# What should be classified as classical music for the charts? A UK failure story...



## Albert7 (Nov 16, 2014)

Lately I know that people know that I haven't had much time this summer to reflect on anything meaningful due to my home building projects and trying to decipher how to create something for my growing vinyl collection (and iPods too) and spending time with Izzy. Also I have been taking time off this summer to work on jazz and hip hop research.

I have been preparing for the monthly SLC classical music monthly meeting and working on my lecture on the conjunction between classical music and popular music. One of the albums I plan to present is Rachel Fuller's re-vision of The Who's landmark album Quadrophenia. (Note this is also a film in Criterion Collection.)

http://www.billboard.com/articles/columns/rock/6590889/pete-townshend-classic-quadrophenia-uk-chart-the-who-interview

What is ironic is that the UK best selling classical album over the past few weeks hasn't been classified as such due to the problematic conservative approach that Billboard takes to classifying to what a classical music album is. (And I side with Pete on this issue honestly IMHO).

Considering that classical music album sales have been so dismal, the failure of critics to attribute Townshend's effort as classical music represents the short-sighted vision of Billboard executives and inability to see music as anything else but a set of their own type of commercial classificiations.

Honestly, if Townshend says that his album is classical then it should be classified as such. For me, the most scholarly version is what the artist says (despite the social construct issue).

And this is further proof that classical music sales is failing again and again 

http://slippedisc.com/2015/04/classical-record-sales-just-keep-on-falling/

Seriously if Hilary Hahn can't even sell more than 500 downloads and CD's combined then there is something problematic about the marketing arm of classical music critics and Billboard personages.

Oh btw, Billy Joel's foray into classical music still exists and got classified as such before.










Pete Townshend I think deserves the same respect as well.

Which makes me muse about how many units that a Kurtag CD/iTunes download goes? 10 copies?

Thoughts?


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## GreenMamba (Oct 14, 2012)

That there's already a thread for this in the Non-Classical forum probably tells you what many of us think. And whatever you think, I don't see how it helps Classical music. Sure, it might make the sales figures look better, but that's all superficial.

The Joel album *is* Classical, IMO, although perhaps not particularly good Classical.


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## Albert7 (Nov 16, 2014)

GreenMamba said:


> That there's already a thread for this in the Non-Classical forum probably tells you what many of us think. And whatever you think, I don't see how it helps Classical music. Sure, it might make the sales figures look better, but that's all superficial.
> 
> The Joel album *is* Classical, IMO, although perhaps not particularly good Classical.


True but right now I'm trying to figure a larger question. Who defines what is classical music or not?

The music critics?
The composer or arranger?
The person with the original idea?
The producer?
The record album label?

Who has the final say?


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## brotagonist (Jul 11, 2013)

Honestly, I'm at a loss. When I first read about it, I went "ööö!" Large audience segments are very receptive, however. I admit my reaction is completely unfounded, since I haven't heard the music. It is orchestral music. As much as I don't want to say this, perhaps the label 'classical' should die. It won't change my listening any: if something doesn't grab me, I won't listen to it; if I like it, I will. I have tastes that tend to what most of us would call classical, but some newer music stretches my own definition of classical music. Perhaps music has outgrown the label.


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## Albert7 (Nov 16, 2014)

brotagonist said:


> Honestly, I'm at a loss. When I first read about it, I went "ööö!" Large audience segments are very receptive, however. I admit my reaction is completely unfounded, since I haven't heard the music. It is orchestral music. As much as I don't want to say this, perhaps the label 'classical' should die. It won't change my listening any: if something doesn't grab me, I won't listen to it; if I like it, I will. I have tastes that tend to what most of us would call classical, but some newer music stretches my own definition of classical music. Perhaps music has outgrown the label.


Indeed, this afternoon at food group we had a wonderful long talk about what are the boundaries for classical music.

In fact, I think that Herrmann's score for Psycho is classical as much as Tori Amos' chamber music/orchestral albums.


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## Guest (Jun 15, 2015)

albert7 said:


> honestly, if townshend says that his album is classical then it should be classified as such. For me, the most scholarly version is what the artist says (despite the *social construct* issue).


he said the _secret word_!


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## Nereffid (Feb 6, 2013)

To expand somewhat on the point I made in the other Quadrophenia thread:

The apparent rule for inclusion on the UK's classical chart (the "Classical Artist Album Chart") is that the album must contain at least 60% classical or traditional music. (For the specialist chart, it must be 100%).
Leaving aside for a moment what the definition of either "classical" or "traditional" is, in the case of Quadrophenia all you have to do is cast your mind back to when the music was written, or indeed to a few months ago when none of us knew there was an orchestral version of it in the offing, and ask yourself what sort of music it was then. You'd say rock music. Pete Townshend would also have said rock music, no doubt. So even if it's now been "classicalized", the music itself is still rock music, not classical or traditional.
Sure, there are grey areas with regard to film music and so forth, but I think this particular case is cut-and-dried. Though as I remarked in that other thread, if the new Quadrophenia album were a new composition, it probably would qualify as classical music for the chart. But in real life it's rock music in a classical garb, so by the rules it doesn't qualify.

Who would benefit from Quadrophenia being billed as classical, anyway? Pete Townshend and his collaborators, presumably, because being the big fish in a small pond will garner more attention & sales than being an equally sized fish in a vastly bigger pond. But who else? I guess also that the people who buy what they like to call classical albums but who don't actually like classical music would have something else to buy.


