Talk:Classical music/Archive 10

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Technical execution

Article currently [1] reads in part ...technical mastery, as demonstrated by the proportionately high amount of schooling and private study most successful classical musicians have had when compared to "popular" genre musicians...

At best this needs rephrasing and sourcing. What it seems to be saying or at least suggesting is that classical music achieves and/or requires a higher level of technical execution than popular music.

Is this NPOV or even remotely accurate? I'm skeptical. It seems to me to be naive repeating of an urban legend which is widely believed by fans both of classical and of popular music, and which may once have been true (I'm skeptical even of that) but hasn't been true in my lifetime.

Two of the original members of Midnight Oil are known to me personally. The enormous amount of tuition and practice that was required to attain their status in popular music, and the level of technical execution that this produced, was at least equal to that of the classical musicians I know, some of whom are of similar calibre and status in their fields.

And I think this would be generally true. Sydney Conservatorium has had courses in Jazz for some decades. There have been Trinity examinations on drum kit since 2012.

Arguably drum kit is now a classical instrument too. Some years ago I attended a concert given by a friend as part of her masters degree in performance on the flute at Sydney Conservatorium, in the School of Classical Music there of course, and one of the four pieces she performed was scored for flute and three drum kits. So there is some crossover.

But that is not the point. Trinity and the Con are both producing high-calibre popular musicians, and by calibre I include their level of technical execution. And I think this is happening worldwide and across all popular genres, and has been for some time.

Part of the problem is, like all urban legends, there will probably be no trouble finding reliable sources to support this one!

And it's also complicated by the fact that it is part of the publicity machine for some popular acts to portray them as unskilled or semi-skilled. Most Rolling Stones fans would be surprised to learn that drummer Charlie Watts was already an accomplished sight-reader before joining the band. And that was in 1963. His technical skills have never been showcased and discussed in the way that they would be were he an equally ranked classical musician.

And there is a point to be made along those lines. There's a sense in which excellence is always aspired to in classical music, while there's a somewhat different approach in popular music.

But this distinction is far more subtle than our current article would indicate. Currently, what it says is at the very least unsourced and highly POV, and there are some grounds for thinking it's just plain inaccurate. Andrewa (talk) 23:28, 24 February 2014 (UTC)

Agree that some rephrasing might be in order. But although there are plenty of examples of popular musicians with intensive academic training, it's difficult to argue seriously that that's a necessary qualification for entry into the profession, whereas in classical music it's pretty unavoidable. So there's definitely a difference in the field. It's possible to find 9-year-olds singing "O mio babbino caro" but it's definitely the exception (and note that's a TV show, not really a professional gig), whereas popular musicians without formal training are pretty common. It's a bit strong to call that difference an "urban legend".

Jazz is a somewhat different kettle of fish, since it's largely made the transition from a popular art form into an academic one. —Wahoofive (talk) 23:36, 24 February 2014 (UTC)

Thanks for the reply! I'd love to see you have a go at rephrasing the section in question. I don't want to cut the section out, because I can see what they're trying to say and I think it's important. But I am struggling to rephrase it myself.

I'll accept your claim that Miley Cyrus doesn't have intensive academic training, and her music is not familiar to me. But her father Billy Ray Cyrus shows every sign of having worked just as hard and long on his music as any classically trained musician, and his execution is excellent. So I'd expect his daughter to be the same. I could be wrong.

Perhaps I should say that, to the despair of several singing teachers and coaches, three of my favourite vocalists are Chuck Berry, Mick Jagger and Mark Knopfler.

I'm interested in other examples of popular musicians who have gained entry into the profession without intensive training. This training may often be less formal, you'll notice I've left out your term academic, but my experience indicates that it's equally intensive, that the technical execution is equally demanding, and that the training is becoming more and more academic.

Actually, at many levels the technical execution of classically trained string players in particular leaves a lot to be desired. Not just at school concerts but also at others at a supposedly far higher standard, and not once but regularly, I have thought silently to myself, if ever my guitar or mandolin were as badly out of tune as those violins, even at a school dance I'd be seriously worried about being booed off stage. OK, mine are far less challenging instruments in that regard, but... well, it's not as simple as our article currently indicates. Classical audiences clap such endeavours, I've even joined in the applause, it was commendable even if not very musical. I can assure you that a pub or wine bar would not.

Popular musicians probably do start to get paid for performances at a significantly lower standard than classical. My local pub bands get paid at least enough to cover their lights and road crew if they're doing well, while the members of local symphony orchestras at what seems to me to be a comparable standard pay fees to belong. But at and even near the top, there's less difference if any, in my experience.

So there's a lot going on, and it would be really good to get this right! While also avoiding the WP:OR trap of course. Andrewa (talk) 01:36, 25 February 2014 (UTC)

People like Jimi Hendrix and Jimmy Page didn't attend music classes on guitar, not for any substantial time anyway; they were essentially self-taught (not least from records they heard and tried to imitate) and (as working musicians) shaped by gigging with the people they met early in their careers, both in local bands and as session men or on-the-road players. Page, by the time he quit the studio session-man circuit around 1965, had learnt to read notated music fluently (not just chord analysis I figure but actual scores and sheet music, and had gathered a lot of playing routine of course - the source here is a very interesting and entertaining dual interview with Jimmy Page and Jeff Beck in Mojo (UK) from the summer of 2004 - while Hendrix is supposed to never have learnt to read or write notated sheet music. But both of them were excellent and precise in their treatment of phrases and notes of course, even without any effects - for Hendrix, just check out the improvised stretch from Woodstock and Villanova Junction just after it - the timing and delicate, quick execution of complex, exposed phrases are just amazing.

And Hendrix actually told his father in a letter around 1965/66 that "it's not supposed to sound clean these days, they want it played a bit sloppy now" - sloppy as in fast, improvised phrasing and more deliberate attack and gritty tone bends. He knew how to play in a technically flawless way, with clear, '50s style phrasing, but he deliberately went beyond that point. 83.254.150.36 (talk) 11:27, 22 July 2014 (UTC)

Yes, well said. And most fans of Ginger Baker and Charlie Watts would be surprised to know that both of these top "popular" musicians learned sight reading early in their careers. It's not part of the hype! Watts' cover was not blown until a fairly recent biography of Baker revealed that when Watts left his swing band to join the Rolling Stones his replacement was Baker, and to achieve this, Watts gave Baker a crash course in sight reading, at which he was already accomplished. Andrewa (talk) 18:43, 11 March 2015 (UTC)

Time to be bold

No change to the section in question. [2] Reluctantly tagging it. [3] Andrewa (talk) 00:51, 15 March 2014 (UTC)

Better Historical Information/Definition Needed

The article asserts that the term "classical" originaled around 1836 in an attempt to "cannonize" the period from Bach to Beethoven "...as a golden age."

Well and good, but that only explains the use of the term to define what is known in western music history as the Classical Period, from roughly 1750 - 1820.

It tells us nothing about how or when the term "classical music" came to be regarded as a synonym for what has variously been called "art music", "serious music", "formal music", "concert hall music", "long-hair music", and a host of others. Given that the ostensible purpose of this article is to explain not the classical period, but the broader, more generic sense of "classical music", this seems a serious omission.

Moreover, including the current explanation of the origin of the term as a description of music of the classical period without following with any date or explanation of the origin of the more generic usage is confusing and misleading. There is no point in bringing up the former unless as a preface to the latter, and the latter should appear in the very first paragraph of the article.

Indeed, modern usage of the term "classical music" is so vague and variable that I question the rationale for even having such an article, and spending so much space enumerating lists of "characteristics" upon which no one agrees, and to which there are as many exceptions as examples. This whole article might be better reduced to a paragraph, or even a footnote, in the Classical period (music) article. In fact, it is already mentioned in the introduction to that article. Perhaps sufficiently? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 74.95.43.249 (talk) 21:50, 13 June 2014 (UTC)

Many popular or literary writers on music (as opposed to people who are writing publicity-style pieces, stuff connected to the marketing machine for "classical" music) use "classical music" effectively as a synonym of "music of the Common practice period", or firmly rooted in the traditions of that kind of music (e.g. for the latter: Britten, Hindemith, Bernstein, Puccini). Music that's mostly in well-defined major or minor keys (except for some of the early part of the timespan), which is built on recurrent themes (mostly original themes, not borrowed) and melodies rather than grooves or obviously constructed "sound effects" - and which, in larger, more "serious" pieces tends to emphasize the evolution, contrasting and elaboration of themes into new shapes, reversals, combinations... The space for improvisation in performance is by no means not there, but limited and (sometimes, especially post-1800) nonexistent. Movements and songs are expected to be played in a given pre-defined order, not randomly picked and shuffled by the musicians or the audience.

