del_icious_manager :
A couple of questions over the last couple of days have prompted me to ask this question. What entitles a film score to be embraced as ‘classical music’ (if at all)?
Is being composed by a ‘classical’ composer enough? What about Malcolm Arnold’s music for ‘Bridge on the River Kwai’? Could that be considered ‘classical’? What about Bliss, Corigliano, Frankel, Honegger, Korngold, Prokofiev, Shostakovich Vaughan Williams and Walton? Are their film scores ‘classical’ just because THEY wrote them?
What about if concert music has been extracted from a film score? Things like the suites from Bliss’s ‘Things to Come’ or Shostakovich’s ‘Hamlet’ and ‘The Gadfly’ or Walton’s ‘Henry V’ or Prokofiev’s cantata ‘Alexander Nevsky’? What if the film music is transformed into a symphonic work, such as Vaughan Williams’s ‘Sinfonia Antartica’ or Korngold’s Violin and Cello Concertos or Miklós Rózsa’s ‘Spellbound Concerto’?
Finally, whether you think film music can ever be ‘classical’ or not, what score (or scores) would you put forward as the finest of their kind?
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I didn’t think I would need to make this clarification, having put ‘classical music’ in inverted commas throughout my question, but there’s always a new smart*** on the block (me, I’m of the old school!).
I am using the term ‘classical music’ in its generic form, meaning ‘western art music’ or ‘common practice’ music. Had I used either of those terms in my question, I would either have been derided for being a pedantic snob or had some people scratching their heads wondering what on earth I was talking about.
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{ 4 comments }
For me, the problem lies with the terminology. What exactly is “classical” music?
I like to use the term “concert” or “art” music to define what we typically consider classical. This helps me broaden the umbrella to include a variety of styles to fit what I consider “classical.” In that sense, the categorization of a film score depends more upon its predominant musical genre and ultimately its quality.
At the end of the day though, does it really matter? Good music is good music, no matter what the genre. I’m perfectly happy to have a conversation with you about the qualities of any film score just as I will any piece of Western art music. If you think a piece stands up to your own definition of classical music, then that’s all you need to know!
As a composer i would rate Elmer Bernstein ahead of Leonard Bernstein……
Is it Art Music with a serious intent, trying to covey an extra level of meaning ? or can it exist outside the medium of film as absolute music?
My answer is a resounding..Yes,No,Possibly, depends…..
Don’t forget that quite a bit of what we now regard as classical/art music was written for a purpose and not as absolute music.
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I think Barry Gray’s music top notch too ( that should get Glinzek going)…
Walton said; “Doing films gave me a lot more fluency…”
An interesting question.
If we categorize “classical” as music written specifically for the concert stage, then music written in support of ballet or opera must be excluded as classical music. However, we know that ballet themes and operatic overtures are often performed as concert pieces without the added visuals of staging and dance, and are therefore (now) considered “classical” music.
Following that logic I believe that there are specific pieces that will reach that status and become “concert pieces” rather than just “soundtracks.”
Here’s another imponderable to ponder … since you bring up the term “western art music” … is there room within the definition of “classical music” for eastern music: Chinese, Japanese, Indian, Australian, African or any other country? I suppose it could be argued that Russian music is “Eastern” as well, yet we’ve accepted Glinka, Cui, Rostropovich, Kopliov, Mussorgsky and the rest as Classical composers.
Good Stuff: Takemitsu loved movies. I too, think Lenny’s brother was a much better composer. Think Bernard Herrman was terrific,
Some composer (classical, 2oth century) put it best when he explained that movie music is music written by the stopwatch. There is no time, literally for anything of extended depth for the syntax or other devices we all think of as holding ’serious’ music together.
Have we all been seduced by a bit of music or orchestration in film music? Undoubtedly.
Try the under credits music by James Horner for Terry Gilliam’s ‘Jabberwocky,’ a beautiful glacier of seriously tall vertical chords beautifully ‘Orchestrated.’
Best, Petr B.