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## Guest (Jun 15, 2015)

This topic comes up every once and awhile. I see it as a way to avoid talking about music, particularly current music, but that's probably just me.

Have you noticed how often the term "classical" is used in these conversations to designate a certain "sound"? Most often that "sound" is a late nineteenth century orchestral sound. Also frequent is a mid-nineteenth century piano sound. In any event, "classical" is used to designate music that sounds a certain way.

But have you also noticed how different actual "classical" pieces sound from each other? And not just Vivaldi's g minor violin concerto (RV. 315) and Xenakis' _Jonchaies,_ either, but _Jonchaies_ and _Bohor,_ too. Similar conversations take place about "American" music or "French" music or "Spanish" music or whatever, in which certain elements are abstracted from an incredibly rich and diverse reality and are substituted for that whole.

All this Joel, Townsend, Amis (and McCartney and O'Connor and Ellington) stuff says to me is that the word "classical" (narrowly applied to a sort of sound made familiar by Hollywood's use of symphony orchestras in movies and TV shows) has a certain cachet. It can legitimize pretensions to musical seriousness.

In the meantime, serious musicians like Andrea Neumann or Emmanuelle Gibello or Mark Andre or Simon Steen-Andersen don't even register. Randy Yau, Sachiko M, Katsura Mouri, Michael Boyd. Who _are_ these people? Well, they are not musicians who "sound like" classical. I don't know if you've noticed, but Vivaldi does not sound like Monteverdi. And Mozart does not sound like Vivaldi. And Schumann does not sound like Mozart. And Verdi does not sound like Schumann. And Stravinsky does not sound like Verdi. And except for that one bit, Varese does not sound like Stravinsky, nor does Karkowski sound like Varese.

If "classical" means anything with any intellectual heft--and it probably doesn't--it identifies not a sound but an attitude, a purpose, an orientation to material that is different from "folk" or "popular." But if we used that idea, we'd be talking about Stephen Stapleton right now, not Pete Townsend.


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## Nereffid (Feb 6, 2013)

Shorter someguy: Classical music is a social construct.


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## Guest (Jun 15, 2015)

Albert7 said:


> Considering that classical music album *sales *have been so dismal, the failure of critics to attribute Townshend's effort *as classical music* represents the short-sighted vision of Billboard executives and inability to see music as anything else but a set of their own type of commercial classificiations.


What has sales got to do with whether or not a particular piece of music is best considered as one genre or another? Nothing. Unless one thinks Thriller should be re-attributed as "classical" in order to boost classical sales. 



Albert7 said:


> Honestly, if Townshend says that his album is classical then it should be classified as such.


No it shouldn't. Unless one thinks that if Justin Bieber says his latest song is classical then it should be classified as such.



Albert7 said:


> Seriously if Hilary Hahn can't even sell more than 500 downloads and CD's combined then there is something problematic about the marketing arm of classical music critics and Billboard personages.


Perhaps there is; but that has nothing to do with the matter of ascribing appropriate labels to pieces of music.



Albert7 said:


> Pete Townshend I think deserves the same respect as well.


You can respect him all you like, but orchestrating a piece of pop music does not make the piece into "classical" music. Slayer's Reign in Blood album is available performed by a string quartet. It still isn't classical music and it still doesn't belong in a classical chart.



Albert7 said:


> Which makes me muse about how many units that a Kurtag CD/iTunes download goes? 10 copies?


Your point being?....

I _*do *_think here in 2015 the term "classical" is somewhat problematical, but that's an issue that isn't about to be resolved any time soon.


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## Ilarion (May 22, 2015)

Then there is the aspect of the Bed of Procrustes, ergo the music industry sales execs overwhelming desire to make everything fit into a predetermined mold, e.g. a tall person whose legs are too long for the bed have their legs cut off in order to fit the bed and the short person whose body is stretched so that it can fit the bed - In all, a most wretchedly horrible situation.


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## ArtMusic (Jan 5, 2013)

I don't believe "the charts". I think it's corrupt and highly commercial. Whoever/whichever company with the bbigest amount of power and money manipulates it.


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## Woodduck (Mar 17, 2014)

The label "classical music" is a relic and we'll never agree on whether certain pieces of music ought to be called classical or not. Anyone's decision, in any context, is fine with me. I'm sure Pete Townshend's ego will survive this awful rejection by Billboard. Maybe a few composition lessons with Billy Joel would cure him of his "Fantasies and Delusions." (Joel's collection of pieces by that name is, by the way, quite listenable if you are not mortally offended by contemporary composers who turn to the past for inspiration. A lot of it reminds me of the stuff I used to improvise for ballet classes, which was, like all the children in Lake Wobegon, above average.)


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## GreenMamba (Oct 14, 2012)

Albert7 said:


> True but right now I'm trying to figure a larger question. Who defines what is classical music or not?
> 
> The music critics?
> The composer or arranger?
> ...


In this instance, whoever controls the charts has the final say.

It's possible to believe that (a) we can never really have a complete and absolute definition of Classical and (b) Quadrophenia isn't Classical. Most categories (words?) in life have this problem.

