What is "classical" music

[ALago1]

Is there a certain definitional difference one can use to seperate "modern" and "classical" music? Is it merely that one is much more complex ans structured differently than the other?

[curse10]

1. classical, imho, is just a lay person term for anything not secular

That's not saying that secular music isn't good or complex or anything. It's not like Pachelbel's cannon is a great feat of music genius, but it's still classical. But the Beach Boys' Pet Sounds Album is genius, but not classical.

In reality the only "classical" music was written from about 1750-1825.

[ALago1]

2. Hmmm...

...so would you not deem 20th century composers such as Ives, Copland,etc as "classical" composers?

[curse10]

3. no, I would

for lack of a better term. In musicology that group is identified as 20th century.

Of course within 20th c. there are subgroups. Tonal, atonal, set theorists, electronic, etc...

[Sparkly]

6. The term that's sometimes used in academia

is "Western Art Music." That's what most laymen just call "Classical music," although you are correct that "Classical" actually refers to a specific style/time period (Haydn, Mozart, etc.).

[curse10]

7. depends on the book you use

"classical" "western art music" "classical art music"

I think Grout still uses "classical" although I haven't seen the newest edition and I have the first edition on my shelf. I think Marie K. Stolba says "western art music"

I really wish we'd just use century notations.

[Sparkly]

8. I'm quite sure Grout would not use the word "classical music"

except to describe western music of the 'classic' period. His book is "History of Western Music" (earlier just "History of Music," I think). The term "classical music" is just awkward, I agree.

[curse10]

10. I never said he did

In the book he calls late 18th c. and early 19th c. "Classical period" I didn't intend to imply that he would call all the music in his book "classical"- music historians generally don't do that, unless talking to a lay person.

And I think it was always "A History of Western Music"- I have a first edition. I picked it up for a quarter at a library sale :-)

on edit: western art music is sometimes used just for the late 18th c. to early 19th c. period. (I think that is where the confusion was) because all the other periods have better labels, quite frankly.

[TrogL]

4. there's "classical and Classical

Classical (as stated somewhere else) is a specific time period.

"classical" means music performed by "serious" musicians for the concert hall as opposed to "popular" performed primarily for entertainment.

"classic rock" is a contradiction in terms at first glance unless you understand your music history.

Much of the stuff being performed as "classical" music was never intended for repeat performance. When William Walton wrote Balshazzar's Feast he said he may as well write it for everything but the kitchen sink because he'd never hear it again. It has become a concert staple, multiple brass bands and all.

Some of Bach's music was written haphazardly for a single performance. If he ran out of paper, he switched to tablature notation. Scholars who came along afterwards painstakingly transcribed it. After his death, his music was abandonned as old fashioned. One score was used for a coffee filter. It survives because Mendelsohn re-popularized it.

The good stuff (hopefully) survives. Mozart's stuff does. Solieri's hasn't done as well, despite their being contemporaries. People paid attention to both because they were in the Court. Nobody would have considered writing down the stuff played in the local bars - it lived on (or got written into "classical" music) only if it was really popular. Vaughn Williams' and Bela Bartok's incorporation of folk tunes is a recent innovation.

I heard "Let it be" on the radio yesterday. It's a great tune, but what makes it memorable is the performance. We only have that courtesy of Alexander Graham Bell.

What makes music "classical" to me is if it's worth studying. To me "classical" rock is things like Pink Floyd's The Wall.

[curse10]

5. It's been awhile, but here's a good date breakdown

20th c- well, 20th century :-)
1825-1900- Romantic
1750-1825- Classical
1600-1750- Baroque
1430-1600- Renaissance
1300-1550- Medieval/Middle Ages (there's a lot of overlap on this one)

And pre-1300 we get into all sorts of shit.

And during all of this we had folk music and secular music. That doesn't mean it was bad, it just means it wasn't written down.

[ironflange]

9. Our family has a name for it: Fireman Music

One day, many years ago, I was home with my son, then four or so years old. I put on Mahler's Tenth Symphony, and when it got to the heavy bass drum strokes of the finale I told him of the story behind this part of the work. From then on, he referred to any sort of "classical" music as fireman music, and it has stuck with us all.

Don't know the story? Here ya go.

The music of the coda breaks up and dissolves without a break into the Finale’s astonishing introduction, a grim funeral march punctuated by loud blows on a large, muffled military drum. (Is this an image of Death answering the previous movement’s suicidal call—i.e., “destroy me”?) In New York, in 1908, Mahler had seen, out his apartment window, the funeral procession of a fireman. The procession stopped, a speech was given, a single drum beat was heard, then, after a deathly silence, the procession continued. He was moved to tears by the spectacle, and remembered it when he came to write this introduction, which seems to capture his despair at the height of the marital crisis. After the first drum beat, he wrote, in the manuscript, obviously addressing Alma, “You alone know what it means. Ah! Ah! Ah! Farewell, my lyre! Farewell. Farewell. Farewell.”

You may read of the fireman's death as being "heroic," but that, unfortunately, is not the case. I looked the New York Times story up on microfilm. It turns out the victim was an FDNY captain (if memory serves) who entered a burning building to work on it from the inside, fell through the floor, and died. I guess it was pretty heroic, to go in like that, but it seems a bit rash too. He should have made sure of the floor.

There you have it. Fireman music. Covers all the bases.