20th century serious music made a series of decisive breaks with much of these rules, from Schoenberg to Stockhausen, and the real reason that modern art music is still filed as classical music in record shops, music magazines, on the radio and so on is mostly commercial. I'm not saying this as a put-down of Stravinsky, Messiaen, Ligeti or anyone else, their music and their artistic skill, but if 20th century modernist music had had to be filed under a new label that set it fully apart from classical, it would be a considerably harder sell, a harder chunk to integrate into the "serious music" performing and schooling business. Also, music writers, conductors and musicians today have little interest in keeping up fights over the legitimacy of the breaks that happened from around 1910 onwards, so the presence of the end of a period around those decades, ca 1910-1945, isn't acknowledged in the way we talk about classical music. 83.254.150.36 (talk) 12:51, 21 July 2014 (UTC)

Gallery of composers

@Michael Bednarek: The collage is in conflict with WP:NOETHNICGALLERIES # 4: Articles about ethnic groups or similarly large human populations should not be illustrated by a photomontage or gallery of images of group members; see this RfC"; The (multi-part) RfC also supported the broad interpretation of the rule, i.e. that it affects diverse articles such as Amputation and Child, and this one by extension. I would argue that having a gallery here is decidedly against the spirit of that RFC's conclusions, namely that any selection of people from a population [here, of classical composers] represents a violation of NPOV and NOR.
Even without that RfC, I maintain that the gallery of composer portraits, faces of many of them not exactly being well-known to the general public, is a poor choice for a lead image of an over-arching article such as this one. If there is a lead image, it should be something representative of the entire genre, such as one of a symphonic orchestra. I searched a bit at commons:Category:Symphony orchestras but did not find an appropriate image (high-quality, well-focused image with musicians actually playing). No such user (talk) 08:18, 11 March 2016 (UTC)

I can't work out what was proposed in the cited RfC or what the closing remarks mean. I skimmed the discussion and can find nothing pertaining to this particular situation here. I based my reversal on my reading of the text you quoted at WP:NOETHNICGALLERIES; this article is not about an ethnic group nor about a similarly large human population. It's about the work of a very small group of creative artists, and the collage depicts some of its more illustrious members. (Some may want to discuss the selection of the 16 portraits, but I'm not aware of any such thing in the >5 years this collage existed.) I note that our Spanish colleagues use this collage in the template for their WikiProject, es:Wikiproyecto:Música clásica, and it consequently appears on hundreds of pages there. As for its suitability as a lead image, one should note that the subject, classical music, consists of much more than orchestras playing, but composers are always involved. NPOV and NOR are of course involved in any use of images, be they presented as a concise and annotated collage or strewn across the article, but, as I wrote, I'm not aware of any such argument here in this regard. -- Michael Bednarek (talk) 22:30, 11 March 2016 (UTC)

No such user, since this isn't an "article about an ethnic group or similarly large human population", that sub-guideline (which by the way is only a sub-guideline, not a policy) doesn't apply. Per WP:BRD, you will need to establish consensus here before removing the image. If your concern is simply that "many of them not exactly being well-known to the general public": I looked at the selections and there is only one (Aram Khachaturian) who is arguably not a universal household name, so I personally can't understand your statement, however I think you are free to suggest replacements for any of the inclusions in the montage. Softlavender (talk) 23:37, 11 March 2016 (UTC)

Look, folks, I ain't rules-enforcer, and I obey BRD. I just share the rather widespread disdain aversion expressed in that RFC on appropriateness of crammed portrait galleries to represent a subject of any kind of article: here, Classical music composers, of which there have been tens of thousands worldwide throughout the history. I invite you to read just a few first comments of the RFC, and I'll explain how those comments apply to this article:

• First and foremost, how does this gallery contribute to the reader's understanding of the topic? How does a reader understand the classical music by just looking at a 5x4 matrix of faces?
• Selection bias (NOR). Why these 20 faces? Is there an official "Top 20 of all times classical music composers" in a reliable source? Why there are only composers on that gallery? Surely, at least some of performers should deserve an appearance?
• NPOV. Let's just focus on the bottom row: Why Grieg, Elgar, Rachmaninoff, Gershwin and Hachathurian? My 20th century favorites are Schoenberg, Stravinsky, Bartok, Boulez and Reich (and I could even find a source to support my choice). Should I now replace that collage with the one of my favorites (and then comes someone else with theirs?) We ought to have some kind of stability.
• I'm willing to suggest replacements for the *whole* montage, but I'm of firm opinion that the montage has to go in its entirety. It looks amateurish, it does not represent the topic of the article well, and I don't think you will find a similar article elsewhere with a similar choice of a lead/front-page image. The RFC just got rid of the whole bunch of similar problematic images, and this one, frankly, got under the radar as a rather unexpected type of article to host one. It's the collage itself that is the problem, not just the selection of faces therein. No such user (talk) 23:04, 12 March 2016 (UTC)

Timeline error

Note that the entry for Enrique Granados is misspelled and mislinked to Enrique Grandos (although it shows as a blue link on the Timeline). Attempts to fix the spelling and link produce this mess. Does anyone have a idea of how to fix the error? Voceditenore (talk) 07:28, 11 September 2016 (UTC)

I have sent a note to the author ( Erik Zachte ), and for the moment reverted to the incorrect spelling. Many of the obvious workarounds leave the timeline broken, so perhaps the first thing would be to work out what the error on line 16 really is. Imaginatorium (talk) 08:36, 11 September 2016 (UTC)

It's bizarre. Maybe someone at Help:Timeline can help? -- Michael Bednarek (talk) 09:35, 11 September 2016 (UTC)

I think I am getting there -- I have at least a version with Granados spelled correctly. But I'm looking at a few other improvements. I think the Initial-Family name format is very klutzy for composers, and except for disamBiGuation (what a ridiculously long word for a simple concept) just surname would be neater. Any other ideas? Imaginatorium (talk) 09:44, 11 September 2016 (UTC)

I seem to have mended the spelling, by applying high-level computer science techniques (otherwise known as switching everything off, then switching it back on again).

• I also extended the range to 2025, and left the living composers up to 2016, but this currently requires manually updating the current year in the beginning of the script.
• I changed most names from Granados onward to show just surname. Unless anyone thinks this is a terrible idea (I mean, "L Beethoven"?) I suggest changing them all.
• I think the current text looks horrible: blodgy blue in a mis-spaced font. Perhaps the font can be changed, but I don't know how to find out what fonts are available on the server. I finally realised that the blue colour is because these are links (urgh); it might be possible to change this, or if only the font could be made cleaner... (but possibly the software relies on a monospaced font?)

Anyway, some progress, I hope. Imaginatorium (talk) 10:19, 11 September 2016 (UTC)

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What a mess!

Another article that leaves me totally puzzled. I won't do much about it, I am too busy elsewhere, but let me quote some of the reasons of my puzzlement.

Lede

• I don't understand why this article is not merged with Art music, while it begins: "Classical music is art music produced or rooted in the traditions of Western music", and Art music begins: "Art music (also known as Western classical music [...])"; and the article Classical period (music) defines Classical music, in the "colloquial" sense of the term, "a synonym for Western art music".
• "While a more accurate term is also used to refer to the period from 1750 to 1820 (the Classical period)". I suppose that this means "while a more accurate usage of the term would refer to ...": the term remains the same!
• "... this article is about the broad span of time from roughly the 11th century to the present day", but a few lines later it claims to include the Middle Ages, beginning in 500.
• "The central norms of this tradition became codified between 1550 and 1900, which is known as the common-practice period." However, the article Common practice period states that it began in 1650.
• The periodisation that follows and the dates given are highly questionable. "Baroque" appears both in the early music period and in the common-practice period. The medieval period is said to begin in 500, while the article Medieval music says that it began in 400 (but without justifying that date either). The date of 1804 for the beginning of the Romantic period is puzzling, as are those for the 20th century (beginning in 1901?) and for its subsections, "modern", "high modern" and "contemporary".
• "... staff notation, in use since about the 16th century." ???
• "Western staff notation is used by composers to indicate to the performer the pitches (e.g., melodies, basslines, chords), tempo, meter and rhythms." All music notations, Western or not, indicate pitches and durations. They say little about whether these form melodies, basslines or chords. Staff notation, in addition, indicates neither tempo (which might be indicated otherwhise, e.g. by metronome markings) nor meter.
• "The term "classical music" did not appear until the early 19th century". The term is found in Rousseau's Dictionnaire, 1768, p. 463. art. "Style".