The reason I don't go in for "If the composer says so" is it allows for shenanigans. What happens if/when Townshend starts lobbying for awards for Classical composition? It won't be so fun when they start winning those (not that I take them all that seriously, but they at ;least draw some attention to Classical composers).


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## Guest (Jun 15, 2015)

ArtMusic said:


> I don't believe "the charts". I think it's corrupt and highly commercial. Whoever/whichever company with the bbigest amount of power and money manipulates it.


You can't say that you believe in popularity as a useful standard in nearly all your threads and then say you don't believe in it...


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## Nereffid (Feb 6, 2013)

nathanb said:


> You can't say that you believe in popularity as a useful standard in nearly all your threads and then say you don't believe in it...


Perhaps some powerful and wealthy people are manipulating all the polls on TC?


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## ArtMusic (Jan 5, 2013)

nathanb said:


> You can't say that you believe in popularity as a useful standard in nearly all your threads and then say you don't believe in it...


Incorrect interpretation of ArtMusic's idiom - I wrote above that the charts is corrupt, it is manipulated. That has nothing to do with how popular or unpopular something really is.


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## ArtMusic (Jan 5, 2013)

Nereffid said:


> Perhaps some powerful and wealthy people are manipulating all the polls on TC?


Maybe me? hehehe


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## Guest (Jun 15, 2015)

ArtMusic said:


> Incorrect interpretation of ArtMusic's idiom - I wrote above that the charts is corrupt, it is manipulated. That has nothing to do with how popular or unpopular something really is.


The charts are a measure of how popular things are. Nothing more.


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## ArtMusic (Jan 5, 2013)

nathanb said:


> The charts are a measure of how popular things are. Nothing more.


In my opinion, it is corrupt and woefully manipulated for sales purposes, a blunt marketing gimmick for the masses.


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## Guest (Jun 15, 2015)

ArtMusic said:


> In my opinion, it is corrupt and woefully manipulated for sales purposes, a blunt marketing gimmick for the masses.


Only in the same sense that all measures of popularity are "corrupt and woefully manipulated". Including whatever measures apply to things you actually like. Social construct nonsense, etc. Really meaningless to talk about. Let's talk music


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## isorhythm (Jan 2, 2015)

ArtMusic said:


> In my opinion, it is corrupt and woefully manipulated for sales purposes, a blunt marketing gimmick for the masses.


The charts are what gets played on the radio.

Classical ticket sales are what gets played in concerts.

Both reflect a combination of "real" popularity and other factors. Pure and simple.


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## Simon Moon (Oct 10, 2013)

Just curious...

For those that say that the Orchestral "Quadrophenia" should be considered classical, how far into the rock realm would you consider an orchestrated version of a rock album as being classical?

If an orchestral version of "Quadrophenia" is classical, how abut "American Idiot" by Green Day? It is a rock opera, after all. If it was orchestrated by a skilled orchestrator, should it be considered classical?

What about an orchestrated version of the concept rap album, "The Autobiography of Kirk Jones" by Sticky Fingaz?


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## Guest (Jun 15, 2015)

nathanb said:


> Let's talk music


Please PLEASE PLEASE do not hold your breath waiting for this one to happen!!


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## ArtMusic (Jan 5, 2013)

nathanb said:


> Only in the same sense that all measures of popularity are "corrupt and woefully manipulated". Including whatever measures apply to things you actually like. Social construct nonsense, etc. Really meaningless to talk about. Let's talk music


Yes, I am quite surprised there are still people in this world who think the charts are really what it seems to be.

As for popularity and universal acceptance, I have never relied on the charts. I have relied on history and time, usually the best and most reliable.


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## ArtMusic (Jan 5, 2013)

isorhythm said:


> The charts are what gets played on the radio.
> 
> Classical ticket sales are what gets played in concerts.
> 
> Both reflect a combination of "real" popularity and other factors. Pure and simple.


My view is of a longer time horizon, as I wrote above. Proven popularity over time and history, not over a few months or years, when the erosion begins.


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## Guest (Jun 15, 2015)

ArtMusic said:


> Yes, I am quite surprised there are still people in this world who think the charts are really what it seems to be.
> 
> As for popularity and universal acceptance, I have never relied on the charts. I have relied on history and time, usually the best and most reliable.


Well, history and time will tell you that, at this moment in time, Kanye West far outstrips Georg Friedrich Handel in terms of popularity. Either you think popularity has any relevance to quality and that Kanye must therefore be a greater artist than Handel, or neither. Can't have it both ways, kid.


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## Guest (Jun 15, 2015)

ArtMusic said:


> My view is of a longer time horizon, as I wrote above. Proven popularity over time and history, not over a few months or years, when the erosion begins.


This is a meaningless standard as it allows nothing to anyone with an unfortunate birth date in recent time. This standard would make Brian Ferneyhough a composer of little worth, and Alma Deutscher an entirely worthless mass of flesh and a central nervous system.


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## ArtMusic (Jan 5, 2013)

nathanb said:


> This is a meaningless standard as it allows nothing to anyone with an unfortunate birth date in recent time. This standard would make Brian Ferneyhough a composer of little worth, and Alma Deutscher an entirely worthless mass of flesh and a central nervous system.


It is a real standard that history uses. Bach, Mozart, Wagner to name some have survived the real test, not the test of *commercial-modernism that is the charts*. I agree - Deutscher has yet to pass the test, she (as far as I know) has not appeared on any charts. As far as contemporary composers are concerned, I do not read the charts for it is corrupt.


