From Classical to Art

Although 'classical music' is an expression most people are familiar with (and which even most experts and musicians use), it's nevertheless a vague, misleading and often disparaging term. In everyday language, it can serve to signify a type of music perceived (particularly by young people, but in fact by any trendy postmodernist) as boring, old-fashioned or exclusive. In fact, this has become a major insinuation of the term in popular culture: a synonym for stuffy bygone elitism.

(On the other hand, it's also a good marketing tool — according to advertising orthodoxy, sticking a 'classical' label on something lends it a certain air of timelessness or 'quality' or old-fashioned 'standards', and renders it marketable to older, conservative 'consumers'. A lot of 'crossover' is sold under these false pretences.)

In musicological contexts, Classical (capital C) music denotes a particular stage in the development of European art music, between the so-called Baroque and Romantic eras, or from approximately 1750 to 1830. Musoc.org uses the term 'Classical' only in this way.

More broadly, 'classical music' most commonly signifies music produced or rooted in the traditions of (mainly) Western (mainly European) art or 'high' culture, originating with the Christian Church, minstrels and troubadours, and encompassing a period from roughly the heyday of plainchant in the 11th century to the present — although music from the period between around 1600 and 1900 or perhaps 1930 has become most commonly (and to the majority of ears, most comfortably) associated with the expression.

'Classical music' according to this usage is what musoc.org refers to always as 'art music'. Apart from the fact that this avoids the misleading or disparaging connotations of 'classical', Art Music, as a slightly wider term, covers the 'classical' traditions of other (especially non-Western) societies, including, in many cases, a society's folk music heritage.

'Serious' is a term still sometimes used by those wishing to avoid the negative overtones of 'classical'. Unfortunately this usage tends to enhance the stereotype of self-importance and humourlessness — probably true of some audiences, critics and performers, but far from a reflection of the music itself.

From Modernism to Postmodernism

Musoc.org makes an important (and radical) distinction in the 20th and 21st centuries between Modern and Postmodern trends in music. The term 'Modernism' is widely and indiscriminately used to describe what became after the Second World War two separate currents.

One is a posturing, experimental, spuriously anti-bourgeois avant-garde determined to turn its back on music history — this is Postmodernism, an umbrella term for a cornucopia of flimsy 'musics' — minimalism, aleatoric/intuitive 'music', noise, 'quiet', amplified music, 'musique concrète', 'total serialism', dadaism/futurism, electronica, psychedelia, pop/rock/jazz/world 'fusions'. These are all Pop 'Musics' or non-music, and tend to be championed as True 21st Century 'Classical' by American cheerleaders of cultural postmodernism like Arts Journal and NewMusicBox.

The other is the progressive trend that is innovative without repudiating the fundamentals of a heritage based on tonality and its precursors — this is 'Modern' music, and includes (but is not necessarily restricted to) the 20th and 21st century trends usually labelled impressionism, neo-classicism, neo-romanticism and serialism.

Musoc.org does not deny that there are some ill-defined points of contact between Art Music and most of the trends in Postmodern 'music', but the 'convergence' much beloved of cultural relativists (which they patronisingly call 'breaking down barriers' or the 'democratisation of music') is only achievable through a spurious redefinition of categories. Composers have merely (and legitimately) incorporated various ideas, melodies, techniques etc from these categories, as well as from folk, traditional jazz, musical theatre etc, into works that fall otherwise within the realm of Art Music.

The gulf between the categories of Art Music and Pop 'Music' is unequivocally unbridgeable by definition (see left).


Defining Art Music

Musoc.org makes a radical, clear distinction between 'Art Music' and all other kinds of 'music', the latter always written within quotes on this site to distinguish it from music as art. Music not meeting the criteria listed below is not Art Music, and is therefore what musoc.org refers to as Pop 'Music'.

The criteria are of course synthetic: they have been deliberately selected and worded to exclude not only the various popular 'musics' of today (pop, rock, dance, hiphop, country etc), but also those that come under what musoc.org (along with other authorities) considers 'postmodern' (see bottom right for details). A reasonably objective definition of this kind permits (in theory, at least) a more objective defence of Art Music, taking debate beyond the pointless "my music's better than your music" exchange.