You're right about the specific issues cited above, but I think there are more fundamental problems with the whole concept.

• The word "classical" in any other area of arts means from ancient Greece and Rome, but not in music, even though some periods of music history saw themselves as attempting to re-create the music of that era.
• The average person would equate troubador music, Dowland's lute songs, or Baroque ground-bass improvisation to "classical music," even though those arguably aren't "art music". The distinction between "classical music" and "popular music", while clear-cut in the modern day, wasn't really a significant distinction in past centuries, exacerbated now because to modern ears, the styles of such types of music are indistinguishable. In the eighteenth century, they might have made a distinction between "court music," "church music," and "popular music", the last of which would include things like operas and oratorios, which 99.99% of people now would classify as "classical." Art music (like "art" in general) isn't very easy to define, but I'm not sure it means the same thing as "classical". An awful lot of classical composers (including Palestrina, Bach, and Mozart) saw themselves as craftsmen, throwing something together to meet an immediate need, rather than creating great art.
• "Classical music" in the modern age primarily exists as a "museum culture", performing predominantly music of the distant past, a century or more ago, contrasted with popular music, which is heavily focused on recent composition. Classical music performers and contemporary composers are widely viewed as akin to archaeologists, specializing in the study of ancient relics for their own sake. This might be a more useful focus for this article than a rehash of Western music history.

I doubt we'll be able to find a consensus among secondary sources on how to approach these matters, but before we can revise the article effectively, we have to start by figuring out what it's supposed to be about. —Wahoofive (talk) 18:32, 8 April 2017 (UTC)

I agree with most of what you write, Wahoofive – yet:

• I did not usually think of "classical" as refering to ancient Greece or Rome, although you are right about that. For me, "classical" denotes something that can be considered a model (and I add in petto "for use in class" – just to remind me of a plausible, if not really correct etymology of the term). Palestrina's counterpoint, for instance, was considered "classical" by Fux – and remains by many of us since. It certainly never occured to me to consider the early Baroque opera as "classical", even although it did attempt to re-create Greek performances. Never mind. What is meant in the article really is "Western art music", or "Western learned music", or things like that.
• The average person that you mention appears to call "Classical music" anything that can be found on CD in music shops and that is not "pop" music. I don't think that the purpose of WP is to answer to that kind of definition; on the contrary, I hope (and I trust) that WP might increase the overall intellectual level of average people. We should at least begin the article with something like "Despite what average people think, classical music is ...". For sure, people in the 18th century and earlier did not make the kind of distinction that this article wants to make. But that merely proves that its name is ill chosen. "Art music" makes little sense: is there music that is not art? "Learned music" (musique savante) is odd, but might express better what is or should be here at stake.
• Having spent most of my professional life dealing with ... classical music, I am very much aware of being some kind of museologist, and this may indeed may be a better focus for the article. On the other hand, it strikes me that this kind of music had a tremendous impact on humanity: I doubt that any other domain of knowledge but philosophy produced comparable bulks of theoretical writings. The case of music is a very particular one, not only for the West, but for the history of mankind in general.
• I have great doubts about SP's policy concerning secondary sources. I do believe that some of the best WP articles do rely mainly on primary sources – and, after all, why not. The important point is to have references, and not to draw from them unjustified conclusions. I tend to envisage WP somewhat as how medieval theorists worked, always building on the auctoritas of the ancients, always trustful in them, but nevertheless building new knowledge by novel choices of quotations. We certainly won't find sources, primary or secondary, about what the average person thinks "classical music" is. But we will find sources about what we think the average person should think about classical music. — Hucbald.SaintAmand (talk) 20:08, 8 April 2017 (UTC)

Literature

• The reason for the title of this section is obscure. The section appears to refer mainly to musical notation: would that be what is meant by [musical] Literature?
• "The key characteristic of European classical music that distinguishes it from popular music and folk music is that the repertoire tends to be written down in musical notation, creating a musical part or score." If notation were the main characteristic of classical music, then the music before the introduction of notation, in the 11th century, would not be "classical". In addition, all popular and folk music dating before the first music recordings in the late 19th century is known to us only through notation.
• "That said, the score does not provide complete and exact instructions on how to perform a historical work." Isn't this incompatible with the idea that the difference between "classical music" and popular and folk music is that the first is not improvised, contrarily to the others?
• "Although Classical music in the 2000s has lost most of its tradition for musical improvisation..." I would have thought that aleatory music, in the 2000s, had returned to the tradition of improvisation...

Instrumentation and vocal practices

• "The instruments currently used in most classical music were largely invented before the mid-19th century (often much earlier) and codified in the 18th and 19th centuries." Is that true also for medieval instruments? It seems that the article is never at ease deciding between "classical" music in its general ("colloquial") sense and its specific one.
• "The symphony orchestra is the most widely known medium for classical music". Same confusion here. The symphony orchestra has been unknown to most of the long "classical music", from 500 to 1750 at the earliest.

The subsections that follow, on Medieval, Renaissance, Baroque, Classical, Romantic, Modern, High Modern, Postmodern and Post-postmodern, make no sense at all. They do not belong to this article, they might find a place (after emendations and corrections) in a history of instruments and a history of music. But almost everything is false, or naive, or both.

I think I'll stop here: — this is too distressing. Hucbald.SaintAmand (talk) 21:12, 8 April 2017 (UTC)

Of Opera, Cantatas and Oratorios

Britannica says that the form of cantatas (which can be verified by looking at cantatas from Bach and Telemann) is usually based on the form of operas: "Lutheran ministers, notably Erdmann Neumeister, encouraged the absorption of secular music into the church service. They provided German Protestant composers with cycles of texts for sacred cantatas based on the operatic aria form." (emphasis mine), and (after making a distinction between secular and sacred cantatas): "The precise nature of the two styles varied, both finally taking on characteristics of the recitative-aria combination of contemporary opera."

Referring to oratorios, Britannica again (here) notes the operatic elements of the form: "Toward the mid-17th century Giacomo Carissimi introduced a more sober type [...] His oratorios [... are] basically operatic" and says about Händel's oratorios that thay "are essentially theatrical presentations that reflect his experience as an opera composer. Most of his oratorios use biblical stories put into modern librettos. Influenced by opera, masque, and even Greek tragedy, they were performed by opera singers in theatres".

This other source (I'll allow you to judge it's reliability on your own) gives that "Opera is a staged work with sets and costumes. Oratorios are (usually) done in a concert format with men in formal wear and women in gowns. However, [...] the primary difference between these two genres rests on their subject matter."