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## Guest (Jun 15, 2015)

ArtMusic said:


> It is a real standard that history uses. Bach, Mozart, Wagner to name some have survived the real test, not the test of *commercial-modernism that is the charts*. I agree - Deutscher has yet to pass the test, she (as far as I know) has not appeared on any charts. As far as contemporary composers are concerned, I do not read the charts for it is corrupt.


But you have already praised Deutscher; therefore, the double standard is clear. All arguments rendered meaningless. Moving on.


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## KenOC (Mar 7, 2011)

nathanb said:


> Well, history and time will tell you that, at this moment in time, Kanye West far outstrips Georg Friedrich Handel in terms of popularity. Either you think popularity has any relevance to quality and that Kanye must therefore be a greater artist than Handel, or neither. Can't have it both ways, kid.


The only way works enter the classical canon or the standard performing repertoire is...enduring popularity. If there's another way, I don't know what it is. Unless there's a committee of gnomes somewhere deciding these things.


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## Woodduck (Mar 17, 2014)

Popularity is not a criterion of excellence, but it may be indicative, and the passage of time tends - _tends_ - to make it more indicative.

No?


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## Sid James (Feb 7, 2009)

Albert7 said:


> ...
> What is ironic is that the UK best selling classical album over the past few weeks hasn't been classified as such due to the problematic conservative approach that Billboard takes to classifying to what a classical music album is. (And I side with Pete on this issue honestly IMHO).
> 
> Considering that classical music album sales have been so dismal, the failure of critics to attribute Townshend's effort as classical music represents the short-sighted vision of Billboard executives and inability to see music as anything else but a set of their own type of commercial classificiations.
> ...


I don't see classification as a big deal. However, in the past classical music was the equivalent of popular music in its own time. Right through to the mid 20th century, you had less of this need for highbrow/lowbrow distinction. Beethoven, Schubert, Brahms, Dvorak, Saint-Saens wrote salon and encore type pieces, and there was of course the Strauss waltz dynasty. Even Chopin and Schumann wrote what can be called more highbrow type salon music.

Once recording technology emerged, the lighter side of classical became very lucrative, and there was this trickle down effect. I think that the first stage work recorded in complete form was Lehar's Merry Widow.

Once stereo came in, you had Mantovani's albums sell millions, the profits being used to record more highbrow classical as well as rock bands like the Rolling Stones. Henry Mancini also made a 'pops' album with the Philadelphia Orchestra, and of course there where Beecham's "Lollipops." I would imagine that Andre Rieu's cd's made for Universal - he is contracted to do one a year - must have the same sort of relationship with other music. It sells well, fills the coffers, and funds other less lucrative ventures.

So basically music that is not highbrow classical has had a way of subsidising other areas for something like 200 years. This isn't something much talked about on this forum, but I have made posts similar to this over the years.

As far as categories go, time is the best judge of what becomes "classical." Not many people would argue that Brahms' Hungarian Dances are any less classical today as his large scale orchestral works. Same with Strauss' waltzes or even Lehar's operettas. Its all classical once it passes the test of time.



> ...And this is further proof that classical music sales is failing again and again
> 
> ....
> Seriously if Hilary Hahn can't even sell more than 500 downloads and CD's combined then there is something problematic about the marketing arm of classical music critics and Billboard personages.
> ...


Serious/highbrow type contemporary classical (eg. avant-garde) is never going to be popular and therefore sell that much, however there will always be some sort of audience for it. I have quite a good amount of post-1945/contemporary music in my collection, but it isn't exclusively avant-garde.

The current picture of classical isn't limited to avant-garde, but if listeners of that type of music see themselves as part of a rare breed, then I can understand why. Even Beecham spoke derisively of his "lollipops," as if it was candy he was handing out to the plebs like a nice after dinner mint to round off a concert. But with him you never know if he was serious - hence his infamous dig at Stockhausen!

In any case, highbrow attitude is always an element of what separates "real" classical music from that which is deemed not to be that, or that exactly.


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## Sid James (Feb 7, 2009)

dogen said:


> ..
> 
> You can respect him all you like, but orchestrating a piece of pop music does not make the piece into "classical" music. Slayer's Reign in Blood album is available performed by a string quartet. It still isn't classical music and it still doesn't belong in a classical chart.....


It did in the past. For example, Brahms' Hungarian Dances are arrangements of existing tunes played at the time by gypsy bands. In fact, the Hungarian violinist Remenyi - a friend of Brahms at the time of his early Hamburg years, they did a lot of touring together - fell out with him. Remenyi accused Brahms of plagiarism. Brahms didn't assign opus numbers to these, but it did prove lucrative for him, the Hungarian Dances where his "best sellers." Dvorak did a similar thing later with his Slavonic Dances, but those where original pieces.

I don't see much difference when chamber groups include an arrangement of a non-classical song in their recitals today. Not all groups do it, and it depends on the format of the program, but I've seen it done.


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## Lukecash12 (Sep 21, 2009)

Albert7 said:


> True but right now I'm trying to figure a larger question. Who defines what is classical music or not?
> 
> The music critics?
> The composer or arranger?
> ...


And when did people start calling certain music "classical"? Many "classical" composers would not have identified with each other. I think what has been bothering people more is the lack of musical education, or at least appreciation and familiarity. Well lot's of "classical" appreciators aren't musically literate themselves and their interests aren't nearly as broad as they might like to think (myself included).

