# Classical Music Definition



## Yuanhou

Listening to classical music has brought up many questions about the categorization of the literature. Somethings are definitely considered mainstream classical such as music by Beethoven and Mozart. Other things I hear, such as works by Schoenberg or atonal contemporary composer, clearly sound deviant and makes it difficult for me to even consider it as classical. Yet there are many composers in the classical, baroque, and romantic eras that I have never heard of. There work sounds mainstream but since there works are rarely played, would they still be considered mainstream? How you you guys classify classical music into mainstream or deviant? Thanks.


Yuan


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## amirjsi

Well, I don't know about a "formal" definition of the classical. I heard so many already. But I think, for me and I'm no expert, is that classical music is a kind that follows a certain form, is not vulgar and is a music in which the ideas are well-developed.

As for the main-stream pieces, I think it's just due to some pieces' popularity in the classical music community. Some pieces are just more loved than others (whih is normal), thus it is economically sound that they are scheduled more for performance. But who can deny that everyone would like to hear that odd piece every now and then?

In regards to your Schoenberg comment, I just think that his music just "differs" from our preconceptions of what classical music should sound like, that's why it might be considered eccentric or "deviant", but I think it's perfectly normal music that has not yet been fully figured out - playing- and performing-wise. Mind you i'm no big fan of his, but I heard some of his music.


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## Frasier

True classical music is probably the narrow time-band that included Haydn, Mozart and early Beethoven who really burst the limits of the symphony, sonata and so forth. I've long given up categorising music outside this, maybe loosely using terms like romantic, symbolist, impressionist etc. Avant garde is pretty ephemeral. Schoenberg was a romantic - most people are familiar with Transfigured Night Op 4 - but he was teaching at a time when music was seen to be in crisis and tried to do his bit to produce a more universal music. I'm not sure how I'd categorise him. Serialist? Perhaps, but that isn't completely true - still, it says most about his music. I suppose the usual title "second Vienese chool" is a good summary term.


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## Yuanhou

chronologically Schoenberg is a romantic, but how is Serialist defined? By the scale he used? Has classical music gone the way of visual arts? Will we look at Haydn Mozart the same way has we look at Monet and Van Gogh? How is something that was written a week ago still consider classical? Is it just the fact that it is written for an orchestra or orchestra instruments?


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## Frasier

It's probably best not to worry to much about formal definitions - unless you're a musicologist. Serialism is a just another compositional technique and the way you organise your thematic material. Schoneberg is a good starting point because of the way he manipulated pitches (i.e. the 12-tone row - the creation of themes in which each note of the chromatic scale appears (theoretically) once only. Absolute serialism got a bit complicated - like when you serialise dynamics and durations as well. See Boulez. Pli Selon Pli (if I recall right) is a good example. 

There are two uses of the word "classical". One defines a specific musical period - the other is a blanket term for western art music that can't be called "pop" (which is itself a blanket term for endless categories) jazz, blues, etc. In other words, the music you'll find in the "classical" department of a music store.


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