I can probably keep citing sources all night long, but that's not the point of this exercise. The main difference, as I said, is usually subject, location and scope: maybe "derivative forms" is slightly inaccurate, I'll write "related forms" instead. 135.23.202.24 (talk) 23:13, 4 November 2017 (UTC)

"Dissolution of the tonal system"

Since someone just copied this from Common practice period I'll ask here: what does this mean? I understand for example "the dissolution of the Hapsburg empire", because it means that the Hapsburg empire ceased to exist. But tonality has not exactly gone away. (Despite the fact that Schoenberg I believe is quoted as saying that within twenty years every street worker in Vienna would be singing 12-note tone rows.) Of course the term "common practice period" is used, but it seems in practice to mean "you know, conventional harmony"; the set of "rules" broken by Debussy and others. These people certainly broke the rules, but they neither destroyed nor damaged tonality, they just produced music outside the system of conventional harmony (whether actually "atonal" or not). The date of 1910 is also suspiciously precise -- it would make sense if supported by a quote from someone worth listening to placing it with the publication of Xyz. The article is pretty much a disaster, as others have mentioned. The suspicious (and ungrammatical) list of "periods" of the 20th century for a start. But mustn't ramble. Imaginatorium (talk) 04:51, 5 November 2017 (UTC)

One thing for sure: this article needs a lot of work. As for your question, I think the statement really should say something like "dissolution of the hegemony of common-practice tonality". In truth, "the rules" were being broken long before Debussy. Personally, I point the finger at that dastardly enemy of Tonality Johann Sebastian Bach, though perhaps things might still have been salvaged had it not been for the depredations of Beethoven and Schubert. Yes, 1910 is ludicrously late as a terminus.—Jerome Kohl (talk) 06:07, 5 November 2017 (UTC)

Yeah, I agree 1910 is a late date, which is why I didn't give any precise ones in that section (only saying it spans the Baroque, Classical and Romantic periods). However, defining common practice as only Baroque + Classical (as was in the article before my edit) is even more wrong. As for your statement that "tonality has not exactly gone away" - of course it hasn't, but so haven't forms typical of those periods yet we agree that those periods are long gone (for example, people still (rarely, but...) write fugues). Agree article is an absolute mess, which is why we can try to remove what is wrong and fix (or at least, attempt to) parts which are salvageable. 135.23.202.24 (talk) 14:05, 5 November 2017 (UTC)

The image in the lead

The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

---

So, nobody seems to agree on how this should be dealt with. The current version (actually: the one that was there before page protection) is, arguably, not satisfactory: why those 20 composers? is this really the best picture we can have to represent classical music? why composers?

In the above section (Talk:Classical music#Gallery of composers), "No such user" argues that having an arbitrary gallery goes against the result of some RfC from February last year. While I personally disagree with that interpretation (which seems to have been aimed at something completely different in the first place), it remains true that a gallery of composers might not be the best option.

As I see it, the following options present themselves:

Option A Reinstate the removed version (File:Classical music composers montage.JPG)

Option B Change/remove some composers (make a new version)

Option C Put something other than composers (example only for demonstration purposes File:Cesare Gennari Orfeo.jpg)

Option D Remove the image completely (and do not replace)

What is your opinion, and more importantly, why? 135.23.202.24 (talk) 01:23, 9 December 2017 (UTC)

Tricky one since 'classical music' encompasses so much. I'm not a fan of the removed version both from'representational' and 'design' perspectives. IMHO one unifying image is preferable (from a design perspective) to a composite image of 20 composers (which is relatively 'busy' given the viewer's attention span).I would go for option C. I like the example image but it kind of singles out the violin. Perhaps an image of a music score with multiple parts (although less interesting) would be more representative of 'composition' (for instruments, voice, orchestra, concertos, opera, etc.). Mikemorrell49 (talk) 15:11, 21 November 2017 (UTC)

• Support A, Weak support B What picture comes to mind when one thinks of classical music? That is a hardly subjective question and may explain why there is a dispute over this. Of course, we could put a picture of some instrumental ensemble playing. But, classical music is much more than ensemble music - and a symphony orchestra is hardly representative, of, for example, all other forms musical groups can take: quartets, choirs, .... Then, why not some instruments? Again, which ones do we put? People usually associate the piano, or (and) the violin with classical music - but we all know those two instruments (or any other combination) are, in addition to being off-topic (we are discussing music, not the instruments), not representative of the topic as a whole. Then, we come to composers. Is a long dead European male in a wig the first thing you think of when somebody says "classical music"? Hardly. But, it is also true that we usually associate some well known names with the genre (ex. the three "B"s - Bach, Brahms and Beethoven - often also the 2 Bs and Mozart instead of Brahms). Limiting the picture to such a small number is obviously not enough. However, by including a reasonable amount of them, from suitable periods, we can get a pretty satisfying picture. Is the removed version the best one? I'm not sure of that, but it does include notable names from the common-practice period - maybe including Palestrina and Schütz (for the renaissance period) and a few others would make it better, but in my mind it's clear that representing the genre with it's most notable representatives is the best way to do it. 135.23.202.24 (talk) 04:06, 10 November 2017 (UTC)

• A. There's nothing fatally wrong with it, and the article needs an image to prevent it from being a wall of dry text. Such a grouping of composers is never going to satisfy everyone, so I see no reason to attempt to satisfy everyone; it is sufficiently diverse in nationality and era. Softlavender (talk) 00:22, 11 November 2017 (UTC)

• C, and oppose all others, per discussion below. There should be something but not faces of men ;) --Gerda Arendt (talk) 12:56, 25 November 2017 (UTC)
• C, nothing against them being men, but A does make for a dull image which, (after you have played "how many can you recognise"), tells you more about the history of portraiture than about music. I endorse what someone says below that there is never going to be an informative, all-embracing perfect image, but a series of 'alive' ones capturing the activity of classical music making would be both more informative and visually interesting. Good luck choosing them! Pincrete (talk) 13:48, 29 December 2017 (UTC)
• A. We must define the starting standard and from there exact a consensus on C (or other). Please restore the image, if only for the sake of working purposes. A vital article lacking a lead image is terrible. (Later) None of us are getting any younger. I fully support a consensus. For now we have a relatively non-offensive placeholder. I hope this is fair. - Thrif (talk) 02:46, 30 January 2018 (UTC)

Discussion

As I recall, this issue surfaced once before, two or three years ago. I imagine it must be in the Discussion Archive somewhere. There is no question about Option B, since it would only lead to an interminable discussion of who to include, and who not to include. (If anyone seriously wants to consider this possibility, my suggestion is to include all "classical" musicians—not only composers, but organists, singers, bassoonists, etc.) Option C potentially addresses this point: why should composers take priority over other figures? The article as it stands does seem to make the assumption that composers are inherently more important than, say, conductors, violists, impresarios, or ushers. While this does not seem unreasonable, perhaps it should be made more explicit, if a photo montage of composers is to be accepted. This leaves option D, which may in the end be the only thing that will satisfy all parties, but it would be a shame not to have some sort of image.—Jerome Kohl (talk) 03:58, 10 November 2017 (UTC)

My Idea would be to use Option C and add there something like "The Dublin Philharmonic Orchestra". From my point of view a classical Orchestra is representing classical music. For sure it is not the only one, Opera or a Quartet is also representing classical music. But a Orchestra is somehow unique, with its instruments and the size. Could be also another Orchestra, not necessary "The Dublin Philharmonic Orchestra", its only and example. And yes: The discussion, which Orchestra to choose, could end up again in a edit war.

To choose option D is not a good idea, the article is looking "dead". This would mean also, that Wikipedia community is not able to fix such a discussion / conflict. --GodeNehler (talk) 06:59, 10 November 2017 (UTC)

I raised the issue briefly in 2016, in #Gallery of composers section above, still unarchived, but dropped the stick after reception of special pleading followed by a wall of silence. As I argued there, I strongly reject both options A and B, for the reasons stated by Jerome and majority of participants of this RfC, which explicitly deprecated galleries of people. I prefer option C, using a single image of a philharmonic orchestra, which in my opinion is most people's first association on "classical music"; barring that, we could use some montage of 4-5 characteristic ensembles, but I prefer a single iconic image. Even if we don't come to an agreement, I strongly prefer option D (no image) to A or B. No such user (talk) 12:44, 10 November 2017 (UTC)

But, is it really special pleading? And, why should we base our decision making here on that discussion? Guidelines are results of informed discussion, but they are not set in stone and are only there as a help to achieve consistent decision making. Is using a picture of classical music composers (or, per the opinion of others, maybe performers and others as well) to represent the genre the same thing as using a picture to represent an ethnic group? Even if it is, the first purpose of an image is to improve the article, or in this case more specifically to present a representative image to the reader. As I argued above, a symphony orchestra is too restrictive, while a group of composers from multiple periods is much more interesting - it provides interesting articles to explore for the interested reader. I understand that it may be a complicated topic deciding which composers/performers should be included, but one who rejects the idea on the basis that it's too complicated is really acting in bad faith to oneself - I'm sure we can come up with a representative list (if you don't like the present one) that includes the best known composers (and performers) from at least the renaissance to the 20th century. 135.23.202.24 (talk) 00:12, 11 November 2017 (UTC)