And does it bother anyone when I champion Hindustani music? Would anyone care to listen to the Klezmer fiddle or Kinnor lute? I've done that a number of times here in the past and people have been receptive, it didn't seem odd at all to them in a "classical" music atmosphere. We all have only surface level interests in music, however much broader the influences are of a "classical" fan who listens to 250-300 years worth of music as opposed to other people today in the West. There's a sea out there and we're basically a few inches deep in it, even if we've been into general musicology all of our lives.






Everyone defines "classical" to some extent and this whole culture is pretty inane. It's a posthumous and anachronistic idea anyways. I can just as well quip at how sad it is that "classical" listeners don't listen to Gombert, Perotin, Victoria, De Prez, Ockeghem, etc. and why aren't they under the same supposed genre?


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## ArtMusic (Jan 5, 2013)

nathanb said:


> But you have already praised Deutscher; therefore, the double standard is clear. All arguments rendered meaningless. Moving on.


What is double standard?

Deutscher (as far as I know) never made it to any charts. She is reasonably popular given her limited compositional output irrespective of charts.

Handel was always popular.

Neither Deustcher nor Handel made it to any charts, thankfully not under any corrupt commercial-modernism that is of the charts.

True popular music over time speaks for itself. No need for transient charts.

I like being a kid.


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## Albert7 (Nov 16, 2014)

Seriously, I still really think that the artist should have the final say on whether his or her work ought to be classical.

No one critic told Beethoven that his symphony was classical or not. It was up to Beethoven to pronounce his work as being a piece of classical music.

Honestly I bet that if Billboard were in 1900 they wouldn't have included any of Mahler's works as classical music.


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## Lukecash12 (Sep 21, 2009)

ArtMusic said:


> What is double standard?
> 
> Deutscher (as far as I know) never made it to any charts. She is reasonably popular given her limited compositional output irrespective of charts.
> 
> ...


This to me is something of a meaningless platitude, and I mean no offense when I say that, monsieur. Did Palestrina stand the test of time? He was idolized in the exact same manner by composers like Handel. Btw, Handel was always popular in certain circles. In others he wasn't even on their radar, especially among many Catholic people in France. We have to remember that even translating the bible into German or English was still a fiery issue at the time.


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## Lukecash12 (Sep 21, 2009)

Albert7 said:


> Seriously, I still really think that the artist should have the final say on whether his or her work ought to be classical.
> 
> No one critic told Beethoven that his symphony was classical or not. It was up to Beethoven to pronounce his work as being a piece of classical music.
> 
> Honestly I bet that if Billboard were in 1900 they wouldn't have included any of Mahler's works as classical music.


Go ahead and find me a quote where they said their music was "classical". I'm pretty sure the only people who said that were people during the classical period, people who lived during that time or hearkened back to it (Mendelssohn called himself "classical"). Find me a single reference from Handel, Bach, Clementi, or Scarlatti referring to their music as "classical". There were tons of other distinctions that they did focus on, distinctions that I'm sure they felt were more important than "classical". Our concept of the word is alien and not at all helpful.


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## Albert7 (Nov 16, 2014)

KenOC said:


> The only way works enter the classical canon or the standard performing repertoire is...enduring popularity. If there's another way, I don't know what it is. Unless there's a committee of gnomes somewhere deciding these things.


Popularity contests are not a test for whether or not a piece is classical music. In fact, would we say that 4' 33" is all that popular to begin with?


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## KenOC (Mar 7, 2011)

Lukecash12 said:


> Go ahead and find me a quote where they said their music was "classical".


Actually the music of Haydn, Mozart, and Beethoven was called "Romantic" before the term "classical" came into vogue.

https://sites.google.com/site/kenocstuff/eta-hoffman-on-beethoven

But it was never mistaken for popular music. Weber, in an essay attacking Beethoven's 4th Symphony, sets this kind of music against that of Muller and Kauer, whom Grove calls "the Strausses of the day."

https://sites.google.com/site/kenocstuff/weber-on-beethoven-s-fourth-symphony


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## Lukecash12 (Sep 21, 2009)

KenOC said:


> Actually the music of Haydn, Mozart, and Beethoven was called "Romantic" before the term "classical" came into vogue.
> 
> https://sites.google.com/site/kenocstuff/eta-hoffman-on-beethoven
> 
> ...


Why thank you, monsieur... Is Albert Brumley pop music? Eugene Bartlett? They weren't "classical", yet at the same time their music was listened to by a limited group, a group that was appreciating a particular tradition.


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## Albert7 (Nov 16, 2014)

Lukecash12 said:


> Why thank you, monsieur... Is Albert Brumley pop music? Eugene Bartlett? They weren't "classical", yet at the same time their music was listened to by a limited group, a group that was appreciating a particular tradition.


Or what about Johann Strauss Jr.?


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## Guest (Jun 16, 2015)

Albert7 said:


> Seriously, I still really think that the artist should have the final say on whether his or her work ought to be classical.


Even ArtMusic's standards make more sense than this.


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## KenOC (Mar 7, 2011)

Lukecash12 said:


> Why thank you, monsieur... Is Albert Brumley pop music? Eugene Bartlett? They weren't "classical", yet at the same time their music was listened to by a limited group, a group that was appreciating a particular tradition.


