality from you but only rationalization for your prejudices.  Your statements re. concert suites made from music composed for film would apply equally to concert suites made from music composed for theatre and dance, suggesting that you believe there is some objective standard that applies and not just taste.

[jowcol]

What do you think? Do you honestly think it hurts his stature considering everything he did up to that point in music? (or continued to do up until his death?) I'm sure he was then intrigued by the film process but this doesn't mean anything. This goes along with something that I said earlier that there are rare exceptions of some deeper musicians (who have their own voice, reputation) usually associated with & steeped in 'more serious writing' trying their hand at film, but that doesn't mean anything or detract from what they have already done elsewhere in much deeper avenues of the art.

I personally don't think it has anything to do with his stature or legacy. I was just pointing out a logical extension of a previous assertion that you had made  in the quoted text that didn't leave much wiggle room.

I agree with your notion of "rare exceptions"--although I believe maybe they are not as rare.  A  lot of times its beneficial for a composer to step outside of their comfort zone and deal with new challenges and constraints provided by other art forms and media.

Question-- who defines "deeper avenues of art?".    I'm certainty not going to take that role on for myself.  Both of us have expressed on this forum that Beethoven doesn't really rock our world.  Does this mean that neither of us are capable of discerning deep art?


Also, to bring up Stravinsky again, he said that one shouldn't compose unless one had a specific problem to solve.  I'm not sure if making "deep art" was so much a goal, but a byproduct of his creative process.

[jowcol]

So we're totally on the same page, what the hell happened here??! lol (probably my fault)

I think it was some of the broader assertions that invited counterexamples.... 

For the record, I was never a big fan of the Star Wars sound track.

[Philoctetes]

For the record, I was never a big fan of the Star Wars sound track.

I can agree with this. I think most of the music from that franchise is shit.

[jowcol]

I can agree with this. I think most of the music from that franchise is shit.

But imagine the value if an orchestra couples something like a Star Wars suite with the Firebird Suite, and at least one person in the audience who came to see Star Wars walked away a changed person, having realized that the Final from the Firebird had so much more to offer.  Wouldn't it be worth it? 

I think one of the reasons I try not to dump on "light classical" is because it helps keep musicians employed, and may actually provide the entry point for new converts.   

[karlhenning]

But imagine the value if an orchestra couples something like a Star Wars suite with the Firebird Suite, and at least one person in the audience who came to see Star Wars walked away a changed person, having realized that the Final from the Firebird had so much more to offer.  Wouldn't it be worth it? 

I think one of the reasons I try not to dump on "light classical" is because it helps keep musicians employed, and may actually provide the entry point for new converts.   

I'm largely with you.

A little piece of me inside dies, though, when I hear someone praise André Rieu as one of the world's great conductors . . . .

[jowcol]

I'm largely with you.

A little piece of me inside dies, though, when I hear someone praise André Rieu as one of the world's great conductors . . . .

I also feel a bit violated (and not in a good way) when I have  to say nice things about "pops" orchestras, and other crossover stuff that doesn't have the least bit of adventure to it.  But I still feel the need to encourage it.