I agree that 'D' represents failure. Does the montage of (yes, all-male) composers add to the article? Yes it does, yet other options might add more. How about a photo of Yuja Wang playing the piano in a sort of fishnet microskirt? Or Jacqueline du Pre playing the cello, in her youthful, wild enthusiasm and rather gawky dress-sense? (Is Danny Wiki-friendly? He might have some pics...) Or well, just the usual photo of Beethoven growling from that score, which could be labelled something like "The most widely recognised classical composer". I think recognisability is important, which rules out something like a photo of the Voces8 vocal ensemble (not whether they are "known or not", but whether it's obvious from the photo what they are doing), but supports anything with an instrument. In this sense the suggestion of an orchestra does seem a good one: possibly the Youtube orchestra? Or is it impossible to have a montage of images: Beethoven, Du Pre, a string quartet, and La Scala? Imaginatorium (talk) 07:59, 10 November 2017 (UTC)

I like the idea of a montage including performers and performing groups as well as composers. Arguably, the role of the composer is fundamental to classical music, but the previous montage of 20 dead European male composers hardly gave an idea of the breadth of the field. I don't know how we would ever agree on which images to include in the montage though. --Deskford (talk) 09:33, 10 November 2017 (UTC)

OK, 19 dead European male composers and one dead American male composer – I forgot Gershwin was in there! --Deskford (talk) 09:34, 10 November 2017 (UTC)

• I propose some musical notation as a lead image, - these small faces of men are only good for those who recognize them, and there's nothing particularly classical nor musical about these faces. Bach comes to my mind, naturally, such as this one which doesn't have much text. --Gerda Arendt (talk) 12:53, 25 November 2017 (UTC)

On the scope of the article

While we are at it, we might also consider whether the subject of the article isn't being misrepresented rather too broadly. If a symphony orchestra is truly representative of the "popular image" of the topic, is it reasonable to consider the 6th century as a starting point? It seems to me that the defining moment of the beginning of the concept of "classical" music has got to be some point when a conscious difference is made between this and "popular" or "folk" music. Perhaps this does actually go back as far as the sixth century but, if it does, why stop there? Is it not just as reasonable to include, say, the Epitaph of Seikilos and the Delphic Hymns under the rubric. After all, these have a far better claim to the title "Classical" than anything after the 3rd century. If the concept does not reasonably go back that far, then is it right to apply it to music of, say, the 14th century? What about the 16th? The section of this article on Renaissnce music already hints at the fact that the important distinction up to that time was between sacred and secular music, not between "classical" and ... what? "Unclassical"? Naturally, there is a valid distinction also between the way music was viewed in the time of its production, and the way it is viewed through the lens of history, but this whole "classical" terminology is not very well-founded, it seems to me, as it depends in the first instance on a widespread popular usage that is nothing like being consistent in application. Before we choose an image to represent a thing, we really need to decide whether that thing is adequately defined in the article meant to explain it to readers.—Jerome Kohl (talk) 01:01, 11 November 2017 (UTC)

Agree that ancient music is beyond the scope of this article - unless we can come up with enough sourced information about European ancient music (which is hard, except maybe for ancient Greece). But, if we keep the scope of the article the the "popular idea of classical music", then we basically should just restrict ourselves to the common practice period - which I think we can agree is too strict. And this is not an article about the "popular image" of classical music. Is the medieval period too early? That is arguable - but we cannot limit ourselves simply to the c. p. period. 135.23.202.24 (talk) 01:29, 11 November 2017 (UTC)

Certainly if we take the image of the symphony orchestra as somehow representative of what "classical music" is, beginning with the common-practice period sounds about right, and at the same time there is no reason to define "classical" music as coming to and end with the dissolution of the common practice, any more than symphony orchestras dried up and blew away in 1910. In this respect, the orchestra image does not seem such a bad idea.—Jerome Kohl (talk) 01:37, 11 November 2017 (UTC)

Absolutely correct (if I ignore my objection about the symphony orchestra not being representative), except there's already an article (a bad one, but I still think we should have separates article about the period and classical music as in the performing tradition and what came before common practice) about the common practice period and this article should be larger in scope (we don't want to have two basically duplicate articles, right?) 135.23.202.24 (talk) 01:46, 11 November 2017 (UTC)

If we regard the common-practice period as merely the beginning-point for "classical" music, and not its end-point, then I see no problem. I hate to throw cold water over our warm agreement on this point, but our opinion naturally requires a reliable source to back it up. It is significant that there is no article on "classical music" (in our sense) in the New Grove, the Harvard Dictionary, the Oxford Companion to Music, or the Oxford Dictionary of Music. The term "classical" there is restricted to what we call the "Classical Period". If I recall correctly (and I don't have the volume within reach), the MGG is more helpful in this regard, though still cautious about too broad a usage of the term. The core of the problem is that it is much easier to determine what agreement there might be within "the academy" than how "people generally" think. Here, we must fall back on more general dictionaries and, astonishingly, the OED is just as cautious as the specialist references, with plenty of illustrative quotations but, when it comes down to a definition, offers this as sense 9 of "classical":

Of music: of acknowledged excellence; of, relating to, or characteristic of a formal musical tradition, as distinguished from popular or folk music; spec. of or relating to formal European music of the late 18th and early 19th centuries, characterized by harmony, balance, and adherence to established compositional forms.

Apart from the obvious conflation with "Classical Period", this of course devolves entirely on the word "formal", and cross-checking this in the OED reveals the definition to be hollow, since there are half-a-dozen possibly applicable senses, none of which make the required distinction from "popular or folk". In short, it is a case of "everybody knows what we mean, so we don't have to bother discussing it."—Jerome Kohl (talk) 02:07, 11 November 2017 (UTC)

Newby here and just an observation. The list of of classical and art includes a link to this page with the title Western classical music. It is stated that Western classical music is simply called 'classical music' in the Engish language. I wonder whether this true of readers accessing English articles from outside Euope and the US (India for example).Just a thought.Mikemorrell49 (talk) 15:16, 21 November 2017 (UTC)

For the purpose of this article, I think we can safely assume the most common usage is the European/North American one. As we were discussing earlier, the problem with the definition of "Western classical music" is that no reliable source gives a description for it - they instead use "classical music" more accurately for the specific period (roughly 1750 - early 19th century) within this tradition. As Jerome states above, for most of those established reliable sources, it's a case of "everybody knows what we mean, so we don't have to bother discussing it." - i.e. popular, not academic definition, and there is no reliable source despite this being a very real and common (and thus, worthy of being discussed) use of the term. So the current (rather warm) agreement we have reached is that this includes at the very least the whole of the common practice period (so, 1600 - roughly 1900) and (probably) the modern performing tradition. 135.23.202.24 (talk) 01:17, 24 November 2017 (UTC)

• I'd say most people mean Western CM when they say CM, as the primary topic. Perhaps a hatnote could explain that? --Gerda Arendt (talk) 12:53, 25 November 2017 (UTC)

@Gerda Arendt:The hatnote's already there - the question of whether the given date for the beginning is accurate is what we've been discussing (indirectly): where does the "popular" definition of classical music start and what do sources say of it, if they say anything? 135.23.202.24 (talk) 13:38, 25 November 2017 (UTC)

If the critical moment in history is when "popular" and "classical" music diverge, then it may be useful to consider the article Popular music. While it is evident that this divergence is not clearly agreed upon, there are at least a few suggested criteria in that article, which at one place cites a source giving the late-18th to early 19th century as a benchmark.—Jerome Kohl (talk) 23:23, 25 November 2017 (UTC)

Nice, but that's not what I was saying - I was thinking of the fact, which we discussed above, that this article is mostly about the popular definition of classical music, in opposition to the academic definition (as you demonstrate by the lack of any adequate definition in sources). As for "popular" and, say, "learned" (for lack of a better term) music diverging, the dates seem about right - though there was a distinction between those two in the time of Bach (i.e. early-to-mid-18th): "in eighteenth-century German usage, Musicant denoted the ordinary music maker of the street-musician and beer-fiddler variety [and the use of this term by Johann Adolf Scheibe in 1737 angered Bach, who instead thought of himself as a musician-scholar]" (Wolff, The Learned Musician, 2001, Chapter 9, p. 305). 135.23.202.24 (talk) 03:08, 26 November 2017 (UTC)

