# Classification of Musical Style



## bassClef (Oct 29, 2006)

I'm trying to break down my digital classical music collection by musical style and trying to come up with a manageable list of styles which has the following aims:

(a) Any piece* is classified as one style (and one style only)
(b) It covers the entire classical repertoire (from early Medieval to 21st Century)
(c) The list is not too long

* By "piece" I mean any full work or part of a work I (or anyone) might have in a digital classical music collection. So it's not always a complete work, it could be an overture from a ballet/opera, a prelude to an act, etc.

It's a different classification than musical period (Medieval, Baroque, Romantic etc) and genre (Classical, Opera, Avant-Garde, etc).

My first stab at this is as follows:


SYMPHONY
CONCERTO
SONATA
BALLET
SUITE
TONE POEM
RHAPSODY
CHAMBER
DUO/TRIO/QUARTET/etc
OPERA
SONG CYCLE
CHORAL
OVERTURE
Do you think this fulfils the aims?

Is there any piece* you can think of which either does not fall into one of the above classifications or falls into more than one?

Admittedly the classification is not always clear: A ballet suite for example I'd class as a SUITE rather than BALLET which I'd reserve for a complete ballet. Similarly I'd use OVERTURE for any standalone overture rather than OPERA or BALLET. Standalone preludes might need their own style but you can see how the list might become unmanageably long - I want to keep it to under 20.


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## hpowders (Dec 23, 2013)

Is this to be purely orchestral?

If not, then the Theme and Variations category-such as Bach-Goldberg Variations, Beethoven-Diabelli Variations, Brahms-Variations and Fugue on a Theme By Handel, Dohnanyi-Variations on a Nursery Tune and Franck-Symphonic Variations.


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## bassClef (Oct 29, 2006)

Agreed, and I thought of Cantata too:

14. THEME & VARIATIONS
15. CANTATA

Not just orchestral no, I want it to cover the entire classical repertoire.


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## DiesIraeCX (Jul 21, 2014)

What about "Dances"? Like Brahms' Hungarian Dances or Dvorak's Slavonic Dances.


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## bassClef (Oct 29, 2006)

Yep, it's only when going through them that more come up. I'm trying to classify just the works of Stravinsky at the moment and hit The Soldier's Tale which I think comes under another category: Theatrical Work. So we have:

16. DANCE(S)
17. THEATRICAL WORK

If I reach 20 I may have to consolidate some into a more generic title, eg. Vocal Composition for song cycles, cantatas etc.


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## violadude (May 2, 2011)

Small terminology quibble: I think those would be considered either genres or mediums. When I think of the word "style" I think more like "The 12 tone style" or "The Rococo style" or "Ars Nova".


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## Guest (Sep 20, 2014)

This is what I use. It's probably a bit longer than you want but I think once you go down this path you'll have a longish list.

In the Genre field for every track is one of the following:

Asian
Baroque
Bassoon Sonata
Cello Concerto
Cello Sonata
Choral
Clarinet Concerto
Clarinet Sonata
Contemporary
Flute Concerto
Flute Solo
Flute Sonata
Guitar Concerto
Guitar Solo
Harp Concerto
Harp Solo
Horn Concerto
Horn Sonata
Latin
Medieval
Modern
Oboe Sonata
Opera
Oratorio
Orchestral
Orchestral Plus
Orchestral Song
Organ Concerto
Organ Solo
Other Chamber
Other Concerto
Other Duo
Other Trio
Piano Concerto
Piano Quartet
Piano Quintet
Piano Solo
Piano Trio
Renaissance
Saxophone Concerto
Saxophone Sonata
Song
String Quartet
String Quintet
String Trio
Symphony
Traditional
Viola Concerto
Viola Sonata
Violin Concerto
Violin Solo
Violin Sonata
Wind Band

It's not perfect - and from time to time I make adjustments.

But when it's working it works great. If for example I want to find all the works by Saint-Saens for cello and piano it's easy-peasy.


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## violadude (May 2, 2011)

1. Chant
2. Organum 
3. Mass
4. Motet
5. Chanson
6. Madrigal
7. Requiem
8. Suite
9. Trio Sonata
10. Opera
11. Cantata
12. Oratorio
13. Concerto Grosso
14. Chaccone
17. Passicaglia
18. Fugue
19. Symphony
20. String Quartet
21. Solo Sonata
22. String Quintet
23. Solo Concerto
24. String Trio
25. Piano trio
26. Piano Quartet
27. Piano Quintet
28. Lieder/ Lieder cycle
29. Nocturne/Intermezzo/Prelude/Rhapsody/Fantasy/Impromptu
30 . Chorale-prelude
31. Chorale
32. Dances (Minuet/Gigue/allemande/courante/mazurka etc.)
33. Partita
34. Variations
35. Tone Poems
36. Paraphrase
37. String Sextet
38. Wind Quintet

Iono, that's as much as I can think of for now off the top of my head

However, I'm still a little bit unsure what is meant by style or genre or whatever word you use. I think it gets a little nebulous sometimes.


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## violadude (May 2, 2011)

BPS said:


> Asian


Asian? Oh Yeah...Chinese Opera and Indonesian Gamelan are pretty much the same style


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## Mahlerian (Nov 27, 2012)

violadude said:


> Asian? Oh Yeah...Chinese Opera and Indonesian Gamelan are pretty much the same style


Raga, Gagaku...obviously the same thing!


