What qualifies someone to be called a classical composer?

[Lateralthinking1]

Quote from frenchfrank: What is youth? Well, 45 in the sense you refer to it is very underdone. Ex teddy boys are in their 70s. Some of the late 60-something couples living in Ventnor saw Hendrix at the Isle of Wight Festival. They seem little different from my pre-rock n roll era parents fifteen years ago except they have matching cagouls. Those who have grandchildren might be familiar with their interests in techno or drum n bass. Meanwhile the last 10 songs played on Isle of Wight Radio today were:

The O'Jays – Backstabbers
Don Henley – The End Of The Innocence
Maroon 5 – Payphone
Deniece Williams – Let's Hear It For The Boy
Kings of Leon – Sex On Fire
The Who – Substitute
Amy Macdonald – Slow It Down
Ten Sharp – You
Jackie Wilson – Higher and Higher
Sinéad O'Connor – Nothing Compares 2 U

None of these reach those of my parents' ages (early 80s). Arguably two might appeal to any remaining, ongoing, fans of forty year old festival music (50s-70s). Possibly two others are from that sort of era. I'm nearly 50. I don't think one was released in my teenage years. I have friends who wouldn't like any of them and they aren't for the classics. Two or three might be meaningful to people in their 30s and 40s. There's a couple in there for some youngsters but they are not at all cutting edge.

It is family entertainment apparently. But I think we might ask how it is that teenagers of any era are frequently attuned to genre and then lose it, if indeed that is what happens. Who knows what these radio listeners might have in their record collections. It could be something very different. Clearly the clan mentality dissipates with work, mortgage, children and pets. Music might become more of a background interest. But what the market provides for the consumer is hardly an incentive for either listener or industry to develop in their interests. And that could be, contrary to general perception, the reverse of the natural human way.

[MrGongGong]

Fairly recently I was at an orchestral concert at the Royal Festival Hall where there was a significant party of 'ordinary' 16-18 year-olds sitting behind me in the cheap seats.

Being the age I am, I worried about their being noisy & disruptive but all I heard were noises & positive comments of appreciation, particularly after The Rite of Spring "Man I never knew it was so LOUD!" sorta thing

At the end I turned round for a chat & discovered that they'd really enjoyed it and that they'd come again

and if you had asked them before (or after for that matter) what they thought of "Classical" music I would bet one of the things that they would have said was that it was "boring"......

[Ian]

... oh for a courageous Producer with vision instead of image!

I suspect there are plenty of those. It's the 'grown ups' what is the problem.

Having said that, it is a thankless task bringing classical music to the screen. Even the people who are really interested can be viciously critical very often about quite superficial elements.

[Serial_Apologist]

But what the market provides for the consumer is hardly an incentive for either listener or industry to develop interests. And that could be, contrary to general perception, the reverse of the natural human way.

Never a truer word was spoke - imo. The concert music repertoire has yet to lead record producers to require top notch symphony orchestras to add backbeats to Bolero, and they probably don't need to: there's a certain repertory that in terms of advanced idioms needn't go further than, say, Debussy's Iberia, to ensure sales of some probably now dwindling kind. (They might stick Chabrier's Espana and Ravel's Rhapsidie Espagnole onto a CD to make up the 70 minutes). But the number of times I've come across stories of young rock musicians, but particularly jazz musicians, who at some stage were told by the majors, "Give us another five "X"s and we'll give you a 5 year retainer" Nowadays kids probably download more than buy CDs, and jazz musicians go to or set up their own labels; but the commercial consciousness-driven way of thinking from an earlier era increasingly informs the kind of BBC thinking that has wrecked the ethos of Radio 3's morning scheduling and manner of presentation. Having people like Mr Gong-Gong in the education system is a godsend as far as he can go... but how much of a counterweight to the ingraining of an ignorant reductionism can he provide?

[Ian]

http://www.amazon.co.uk/s/ref=nb_sb_...n+roll&x=0&y=0

I don't believe it: I've just been asked, completely out of the blue, whether I fancy going to jive classes!!

Wrong again, it's not jive classes - apparently that stuff died out decades ago. It's Gavotte lessons.

[french frank]

You've misunderstood my previous post, big time, frenchie - and, if I'm right, what the "problem" with getting these Musics known and loved is. I suspect that "they" don't understand what the grouping under "classical" Music is. There are merely prejudices and preconceptions (except in the already "converted") because the term "classical Music" is so nebulous.

