Classical Music isn’t Always Classical

Many people talk about ‘classical music’ when they actually mean something else. Classical music, to be strict, defines roughly the period of music from Haydn through Mozart and onto Beethoven. All other composers who fit into that period of history could be called classical composers, because they wrote music to certain forms and designs.

Nevertheless, all three of the composers mentioned wrote music that didn’t fit the designs, because composers never fit comfortably into their own ‘period.’

Composers before this time can loosely be called ‘Baroque’ composers. The greatest of these is J S Bach, although in his own day he wasn’t nearly as widely acknowledged as a genius as he is now. His own sons wrote ‘baroque’ music, but also crossed over into the classical period.

After Beethoven, we have a period through the 19th century which, again roughly, is called the Romantic period. Beethoven himself, in his last works, was writing music that could fit into this category, although we regard him primarily as a classical composer.

The Romantic period covers a wide range of composers: Berlioz, Liszt, Chopin, Mendelssohn, to name just a few. But there were composers writing Romantic music – of sorts – right into the 20th century, even though it’s primarily a 19th century classification.

And then there was so-called ‘modern’ music, which is a misnomer if ever there was one, since all music is modern to the people who hear it around the time it was composed. Modern music encompasses practically anything and everything: from the atonal music of Schoenberg to the very accessible music of Benjamin Britten, from Stravinsky’s wide-ranging styles to Boulez’s almost incomprehensible jottings.

If ever an age proved that it’s almost impossible to classify music, it was the 20th century, in which we’ve gone back and forth between music that people hardly listen to because of its difficulty to music that everyone wants to hear again and again.

And who knows what we can call the current period? Hardly ‘postmodern.’

The definition of ‘serious’ music is a difficulty. To call it all ‘classical’ music is plainly wrong. Many radio stations and concert halls now define it broadly as ‘fine’ music, but this isn’t very helpful as a definition.

Equally ‘serious’ music makes it sound as though you wouldn’t want to listen to it when you were feeling happy, or when you wanted to be uplifted. Yet enormous amounts of so-called ‘serious’ music is very uplifting.

And if we call it ‘serious’ does that make all other kinds of music ‘unserious?’ Of course not.

Our problem is that we haven’t really found the right word, a word that’s broad enough and yet gives real definition. Maybe there needs to be a world-wide contest. Or maybe we need to stop trying and just enjoy it all!