The specification deliberately makes no attempt to objectify aesthetics, which musoc.org leaves to the ear of the individual. This is therefore not of itself a description of great music, but of art music. Nevertheless, the underlying assumption is that it is various combinations of the elements listed that produce exceptional beauty in music.

The criteria form the basis of a 'Life and Works' or 'Museum' approach to music culture, defining it in terms of composers' works, enshrined for posterity in an immutable score. A definition of Art Music presupposes of course a definition of Art also, a matter which theorists have yet to resolve. Musoc.org employs a 'cluster' version of the 'family resemblance' approach, which has some support among philosophers. The specification below is a list of properties, none of which is in itself a necessary condition for a work of art, but which taken together will be sufficient, at least as far as technical, creative, mental and aspirational components are concerned. A degree of vagueness of terminology is inevitable (and regrettable) in such an undertaking, though musoc.org will continue to finesse these criteria over time.

Note that these criteria are as seen from the 21st century. Little of this music was written to be considered as art necessarily; it wasn't really until the 19th century that the autonomy and 'professionalisation' of artists was established. Composers have always written for 'entertainment' (to please known audiences), or for 'functional' (ceremonial/ritual) or 'educational' (pedagogic/didactic) purposes — often primarily. Though the principal motivation for all three types may be financial, it is common practice in delimiting all kinds of art to disregard all such material considerations.

Criteria

To count as Art Music, a work (as a whole) must meet ALL* the following criteria:

  1. It must acknowledge, build on or work from a musical heritage based on structure and tonality and its precursors

  2. It must be musically and intellectually complex, coherent and sophisticated (i.e. display and encode, in various permutations, articulation, originality, discursiveness, subtlety, intricacy, novelty, contrast, suspense, symbolism, logic, humour, passion etc through the use, in various combinations, of non-trivial harmony, modulation, variation, variance of musical phrase length and metre, periodicity, through-composition, counterpoint, polyphony etc.)

    It will therefore:

    • Require a high level of musicianship (concentration, insight, accomplishment) on the part of performers, who must draw on musical education, personal experience and imagination, knowledge of a work's idiom, and the accumulated body of historical performance practices (even for a merely competent performance)

    • Require relatively high levels of concentration, understanding and competence from listeners for non-superficial appreciation and comprehension

  3. It must aspire (i.e. be the composer's intention) to provide the listener with emotional and intellectual enjoyment and satisfaction through musical complexity, sophistication and coherence (as above), and thereby communicate exceptional and/or transcendent reflections on the human condition

  4. It must be written for acoustic instruments and/or unamplified voices (Mechanical and electr(on)ic devices may be employed for textural effect, but not as the main 'instrument'. Technical amplification, for recording purposes or to enhance performances in arenas of poor acoustics, are not part of the composer's effects or intention, and are not counted.)

  5. It must be the original work of a single author (Texts notwithstanding. If a composer dies before finishing a work, its completion by another composer, if based on detailed notes left by the dead composer, may be considered a kind of 'amalgam' art work.)

  6. It must be preserved and transmitted as a score, written in orthodox musical notation, alterable only by the composer (If the composer dies before completion, elaboration of the score may be made by another composer, though only of the dead composer's notes. 'Orthodox' means readily intelligible to professional and proficient amateur musicians.)

  7. It must be conceived for performance according to the instructions and faithful to the intent of the composer (Performers should follow the score precisely, in as much detail as the composer provides; improvisations and ornamentations are permitted where the composer allows or expects, according to practice or tradition.)

* An individual section of a larger work (e.g. as collected under a single opus number, an opera aria, a ballet dance, a suite movement) need not satisfy either the second or third condition if the larger work satisfies both.

An Art Music composer is anyone who writes music fulfilling these criteria (though not necessarily exclusively), and whether or not motivated by commercial considerations.

For reference, musoc.org has created detailed lists and tables of history's most important composers of Art Music: see the Master Lists for details.