Hang on a tick - the 'linguistically deprived' people to whom I referred were the 'already "converted" '. I meant people who 'understand' the term in a general way, where Bach, Mozart and Beethoven are at the core but there's plenty more besides, backwards and forwards; and who aren't bothered about precisely what's in and out of the definition. Yer baroque, yer classical, yer Romantic, and probably modern stuff. The equivalent of the 'jazz fan'.

My idea is that, once the general audience who've seen programmes on Minton pottery/William Morris/Shakespeare/Charles Rene MacIntosh, and who have no problem differentiating the cultural "movements" behind this work, get the idea that Classical/Late Romantic/Renaissance/Neo-Classicism/Serial Music is as rich as those art forms, then will there be real enthusiasm for the repertoire.

Sure - I agree: it's an intelligent approach. (And to be fair, the Symphony programmes were at least a nod in that direction, though not the most imaginative).

To say to somebody, "You've managed to grasp the concept of the Post-Impressionists, Surrealists, and Art Noveau, but you can't possibly cope with equivalent movements in Music, so just call it 'classical Music' and we'll know what you mean" is, I would suggest, the sort of patronizing attitude that makes potentially interested people so hostile to the whole idea of the Musics.

Is that the message people get?

Example - please don't complain I have some of the labels wrong - I'm sure I have!!! ) But it's just an illustrative schema:

Western Music

'Classical music' > Baroque > Vivaldi/Handel/Scarlatti

'Popular music' > (prog) rock > Beefheart, Emerson, Wakeman

'Jazz' > swing > Goodman, Miller, Ellington

'Folk' > traditional/ 'roots' > Lloyd, Tawney, Watersons


I can't see that 'classical music' is any more an umbrella term than 'popular music', 'jazz', or 'folk: they can be divided and subdivided (especially popular which - to me - is a general term based on the size of potential audiences).

You can draw up other models:

Visual arts > painting > Romantic > Delacroix, Turner, CD Friedrich

Literary arts

Drama > Renaissance > Shakespeare

I agree with your view about how programmes about music could be presented, but the more important matter is the context in which it's performed: what kind of music is included in a concert (and here you see something akin to what you're saying: the OAE plays a particular kind of music, and I don't think it is simply called 'classical-music-full-stop').

[In fact, one of the things I most dislike about R3's CD sequence/playlist programmes is the jumble of all sorts from medieval to 20th century, 5 mins-15mins long, all under the banner of 'classical music. But this is my personal view - I don't force it on others .]

[MrGongGong]

Interesting stuff Frenchie

now on a personal level
I'm currently writing a large scale orchestral piece for an orchestra who are well known for playing "Classical" music
so does that make me a "Classical" composer ?

but

part of it's composition is using a version of the Upic software that Xenakis developed to convert images into sound , so does that make it "algorithmic" ? and if the piece is like that am I an "algorithmic" composer ?

and

I'm also making a piece at the moment that is entirely composed from sampled fragments of voices in many languages ....... does that make me an "electroacoustic" composer ?

and

when I wake up in the morning , I have been making sourdough bread , does that make me a baker ? or a confused musician ?

as you were

[Ian]

I can't see that 'classical music' is any more an umbrella term than 'popular music', 'jazz', or 'folk: they can be divided and subdivided (especially popular which - to me - is a general term based on the size of potential audiences).

All labels have an umbrella function. wwww.western music/Classical/Romantic/nationalist/Russian/Orchestral/Tone poems/Tchaikovsky/Romeo and Juliette

But I don't think that 'popular music' is used within popular music. It's just music isn't it? And basically that's what we're up against.

[MrGongGong]

But I don't think that 'popular music' is used within popular music. It's just music isn't it? And basically that's what we're up against.

It's not really "against" though is it ?
have a look at all the other things folk listen to AS WELL AS ............

http://www.for3.org/forums/showthrea...u-listening-to

[Serial_Apologist]

French Frank

If by your imaginary schema, your >s presume some sort of interlinked association - and maybe I've read you wrong - I think that this is a problem that has been around in broadcasting "classical music" than what currently bedevils R3 presentation and scheduling.

Fifty years ago you could mention for example jazz as a peronal interest, and get a response such as "Oh you mean Acker Bilk?". If you then mentioned say Miles Davis, and went on to play some, the listener might then say, "Oh, is that jazz?" The problem is that today's recipient might still posit Acker Bilk as exemplifying what the term jazz signifies!

Imv that perception is a reflection of the paucity of definition accorded by broadcasters, in general, but specifically for purposes of this forum, Radio 3, to different areas of music - be they within "the Western concert music tradition", "the jazz tradition" or wherever.

I am increasingly tending towards Ferneyhoughgeliebte's views on this - his Msg 150 came like a great load off my shoulders this morning.