Well, if we are going to fall back on that sort of evidence, I think I recall a similar line in the late-9th-century Alia musica (or perhaps that was on the difference between "musicians" and "singers"). But a "music-scholar" is not exactly the same thing as a "classical musician", is it? I don't think it would be at all difficult to find reliable quotations from bona fide "classical musicians" today (never mind other varieties) distancing themselves from those repugnant "music-scholars".—Jerome Kohl (talk) 07:06, 26 November 2017 (UTC)

What you're quoting is, I think, a poem by Guido of Arezzo: "Musicorum et cantorum magna est distantia [...]" (Wolff, ibid.) - who seems rather to be making a distinction between composers and performers (i.e. we can think of this as being, respectively, cantors and choir boys). And the term is not "music scholar" (i.e. musicologist, about whom you're probably right), but musician-scholar (i.e. a "learned" musician, as per the title of Wolff's book) - Wolff clearly states that "Bach would not have wanted to pit the musical performer and the musical scholar against each other as mutually exclusive species" (Wolff, ibid.). 135.23.202.24 (talk) 13:44, 26 November 2017 (UTC)

And for people who don't have the book, here is the relevant page I have been quoting all this time. 135.23.202.24 (talk) 13:47, 26 November 2017 (UTC)

Well, no, I wasn't thinking of anything nearly so recent in time. Perhaps it was not the Alia musica, but something else of approximately that date or earlier. If we try really hard, we may be able to come up with something similar from Martianus Capella or Aristoxenus. This doesn't get us any closer to a solution for out problem, however. The 18th century is a much more plausible watershed, though we find the same composers and repertory containing what might be classified as "learned" music on the one hand and "popular" music on the other. For example, Telemann was often inclined to including a fugue alongside galant dances in his sonatas, and Mozart did not hesitate to write serenades and small dances for entertainment purposes, alongside his concertos and symphonies. Indeed, it is a good question whether these concertos and symphonies were really intended to be reserved only for connoisseurs, and the tunes from his operas were probably whistled in the streets and played by mere Musikanten.—Jerome Kohl (talk) 01:26, 27 November 2017 (UTC)

Well, Guido of Arezzo lived in the late 10th-11th century so your initial date wasn't too far off. If we start only in the 18th century, then we are excluding a good portion of Baroque music and all of the Renaissance (and the development of music throughout the Middle-Ages, including things such as apparition of notation, polyphony and tonality), missing out on composers such as Schütz, Monteverdi, Purcell and Palestrina. 135.23.202.24 (talk) 03:26, 27 November 2017 (UTC)

Do you mean their popular, or their classical music?—Jerome Kohl (talk) 06:12, 27 November 2017 (UTC)

Well, I don't think people today see much (if any) major differences between popular or "classical" music of 500 years ago - and at the time, they weren't "day and night" (as today): a number of obviously "learned" music from the time is based on popular songs, such as L'homme armé. In fact, even the distinction between sacred and secular music doesn't seem to have been as large as today - some lutheran hymns in fact took their melody from secular songs, such as O Haupt voll Blut und Wunden (which takes it's melody from a secular love song). And if we just ignore "popular vs classic" for a moment, we cannot deny that the Middle-Ages, as much as they are known (rightly) as the Dark-Ages, are still the origin of Western classical music (i.e. the topic of this article) and it would be illogical to speak of the history of Western classical music while skipping the whole medieval period and what follows, which eventually lead to the norms and practices of the common practice period - which we both agree is a crucial part of the topic. 135.23.202.24 (talk) 13:37, 27 November 2017 (UTC)

Option C

Here are some beautiful images I found in Commons that could look nice in the lead. The orchestra might be the most representative image of classical music, as others have said above. In the chamber music image you can feel the movement and the team work, which is cool. The close ups of hands playing classical instruments offer a more intimate alternative. Atón (talk) 21:50, 22 December 2017 (UTC)

• 
• 
• 
• 

@Atón:The first image might be the best of those you propose. The chamber music image, while it does have movement, is a tad too restrictive if we want to use it to represent classical music as a whole (since, although the string quartet is a well known form, we'd be neglecting all others...). The "Lute Player" focuses on an instrument which is barely played anymore, and shows it as too much of an individual effort, while we all know classical music is a team effort (in the very least of cases, between the composer, who writes some information on the score, and the performer who must decipher it). I like the last image, but it singles out the piano, which wasn't commonly used prior to the second half of the 18th century. The first image offers a great point of view, but it again singles out the string section (though, at least, it's somehow open-ended - you see the conductor at the far end - and because of that, you can imagine the rest of the orchestra without seeing it). 135.23.202.24 (talk) 15:15, 25 December 2017 (UTC)

Why should there be an emphasis on instruments? In addition, orchestras, pianos, string quartets, and even lutes are used in many different kinds of music, not only so-called "classical".—Jerome Kohl (talk) 01:57, 26 December 2017 (UTC)

The image is not a substitute for the article, it's just an accompaniment. Besides, since it's impossible to accurately represent all classical music in one image, the "perfect image" doesn't exist. The only option besides no image is a "good enough" image. That being said, my idea was to emphasize the playing—the movement, the hands, the relationship with the score, etc. That's why I prefer a close up more than a bird view of a whole ensemble. Do you have other photos in mind? What elements should the image show, in more concrete terms than "all classical music", to be good enough? Atón (talk) 07:49, 26 December 2017 (UTC)

Personally, I think the montage of composers was a better option, even if the precise choice of individuals might be a matter of some contention. At least those composers could be regarded as representing "classical" music, unlike a photo of a piano, orchestra, accordion, or bagpipes. (You might just want to take a look at the photo credits for that shot of the piano, by the way.)—Jerome Kohl (talk) 17:31, 26 December 2017 (UTC)

The intention of this thread was to explore the possibilities of option C. I apologize for being unclear. Besides instruments or musicians, others before have proposed some musical notation. Maybe there are other possibilities. Atón (talk) 23:42, 26 December 2017 (UTC)

Sorry. As previously noted, I nevertheless see problems with this option generally.—Jerome Kohl (talk) 00:41, 27 December 2017 (UTC)

Could we put together a montage of all four of these images (perhaps adding a couple of others)? The strength of the Pantheon of Dead White Men was that at least it portrayed a reasonable cross-section of the genre's defining composers; picking one single image of these four would be roughly akin to the (in retrospect hilarious) decision by the builders of Boston Symphony Hall to carve only Beethoven's name above the stage. Any accompanying header image should strive for a fair degree of representing all of what classical music has to offer. ☯.ZenSwashbuckler.☠ 21:52, 29 December 2017 (UTC)

I take it that no one has taken up my suggestion, above, about checking the provenance of the piano photograph? If jazz is in fact a subset of "classical" music, then we need to do a major re-write here, as well as at the article "Jazz".—Jerome Kohl (talk) 23:31, 29 December 2017 (UTC)

The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

Art music

It says in the beginning the classical music is "art music". Is it, really? I mean, maybe we generally consider it "art music" today, but I think that a lot of classical music was made more for functional purposes. I'm not an expert on this but of what I know the whole "art music" idea is more of a 19th century mode of thought. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Lonious (talk • contribs) 15:17, 22 March 2018 (UTC)

New image

User: Francis Schonken, what is your problem with the new image? And none of the stuff you said is true, the "current one" is not the result of the RFC above (seems like you are desparately trying to get the new image removed, given this and the fact that you could have easily reverted but instead chose to take out the picture from the article entirely, but whatever).ScepticismOfPopularisation (talk) 17:54, 19 June 2018 (UTC)

And looking at the edit history, you acknowledged this as well, and added that picture yourself (taking it personally, eh?). This only further harms your position.ScepticismOfPopularisation (talk) 17:59, 19 June 2018 (UTC)

Synthesis

See WP:SYNTH for applicable guidance. There seems to be some synthesis going on in this article. For instance: the development of a notation system is (in the Hall/Neitz/Battani source) not described in the context of the topic of this article (classical music) but in the context Folk music (and is a sociological analysis). Similarly the Blanchard/Acree source (which seems rather a school textbook, not the most ideal source) does not refer to classical music on the cited page. --Francis Schonken (talk) 11:09, 20 June 2018 (UTC)

See literally every book on classical music.ScepticismOfPopularisation (talk) 11:12, 20 June 2018 (UTC)

Please supply full citation data ;-)—Jerome Kohl (talk) 18:16, 20 June 2018 (UTC)

Deleted sections

I've place several deleted sections of the article "classical music" here on the discussion page because they have numerous issues of relevance, clarity, and referencing that have been flagged. I don't think they belong in the article at this time because of these issues. They are here now so that any interested editors can see if there are any parts that might be restored to the article after any necessary improvements have been made. I'm of the opinion the info in these sections are not of sufficient value or relevance to be worth the effort of trying to get them back into the article.~~ChrisCarss Former24.108.99.31 (talk) 10:00, 26 May 2019 (UTC)

Significance of written notation

Literalist view of the significance of the score

While there are differences between particular performances of a classical work, a piece of classical music is generally held to transcend any interpretation of it. The use of musical notation is an effective method for transmitting classical music, since the written music contains the technical instructions for performing the work.