So far as I'm concerned, we can call various types of music whatever we like. Whether history votes with us is unknown and probably doesn't matter much.


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## Sid James (Feb 7, 2009)

Albert7 said:


> Seriously, I still really think that the artist should have the final say on whether his or her work ought to be classical.
> 
> No one critic told Beethoven that his symphony was classical or not. It was up to Beethoven to pronounce his work as being a piece of classical music.
> 
> Honestly I bet that if Billboard were in 1900 they wouldn't have included any of Mahler's works as classical music.


I think part of the issue is the purpose of a piece. Take Brahms for example, his Hungarian Dances where meant to fill the need in the market at the time for light salon or encore pieces. His orchestral music wasn't of course composed for the same purpose, the concert hall. Here you have the distinction between not only high and low, but also public and private. Chamber music, although it was performed in a more intimate setting - either in the home or in a smaller hall - was still put in the high category.

The point is that music is all things and serves different purposes, from low to high and in between. Its no surprise that composers would labour for long periods on their more substantial concert hall works, while they could at the same time churn out many lighter pieces. The publishers where eager for salon music, Dvorak complained that Simrock weren't so much interested in another symphony as in more Slavonic Dances.

That issue of 'churn' is also present in more recent popular music, but it doesn't meant its automatically rubbish. Burt Bacharach was classically trained - by Milhaud and also Cowell and Martinu - and he had his admirers outside the pop realm. Leopold Stokowski asked him for an orchestral piece. Bacharach turned this down, because he said that when he composed a pop album, he could record and perform it straight away. With a classical piece there would be a two year waiting time between when he submitted the composition to Stokowski to when it would actually be premiered and potentially recorded.

This gives an idea of how the composers of the old days worked. It takes substantial time to produce an orchestral score such as a symphony or concerto. Not so much to do salon pieces, or sets of them, or today's light classical or crossover. But time and money factors are weighted towards the latter. As I described above though there is a symbiotic relationship between the two, and I think to a degree its survived until today. The money for more highbrow music has to come from somewhere, there has to be a broad base to classical music as to anything.


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## Lukecash12 (Sep 21, 2009)

KenOC said:


> So far as I'm concerned, we can call various types of music whatever we like. Whether history votes with us is unknown and probably doesn't matter much.


It really does mean more about how we order our own thoughts, than it does about their thoughts. However, I've yet to see why this term is apt or helpful. "Classical" doesn't help us understand anything, other than what we like to call some music. Language really is an uncontrollable tide to all but a few influential persons, as helpful as it is harmful. The library of Alexandria is in a state of perpetual destruction, our ideas immolating themselves as soon as they are born.


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## Woodduck (Mar 17, 2014)

Dogen wrote: You can respect him all you like, but orchestrating a piece of pop music does not make the piece into "classical" music. Slayer's Reign in Blood album is available performed by a string quartet. It still isn't classical music and it still doesn't belong in a classical chart.....



Sid James said:


> It did in the past. For example, Brahms' Hungarian Dances are arrangements of existing tunes played at the time by gypsy bands. In fact, the Hungarian violinist Remenyi - a friend of Brahms at the time of his early Hamburg years, they did a lot of touring together - fell out with him. Remenyi accused Brahms of plagiarism. Brahms didn't assign opus numbers to these, but it did prove lucrative for him, the Hungarian Dances where his "best sellers." Dvorak did a similar thing later with his Slavonic Dances, but those where original pieces.
> 
> I don't see much difference when chamber groups include an arrangement of a non-classical song in their recitals today. Not all groups do it, and it depends on the format of the program, but I've seen it done.


I don't think Brahms produced "classical" music by arranging gypsy songs. He produced music, using catchy tunes, to entertain people in venues where actual gypsies wouldn't be performing. He heard and liked the melodies and rhythms and thought, "This stuff is too good to leave to the verbunkos bands - and, not incidentally, I can make some money arranging and playing it." It wasn't tux and top hat music; it was just good, enjoyable music. I don't think the question of "classical" versus "popular" arose - at least not as we think of it now. We can't use Brahms or Dvorak as a precedent for assigning things to categories that didn't exist, or were not so sharply distinguished, as they later became.

When Brahms praised the music of Johann Strauss, was he thinking of it as "classical" music? Wagner called Strauss "the most musical head in Europe," had Strauss waltzes played in his home, and said that Strauss's music surpassed in quality much of the serious music of the day. Did he think it was "classical"? We, subsequently, have more or less decided that it was, although we tend to call it "light classical," which someone defined as music in which the tune is more important than what you do with it.

We need to remember that in that era, music we would now be inclined to distinguish as "classical" and "popular" had a lot more in common than its present-day counterparts. Except for traditional folk music, which might have peculiarities such as the use of different scales or modes, most of the music Haydn, Beethoven, Brahms and Wagner could hear around them, whether in concert halls or dance halls, shared a basic harmonic idiom and many melodic and rhythmic traits as well, and there was consequently much fertilization of concert music by popular idioms. This grew less and less true in the course of the 19th century (although the nationalist movement probably helped perpetuate it), and out of the growing divergence of musical styles our notions of "classical" versus "popular" music took shape. Despite this evolution, however, "classical music" is a category whose boundaries remain extremely vague. No definition will do for all practical purposes. How you want to define it depends very much on what your purposes are - and those purposes are likely to be commercial.