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## hpowders (Dec 23, 2013)

bassClef said:


> Agreed, and I thought of Cantata too:
> 
> 14. THEME & VARIATIONS
> 15. CANTATA
> ...


Yes. Prokofiev's Alexander Nevsky is considered to be a cantata along with lord knows how many that Bach composed.


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## Kopachris (May 31, 2010)

This may help a little: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_musical_forms_by_era


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## Guest (Sep 20, 2014)

violadude said:


> Asian? Oh Yeah...Chinese Opera and Indonesian Gamelan are pretty much the same style


My categories reflect my collection. At the moment I only have four albums that fit the "Asian" category, so there's no need to be more specific.

I think in general anyone's categories should reflect their collection. It might be nice if there were some sort of universal classification system that worked just as well, but I doubt such a classification system is possible.


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## bassClef (Oct 29, 2006)

I'd agree "*musical form*" is a better term, since as you said "style" is different (neo-classical, atonal, serialist, minimalist etc). For genre I use broader terms to distinguish my classical from modern (rock/pop/jazz/etc). Plenty of food for thought here, I guess a limit of 20 was optimistic!


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## violadude (May 2, 2011)

bassClef said:


> I'd agree "*musical form*" is a better term, since as you said "style" is different (neo-classical, atonal, serialist, minimalist etc). For genre I use broader terms to distinguish my classical from modern (rock/pop/jazz/etc). Plenty of food for thought here, I guess a limit of 20 was optimistic!


Hmm, just to throw another monkey wrench in your train of thought regarding categorization:

What is a musical form exactly? There are things like sonata form, which describe the organization of the musical ideas.

And then there are labels like the string quartet (something that appears in your list I believe) which don't have anything to do with the organization of musical ideas but are referring to the instrumentation.


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## Headphone Hermit (Jan 8, 2014)

I tried doing this and packed it in as a duff idea as too many of the terms have had varying meanings and too much of my music fitted into more than one category - for example, 'concerto' has a different meaning for Baroque items and for Classical items ... or I got fed up with the arbritary allocation of music into categories such as 'dance' and 'orchesral' for things like Brahm's Hungarian Dances.

Having said that ..... if you come up with an easy to use system that covers the last thousand years, then let us know


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## Andreas (Apr 27, 2012)

I think having too many categories would in a way defeat the original purpose of the idea. I would suggest these ten:

Orchestral
Concerto
Keyboard solo
Chamber
Solo instrument
Choral
Opera
Song
A capella
Other


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## bassClef (Oct 29, 2006)

We can get sidetracked by semantics, but the idea is simply to provide a _meaningful_ break-down by Composer (or even above Composer), as illustrated here:


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## science (Oct 14, 2010)

I had a list but I saw that other lists are at least as good as mine!

I use the genre field for period: 

Classical Medieval (to 1350) 
Classical Renaissance (1350 to 1600) 
Classical Baroque (1600 to 1750) 
Classical Classical (1750 to 1815) 
Classical Romantic (1815-1890)
Classical Modern (1890-1968)
Classical Post-modern (196


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## QuietGuy (Mar 1, 2014)

Solo piano?.........


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## quack (Oct 13, 2011)

This is the sort of thing you have to work out for yourself, then you can be blind to the inconstancies. Asking other people will just boggle your mind with all the different suggestions.

But to assist with the boggling I would suggest thinking of the broadest few categories possible:

Orchestral
Vocal
Chamber
Duo
Solo

Then divide the categories in whatever way suits you

Orchestral ballet
Orchestral concerto
Orchestral opera
Orchestral symphony

But that all depends on the top level of the tree (or shrub) you can just as easily make the top level categories thusly:

Violin
Piano
Cello
Ensemble
Voice

Seriously, give up now while still sane.


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## science (Oct 14, 2010)

quack said:


> This is the sort of thing you have to work out for yourself, then you can be blind to the inconstancies. Asking other people will just boggle your mind with all the different suggestions.
> 
> But to assist with the boggling I would suggest thinking of the broadest few categories possible:
> 
> ...


Or before trying to classify Bachianas Brasileiras.


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## Badinerie (May 3, 2008)

I used to try filing my recording away by category but gave up years ago. Everything is stored alphabetically now. Thus freeing up more listen time.


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## Orfeo (Nov 14, 2013)

Operetta.
Opera-buffe.
Symphonic Picture (Glazunov's "The Sea" "The Forest", Sainton's "The Island").
Concerto-Symphony (Peiko).
Ballet Pantomime (or simply Pantomime like Bartok's "The Wooden Prince" or "The Miraculous Mandarin").
Incidental music (or incidental score).
Film score.


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## mtmailey (Oct 21, 2011)

I break it down to just 2:chamber & orchestral music.It makes it easy for me.


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## Headphone Hermit (Jan 8, 2014)

Badinerie said:


> I used to try filing my recording away by category but gave up years ago. Everything is stored alphabetically now. Thus freeing up more listen time.


suspiciously easy .... but are Beethoven's symphonies (transcribed Liszt) or Liszt's transcriptions of Beethoven's symphonies filed under 'B' or 'L' .... or one set under each 

hahahah! Hermit Towers is a site of madness sometimes


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