The written score, however, does not usually contain explicit instructions as to how to interpret the piece in terms of production or performance, apart from directions for dynamics, tempo and expression (to a certain extent). This is left to the discretion of the performers, who are guided by their personal experience and musical education, their knowledge of the work's idiom, their personal artistic tastes, and the accumulated body of historic performance practices.

Criticism of the literalist view

All critics express the opinion that it is only from the mid-19th century, and especially in the 20th century, that the score began to hold such a high significance. Previously, improvisation (in preludes, cadenzas and ornaments), rhythmic flexibility (e.g., tempo rubato), improvisatory deviation from the score and oral tradition of playing was integral to the style. Classical musicians tend to use scores and the parts extracted from them to play music. Yet, even with notation providing the key elements of the music, there is considerable latitude in the performance of the works. Some of this latitude results from the inherent limitations of musical notation, though attempts to supplement traditional notation with signs and annotations indicating more subtle nuances tend to overwhelm and paralyse the performer.

Some quotes that highlight a criticism of overvaluing of the score:

• "... one of the most stubborn modern misconceptions concerning baroque music is that a metronomic regularity was intended" (Baroque Interpretation in Grove 5th edition by Robert Donington)
• "Too many teachers, conditioned to 20th century ideas, teach Bach and other Baroque music exactly the wrong way. This leads to what musicologist Sol Babitz calls 'sewing machine Bach'."
• "... tendency to look alike, sound alike and think alike. The conservatories are at fault and they have been at fault for many years now. Any sensitive musician going around the World has noted the same thing. The conservatories, from Moscow and Leningrad to Juilliard, Curtis and Indiana, are producing a standardized product.
  [...] clarity, undeviating rhythm, easy technique, 'musicianship'. I put the word musicianship in quotes, because as often as not, it is a false kind of musicianship—a musicianship that sees the tree and not the forest, that takes care of the detail but ignores the big picture; a musicianship that is tied to the printed note rather than to emotional meaning of a piece.
  The fact remains that there is a dreadful uniformity today and also an appalling lack of knowledge about the culture and performance traditions of the past." ("Music Schools Turning out Robots?" by Harold C. Schonberg)

Improvisation

Improvisation once played an important role in classical music. A remnant of this improvisatory tradition in classical music can be heard in the cadenza, a passage found mostly in concertos and solo works, designed to allow skilled performers to exhibit their virtuoso skills on the instrument. Traditionally this was improvised by the performer; however, it is often written for (or occasionally by) the performer beforehand. Improvisation is also an important aspect in authentic performances of operas of Baroque era and of bel canto (especially operas of Vincenzo Bellini), and is best exemplified by the da capo aria, a form by which famous singers typically perform variations of the thematic matter of the aria in the recapitulation section ('B section' / the 'da capo' part). An example is Beverly Sills' complex, albeit pre-written, variation of "Da tempeste il legno infranto" from Händel's Giulio Cesare.

Its written transmission, along with the veneration bestowed on certain classical works, has led to the expectation that performers will play a work in a way that realizes in detail the original intentions of the composer. During the 19th century the details that composers put in their scores generally increased. Yet the opposite trend—admiration of performers for new "interpretations" of the composer's work—can be seen, and it is not unknown for a composer to praise a performer for achieving a better realization of the original intent than the composer was able to imagine. Thus, classical performers often achieve high reputations for their musicianship, even if they do not compose themselves. Generally however, it is the composers who are remembered more than the performers.

The primacy of the composer's written score has also led, today, to a relatively minor role played by improvisation in classical music, in sharp contrast to the practice of musicians who lived during the medieval, renaissance, baroque and early romantic eras. Improvisation in classical music performance was common during both the Baroque and early romantic eras, yet lessened strongly during the second half of the 20th century. During the classical era, Mozart and Beethoven often improvised the cadenzas to their piano concertos (and thereby encouraged others to do so), but for violin concertos they provided written cadenzas for use by other soloists. In opera, the practice of singing strictly by the score, i.e. come scritto, was famously propagated by soprano Maria Callas, who called this practice 'straitjacketing' and implied that it allows the intention of the composer to be understood better, especially during studying the music for the first time.

Public domain

Main article: Public domain music

Since the range of production of classical music is from the 14th century to 21st century, most of this music (14th to early 20th century) belongs to the public domain, mainly sheet music and tablatures. Some projects like Musopen and Open Goldberg Variations were created to produce musical audio files of high quality and release them into the public domain, most of them are available at the Internet Archive website.

The Open Goldberg Variations project released a braille format into the public domain that can be used to produce paper or electronic scores, Braille e-books, for blind people.

Timeline

First, the timeline is a bit unwieldy. Is there any way we can trim some of the composers? I've never heard of Granados or Sweelinck, and I could see removing less important musicians, like Boccherini, Roussel, Gounod, Offenbach, Smetana, Saint-Saens, Bruch, Nielsen, de Falla, Enescu, Villa-Lobos, Orff, Tippett, Simpson, and Rautavaara. I know these things are subjective. Those are just the names that jump out at me when I read through the timeline.

Also, is there any reason we don't include Medieval composers? The article certainly discusses Medieval music. Squandermania (talk) 20:12, 14 August 2019 (UTC)

On the one hand, you are asking to trim the list, and on the other, you suggest adding to it. To start with the question of Medieval composers, I suppose if the article regards them as "classical", then there probably should be some names, yes. Mercifully, we are not burdened with too many of them, by comparison with, say, the era from late March to early June of 1923 ;-)

As to the question of trimming names, it will always be a problem of deciding who is more important. Since you have never heard of Sweelinck, I can safely conclude that you are not an organist; suggesting the removal of Gounod and Offenbach may indicate you are not much of an opera fan. Other editors will, I am sure, be ready with nominations for deletion that you would find unacceptable. Still, I agree that the list is cumbersome. This is offset by the fact that there are hyperlinks for the benefit of readers who may wonder why some unfamiliar names are included (I encourage you to follow the link to Sweelinck!). By all means let us discuss this.—Jerome Kohl (talk) 23:51, 14 August 2019 (UTC)

I do recognize the irony of starting off by saying we should trim down the timeline and ending by saying we should add to it. But I do think we ought to add Medieval composers for consistency with the rest of the article. For the Medieval composers, the list given at the end of the section on the Medieval period seems perfectly reasonable (and short) to me.

You are right that I am not an organist; that's probably why I've never heard of Sweelinck. I checked Burkholder/Grout/Palisca's A History of Western Music and Sweelick is mentioned a half dozen times, but not in any prominent way at all. I am an opera fan. I was surprised how many productions there are of Offenbach from https://www.operabase.com/statistics/en, but Gounod at least is certainly low on the list (his Faust gets a paragraph in AHoWM). Squandermania (talk) 01:16, 19 August 2019 (UTC)

Mm. And yet Faust is generally ranked no. 4 of all-time great operas, after the ABC: Aida, La Bohème, and Carmen. So how do you justify dismissing Gounod from the list?—Jerome Kohl (talk) 05:33, 19 August 2019 (UTC)

Basically, because he isn't prominent in AHoWM and he is only the 19th most played opera composer. Why do you say Faust is generally ranked no. 4? Squandermania (talk) 12:40, 19 August 2019 (UTC)

Maybe I am out of date, but according to IHIS ("I Heard It Somewhere"), that used to be the case. What is no. 4 today?—Jerome Kohl (talk) 18:28, 19 August 2019 (UTC)

Are you talking about best operas or most performed? This lists La traviata, Die Zauberflöte, Carmen, La bohème, and Tosca as the top 5 most performed. Squandermania (talk) 10:55, 20 August 2019 (UTC)

Well, "best" is a difficult condition to prove, so I guess it would be safest to stick with "most performed". I wonder how Aida managed to escape from the ABC?—Jerome Kohl (talk) 17:24, 20 August 2019 (UTC)

So, just to get back to the trimming question. Do you think there would be a Wiki-uprising if I removed the composers I mentioned above? Should I keep Offenbach and Gounod? Are there any others you think should go? Squandermania (talk) 22:44, 20 August 2019 (UTC)

I don't know the answer. Perhaps the best way of finding out is to remove them and see who objects. In the meantime, the list you cite suggests that Grigory Frid and Jake Heggie should probably be added to take their place.—Jerome Kohl (talk) 23:50, 20 August 2019 (UTC)

Did I miss a link to the article/list/template that's being discussed here? -- Michael Bednarek (talk) 04:23, 21 August 2019 (UTC)

Many of the composers mentioned above represent their national schools and therefore are important for the timeline; they cannot be omitted. —Cote d'Azur (talk) 09:31, 21 August 2019 (UTC)

@Michael Bednarek: It is the timeline under here.