Unless there are profits to be made, who really cares how "classical" is defined?


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## Guest (Jun 16, 2015)

Sid James said:


> It did in the past. For example, Brahms' Hungarian Dances are arrangements of existing tunes played at the time by gypsy bands. In fact, the Hungarian violinist Remenyi - a friend of Brahms at the time of his early Hamburg years, they did a lot of touring together - fell out with him. Remenyi accused Brahms of plagiarism. Brahms didn't assign opus numbers to these, but it did prove lucrative for him, the Hungarian Dances where his "best sellers." Dvorak did a similar thing later with his Slavonic Dances, but those where original pieces.
> 
> I don't see much difference when chamber groups include an arrangement of a non-classical song in their recitals today. Not all groups do it, and it depends on the format of the program, but I've seen it done.


I guess our tendency to need to discriminate and label what we hear has always been a two-edged sword. The distinctions between art, folk, and popular do not have distinct and/or universally agreed boundaries.


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## Lukecash12 (Sep 21, 2009)

Woodduck said:


> Dogen wrote: You can respect him all you like, but orchestrating a piece of pop music does not make the piece into "classical" music. Slayer's Reign in Blood album is available performed by a string quartet. It still isn't classical music and it still doesn't belong in a classical chart.....
> 
> I don't think Brahms produced "classical" music by arranging gypsy songs. He produced music, using catchy tunes, to entertain people in venues where actual gypsies wouldn't be performing. He heard and liked the melodies and rhythms and thought, "This stuff is too good to leave to the verbunkos bands - and, not incidentally, I can make some money arranging and playing it." It wasn't tux and top hat music; it was just good, enjoyable music. I don't think the question of "classical" versus "popular" arose - at least not as we think of it now. We can't use Brahms or Dvorak as a precedent for assigning things to categories that didn't exist, or were not so sharply distinguished, as they later became.
> 
> ...


This reminds me very much of Schweitzer's efforts in pointing out all of the references in the chorales of High German music (the school of music followed by Reinecken, Pachelbel, Buxtehude, Graupner, and others who typically worked as a hoforganist, konzertmeister, or kapelmeister) to both Lutheran chorales and hymns as well as popular music. In High German music they even called some cantatas "secular", which can be pretty odd to us today given the clearly scriptural text and inspirations within these "secular" works. Suites for solo instruments at that time were an evolution of dance music, e.g. the gavotte, gigue, prelude, sarabande.

The more substantial differences between then and now have more to do with culture and the shape of the music industry. The patronage model is gone, our interests and values have changed. Music is easily available, and so is education. Romanticism has been supplanted by modernism, and then postmodernism. Literacy is much more common. People have phones on them at all times. In Christianity we went from such intellectual giants as Dionysus, Augustine of Hippo, Pious XIII, John Calvin, Jacobus Arminius, Martin Luther, and Jonathan Edwards, to Benny Hinn, John Arnott, Howard Brown, T.D. Jakes, and other such televangelists. The Dark Ages are on the horizon once again and the name of this new age is apathy, security, and ease of living.


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## Guest (Jun 16, 2015)

If I ever get around to getting my compositional chops bumped up a good bit to where I can write anything "classical" that isn't formula based (hey, I'm an engineer, not a composer!)... I've always wanted to incorporate tiny motifs, phrases, and other fragments from my past musical world (which included Slayer and The Who as well as Darkthrone, Aphex Twin, Dead Can Dance and what have you). Try as I may on some of my more pretentious days, I can't discredit the influence of pop music on my life in music, and I think hommage to be a rather important thing. BUT I would not consider a mere transcription/arrangement to be classical in such a scenario. Metal riffs are relatively chromatic, so I could probably just craft a row from that kinda stuff


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## brotagonist (Jul 11, 2013)

Sid James said:


> It takes substantial time to produce an orchestral score such as a symphony or concerto. Not so much to do salon pieces, or sets of them, or today's light classical or crossover. But time and money factors are weighted towards the latter. ...[T]here is a symbiotic relationship between the two, and I think to a degree its survived until today. The money for more highbrow music has to come from somewhere, there has to be a broad base to classical music as to anything.


That makes those abysmal sales figures quoted in the article all the more sobering... and fearsome. If each and every one of us vows to buy a "highbrow" album by a living composer at least once a year, would it suffice to keep highbrow music alive?


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## Lukecash12 (Sep 21, 2009)

brotagonist said:


> That makes those abysmal sales figures quoted in the article all the more sobering... and fearsome. If each and every one of us vows to buy a "highbrow" album by a living composer at least once a year, would it suffice to keep highbrow music alive?


Nope. I'm sure there was a time when people figured that Perotin, De Prez, Ockeghem, and Heironimus would be listened to until the end of time. Their music was worshiped that way. There is no "timeless" music. How many people who like "classical" music have heard Palestrina's Missa Papae Marcelli? How many of Luther's chorales and hymns have stood the test of time? Does anyone know what king David's lute sounded like? Ever heard anything that was done Hezekiah of Judah's Levites?

Expecting to keep this music alive is like *expecting everyone to speak Latin*. Haec est fides catholica, quam nisi quisque fideliter firmiterque crediderit, salvus esse non poterit?


