So if I, who have never received any formal musical training, compose a fugue, it’s popular music, but if a guy with a PhD in musicology composes the same fugue, it’s art music?
. . . which is why you have to insert the phrase “on purely musical terms” in order to have something to argue with.
I’m puzzled by your antagonism here, GMan. It seems that between the two of us, you and I are able to contribute something of some substance to this thread. Triangulated by our respectively distinct approaches to the same subject. Why so much energy arguing rather than enhancing and clarifying? Nothing either you or I have said is wrong; just indicative of two different sensibilities. Why so eager to derail this into a nitpicky “I’m wrong and you’re right” time waster?
Hmm. Pretty sure I began the whole discussion with a reference to the gray areas involved.
It’s whatever you want to call it. Which doesn’t negate the generalized definition that I supplied as an answer to a specific question. Are you suggesting that the question has no answer? Or just finding a snarky way to inform us all that (gasp!) many rules have exceptions?
Or are you just addressing the gray areas that I’ve already mentioned?
In the first place.
In the second place, “fugue” has a very specific meaning. If it’s truly a fugue, then it’s *not * outside of formal music tradition.
If it’s a “self-taught” little piece that you just decide to call a fugue because you like the way that word sounds, then, again, you can certainly call it whatever you want.
I’m trying to discover whether your distinction is something that I can pick up on just by listening to a piece. If not, I’m not terribly interested in it.
OK, I misunderstood you. I thought you were saying that one could not compose art music without a formal education in music (i.e., only those with degrees can do it). My misunderstanding.
I’m not intentionally nitpicking - I guess I’m just finding it easier to point out the pitfalls than give definite answers 
…must try harder
DEFINITIVE ANSWERS? COUNT THE FUCKING QUOTATION MARKS, "IMHO"S, AND REFERENCES TO GRAY AREAS.
And also count the direct statements.
Show me one.
No, I don’t think it’s something that you could necessarily discern by ear. The broad usage of “classical music” or “art music” or “non-vernacular music” etc etc. doesn’t really refer to style so much as it refers to a tradition. You’re free to do pretty much whatever you want and still be a “classical” composer- so style doesn’t really enter into it. Now, there are different styles within the classical music tradition- for instance, Corigliano is often associated with neo-Romanticism . That may still be an imprecise and debatable term, but it at least narrows the field some and helps you find other composers who share a similar aesthetic.
[aside]I once had a composition professor who wrote an electronic piece that used a bunch of cheesy MIDI samples and parodied country music- classical music is a completely open “genre” to say the least[/aside]
If that’s the case, then how do you argue that someone (say, a pop singer who writes her own music & lyrics) is not a classical composer? And if there’s no means to determine what’s not “classical”, is it a useful term?
I think that most people mean “orchestral” when they say “classical”, which is still pretty wide open as far as style goes, but it’s clear that some music is not orchestral.
I put classical in quotes to refer what is considered, well, classical music - Beethoven, Mozart, etc.
As for the majority of 20th century music (rock, country, jazz, etc), who’s to say what will be considred “classical” in a couple hundred years?
Look, GMan, you seem to be all snappish because, in a discussion of things which are awash in gray areas and unnaildownable (to spew some messy metaphors), I colored the discussion–in the absence of hard-fast facts–with some of my own opinions. I’m sorry if–in the absence of hard-fast facts–you interpreted some of my opinions as stated facts. The fact is, though, that I tried mightily to remain extremely clear that what we were discussing is ruled largely by opinion. My posts might be sprinkled here and there with a phrase into which I did NOT wedge a clumsy and gratuitous “IMHO,” but it’s sprinkled liberally enough with such qualifications that one would assume it should be mighty clear to the discerning reader that I was, in fact, aware, that I was treading opiniony waters. Forgive whatever feathers I ruffled (Philip Glass fan are we–), but to read my posts as anything other than carefully qualified discussions of opinion is lazy or, perhaps, disingenuous (–or maybe John Williams?).
–which is why I, personally, have tried to refrain from using such words as “classical,” and have tried to define as clearly as possible the terms that I *AM * using. So no, *classical * is not a very useful term, in this context.
I wasn’t trying to read them any other way. My comments are euqally simply opinions. I guess the reason I got wound up is that, of all the terms available, I actually find ‘classical’ the least objectionable. But that’s beside the point.
Most such music being written nowadays is not orchestral, with two main reasons. One being that the orchestra as an ensemble carries baggage for any composer tackling it nowadays - rather the same as few modern artists use oils on canvas. The major consideration, however, is financial - commissioning a composition for a 70-piece orchestra is obviously more expensive than for a 15-piece chamber ensemble. And the ensembles that concentrate on contemporary music tend to be small groups, partly as a result of these same financial pressures.
My very woolly attempt at defining ‘classical’ is that it is anything that works or is produced broadly within the western classical tradition. It doesn’t mean that all the characteristics of that tradition must be present. And no, there’s no clear delimination.
I certainly hope that, once the passage of time has sorted the wheat from the chaff, the prime examples from these and other genres will be judged and remembered on their own merits. I don’t see how it’s necessary to ‘absorb’ them into the classical canon for them to recieve lasting recognition.
Cantata for Moderator:
lissener and GorillaMan – in the tradition of 19th Century comic opera, I hereby throw a bucket of cold water on both of you, in A-flat.
Sheeeeesh.
This is Cafe Society. We’re discussing classical music. You have such a discussion sipping tea (or perhaps sherry), elegantly, with style. Play nice, here, dammit, or don’t play.
But it’s a word, especially in the context of this thread, that’s open to interpretation and clarification.
Fer cryin’…
Call it “boring, old-fashioned, tedious out-of-date, long-haired” (BOFTODLH*) then. You’re telling me you got your nose all out of joint over word choice?
I expect better of a classicist.
- This is a joke. I explain for the humor-impaired, since I personally am a big fan of classical music, I rarely listen to anything written after about 1927, and I would make the argument that classical music has largely evolved into movie music… in much the same way that other forms of classical music evolved from prior forms. The symphony, obviously, died with Beethoven – a contemporary review of the 9th proclaimed that, if Beethoven couldn’t write a symphony but had to put in a choral movement, then the symphony format was dead.
One fairly small branch, particularly in America, did evolve into film music. There’s been a myriad of other directions, too.
We know you’re winding us up there: http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showpost.php?p=4918328&postcount=2
Oh, and why 1927? (if you weren’t picking a random number, that is…)
FWIW, CK, no one was out of joint over wordchoice: the discussion was going along just fine, discussion and clarification of terms included, until the tone went negative. “Classical” has such specific connotations that when it’s adopted as a general term it’s vague and meaningless.
When I first read the OP, I wasn’t sure if the question was “is there music being written in the style of Beethoven and Brahms?” or “is there instrumental music–of any style–being written for orchestras/quartets/whatever?” These two questions have two different answers.