@Cote d'Azur: Which composers do you mean in particular? I'm not sure that we need multiple composers from some nationalist schools or a Danish or Romanian composer at all. Squandermania (talk) 11:51, 21 August 2019 (UTC)

Is all Classical music Art music?

The beginning of the article states that "Classical music is art music...". However, I don't think all of it is. Art music which seems to refer to the repertoire performed from the "classical canon" does not typically include much of the music written in the classical tradition, but rather what is deemed by scholars to be the best from that tradition. And even then, some of the "less serious" or significant works by the major composers such as Beethoven aren't performed that much as well. The same could be said for a ton of works from that tradition which were composed for functional purposes, such as sacred music. So I want to confirm whether or not all classical music is considered Art Music, and if so, why. Lonious (talk) 03:45, 7 September 2019 (UTC)

The term "art music" in the lead is wikilinked to a specific Wikipedia article which defines the term. It seems to include all classical music. If you disagree, it is up to you to proffer specific examples of classical music that are not "art music", and make a case for (and convince others here) why the specific examples you have chosen are not art music. Also, looking at your edit history [4], you seem to have been beating this drum for a year and a half. Please remember that talkpages are WP:NOTAFORUM. -- Softlavender (talk) 05:15, 7 September 2019 (UTC)

Koji Nakano (composer) -- needs some serious help

This article is an uncited wall-of-text mess. Any help would be appreciated, even if it's merely decimating the article. Softlavender (talk) 11:51, 21 August 2019 (UTC)

It seeems the subject's article on the Japanese Wikipedia, jp:中野浩二, was deleted in 2011 for copyright reasons: jp:Wikipedia:削除依頼/中野浩二. The text of the article here is also very close to material at his website. WP:TNT? -- Michael Bednarek (talk) 12:11, 21 August 2019 (UTC)

Thanks Michael Bednarek. I gave the article a massive trim and re-organized it and removed the promo bits. At least now it is not an embarrassment to Wikipedia. (Also, I realize now that I posted this message on the wrong page -- I meant to post on the Wikiproject.) Softlavender (talk) 22:10, 7 September 2019 (UTC)

Condensing sections

I might be beating a very battered horse but I believe the first four sections could be modified for conciseness and clarity. For example, the section on complexity could be rolled into the discussion of "highly sophisticated forms of instrumental music." The Performance section contains more repeated information on notation, and the Characteristics section repeats "complex pieces of solo instrumental work." The Timeline section also seems to duplicate the small template under the History section. I don't have concrete suggestions for replacements right now but I would like to start thinking about it. Any opinions are welcome. Where is the muffin (talk) 02:53, 11 November 2019 (UTC)

Beethoven

In the timeline, should Beethoven be listed as Classical or Romantic? I'd say Romantic, but let's discuss. Noahfgodard (talk) 00:00, 3 February 2020 (UTC)

Definitely Classical, IMHO. The labels are basically there because they help better understand the composer, not because of self-identification or anything like that, and Beethoven is much more readily comprehended as Classical in style – paradoxically, more so middle and late Beethoven than early Beethoven. Already in his lifetime he was understood as part of the tradition of Haydn and Mozart, and his music makes a lot more sense when analysed that way (there is a reason why the famous book The Classical Style is subtitled "Haydn, Mozart, Beethoven"). A new era does not begin just because his works are of greater length and volume (Mozart's C major quintet and symphony and Haydn's oratorios would otherwise already be good candidates for Romanticism), but when we can point to a real change in musical grammar and style, and we don't see that significantly in Beethoven. Schubert is a harder case to periodise: you could make a case that he should be moved to the Classical period on the grounds of some of the latest instrumental works (e.g. the G major quartet, C major quintet, and C major symphony), but the songs definitely point to Romantic. Some authors treat him as Classical anyway, though. Double sharp (talk) 10:25, 9 February 2020 (UTC)

This is the trouble with pigeonholes: They demand an either/or decision. Beethoven is commonly regarded as a transitional composer, whose early works (e.g., the Op. 18 String Quartets) are close in style to the Classical Masters (Haydn and Mozart), whereas his later works (from, say, the Eroica Symphony forward) fit more comfortably with the Romantic era. Ideally, the Timeline should have the option of a cross-fade of colour from the one representing the Classical Period to the one representing the Romantic Era, and a corresponding caption. There are of course other composers to which the same observation applies (Du Fay, for example, who is usually regarded as transitional between the Medieval and Renaissance eras, and Monteverdi, who is transitional from the Renaissance to the Baroque). It is a question of oversimplification, which can only realistically be solved by scrapping the Timeline entirely or, at least, removing the period designations from it.—Jerome Kohl (talk) 23:42, 9 February 2020 (UTC)

For a sort of entry-level article, you can hardly avoid pigeonholing. Like it or not, it helps give a basic understanding. So I would argue that for transitional cases like Beethoven or Schubert, we should pick the classification that is the most useful. As Charles Rosen cogently argued back in 1971, Beethoven's music is almost always far more usefully analysed as Classical than Romantic; and if anything, it is the later works (from about op. 31 onwards) that are closer to Haydn and Mozart than the earlier ones. The earlier ones are far more like the early Romantic pieces of Hummel, Weber, and Schubert in their looser construction. Double sharp (talk) 20:43, 10 February 2020 (UTC)

Sexism and Racism in Classical Music

I am interested in adding the topic heading -sexsim and racism in classical music to the article. The topic will allow editors to contribute to this topic. Is this topic appropriate to add to this page? Or, is there a suggestion for a better page? Or, should there be two different heading? Or none? Maryphillips1952 (talk) 19:56, 23 September 2020 (UTC)

Well, having a discussion of this topic in a Wikipedia article is reasonable, but a heading with the words "sexism" and "racism" will prove contentious, not to mention rather POV and unbalanced. I might mention Western canon#Debate, which covers a similar kind of topic. That same article has the section Western canon#Classical music, which contains a paragraph discussing the (under)representation of women among composers of classical music, but that is by no means sufficient. I don't really have a strong opinion on where to place coverage of the topic, so I will wait for others to chime in. Toccata quarta (talk) 20:28, 23 September 2020 (UTC)

@Maryphillips1952: which reliable sources do you propose to use for these contributions? --Francis Schonken (talk) 03:39, 24 September 2020 (UTC)

Not sure I understand all the Wikipedia rules. What would constitute original research trigger if one writes an article with this point of view? A balanced and neutral tone may be tricky. I, agree, this topic warrants discussion and more experienced editors than myself to make final decisions and start entries. I recently read the following article - example of "sexism"

See also: Abbie Conant

. Maryphillips1952 (talk) 04:29, 24 September 2020 (UTC)

Well, the key Wikipedia rules here are WP:NPV, WP:OR, WP:DUE and WP:RS. That is, an article should not present original research and editors' viewpoints, but report what so called "reliable sources" have to say and keep in mind the perspectives that other worthwhile (not WP:FRINGE) sources may offer. It should present these views with attribution and neutral wording (e.g. "Since the late 1980s, there has been growing debate about the exclusion of female composers from the classical canon and the construction of genius in musicological literature."). Toccata quarta (talk) 07:01, 24 September 2020 (UTC)