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## Sid James (Feb 7, 2009)

Just to add to your reply, *Woodduck*, its also interesting how the gypsy bands of today (and also the likes of Andre Rieu) now play Brahms' Hungarian Dances, as they do things like Monti's Csardas. So Brahms took them for his purposes, and then the guys playing gypsy or light music took them back.

Its also the case that in the 19th century, certainly in Beethoven's time and also somewhat later, you had the custom of inserting a light piece between movements of a longer, more serious piece. So, during a concerto or symphony, you would have something like an opera aria as a breather (or lollipop) between two movements. Mozart did it during premieres of his music, and I know Chopin did it when he first played his piano concertos. The longer the works got, audiences needed time to get used to them, to hear music as being something beyond light entertainment.

Johann Strauss II was of course admired by the likes of Brahms, but he was also very much up on new music of his day. I read that Strauss attended premieres of Bruckner's symphonies, which is pretty much cutting edge for that time. Offenbach also admired Strauss and suggested to him to try his hand at operetta, and with Die Fledermaus Viennese operetta was born.

& to reply to you *dogen*, I think that there are boundaries but they're permeable. I think categories are needed in a database, because you need to group things in some way. There is no use for example in putting chicken in the fruit and veges section of a supermarket. But when things are categorised, they can also overlap. Mantovani can be easy listening (like say Frank Sinatra) but he can also be light classical. Neither he, Mancini or Rieu are lightweights in terms of musical knowledge and training, they all did degrees in music. There are others like Elton John and Nina Simone who where classically trained, but they're clearly not classical.

However not all distinctions are clear cut, and there is this trend to mix and reach across boundaries, but at the same time boxes are convenient in a number of ways.

As to what you say *brotagonist*, another example of best sellers subsidising classical was the big selling musicals - My Fair Lady, West Side Story, The King and I - all pouring money into the media companies which again was in part used to fund highbrow recordings. But that was in the 1960's, and my concern is that sort of altruism or noblesse oblige is vanishing today. Maybe the good thing that can be said is that we have such a vast legacy of great classical recordings from that big post-war boom era, that even if reissues of the existing catalogue continue, in terms of recordings classical can continue to have some sort of market presence.


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## Albert7 (Nov 16, 2014)

Ah so should West Side Story be considered more classical than say Candide?


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## Morimur (Jan 23, 2014)

Lukecash12 said:


> Haec est fides catholica, quam nisi quisque fideliter firmiterque crediderit, salvus esse non poterit?


You watch your mouth, Cash.


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## Woodduck (Mar 17, 2014)

Albert7 said:


> Ah so should West Side Story be considered more classical than say Candide?


What do you mean by the question, particularly the "Ah, so" part? Is that in response to someone else's point?


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## arpeggio (Oct 4, 2012)

At one time I thought I knew the answer to this. But every time I thought I came up with an answer I ran into notable exceptions.


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## Guest (Jun 17, 2015)

I accept that labels are inevitable and useful and that there is much shading between "pure" (?) categories. 

Now this might be simply down to my virtually complete musical ignorance but the notion of "classical" has kind of come off the tracks (for me) since I actively got into "it" within the last couple of years. Until recently the term meant for me, what I think it means to a lot of people: essentially music played by orchestras and string quartets or pianists written by people who died a goodly while ago and probably wore a wig. Feel free to snigger but my general perception is by far from unique, in fact the few people I know in 3D land who profess to like classical music like what I have just described. These will be the self same people who equate the word "modern" with the word "rubbish." Proper classical was written a long while ago...

But for myself I too struggle to equate "classical" with much of what I have heard in the last couple of years (and often enjoyed). I've just listened to Gondwana by Tristan Murail. Filed under "classical" on Amazon. I LIKE it (as in I'm not here to diss it) but I struggle to think of it as "classical" (or indeed even want to?). I cite that just as an example, not to get embroiled in Murail or Gondwana or whatever. I'm certain my Mozart loving friends wouldn't call it classical either. They'd think it was indeed modern rubbish whereas I enjoy it but we might be in agreement as to the label that it WAS NOT. But what label to give it for referencing? Concur with Amazon?

By way of another example...Nymphea by Kaija Saariaho would possibly be given the label "classical" by said Mozart fans because of the more obvious "traditional" instrumentation in use (but still modern rubbish of course  )


Thanks for reading my confused ramblings...

:tiphat:


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## Sid James (Feb 7, 2009)

Albert7 said:


> Ah so should West Side Story be considered more classical than say Candide?


Bernstein was pretty broad and his work shows little regard for barriers of high and low. Categorisation of his work is all over the map:

West Side Story, On the Town - musical theatre (both made into films)
On the Waterfront - film music
Prelude, Fugue and Riffs - jazz/classical crossover, played by Benny Goodman (& I think also Woody Hermann)
Fancy Free - ballet, but it has the same musical material as On the Town
Candide - I've seen it described as operetta, but I only know the famous overture

His classical concert hall output is similarly diverse. He's one of those composers who always tried something new in each piece he composed. Eg. there's influence of Berg in the Serenade, of Ravel and ragtime in Symphony #2 "Age of Anxiety," of jazz and Stravinsky in Chichester Psalms, some works with Jewish themes, some of them using serialism in a flexible way (eg. Symphony #3, "Kaddish"), and so on.

But my point is that Bernstein defies category as a composer, but its still possible to categorise his individual works.


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