When classical music was not classic
At my advanced age, I consider myself a classic; so does my “tweenage” daughter. I remember when rock and roll was “new” to me and I claimed it as my own. Now, the Stones, the Beatles, and Elvis are considered the classics of rock music. Funny how your perspective of the word “classic” changes as you age.
I was thinking about classical music as I prepared to write a primer for the Borromeo String Quartet lecture-demonstration during their May residency here with us and one on chamber music in general for PCA Offstage, a companion to the primer on modern dance. Download the primer now.
Was classical music so-called because it was “classic” or because it followed some renowned Greek or Roman form, notation, or defined structure? Did Mozart consider himself a classic? Certainly not. He was just creating music to please himself or others and pay the bills. He played around with tunes he liked or disliked, written or influenced by someone else. It was after all, just the music of his time. Now it’s considered “classic” just like rock ’n roll from the fifties and sixties! I asked Nick Kitchen, first violinist of the Borromeo String Quartet, and Elliott Schwartz, composer and music professor, about their thoughts on the term “classical music.” You can find their responses right here on the PCA blog.
As much as I love classic rock, however, I love classical music as well. I chuckle when I hear it remixed for television, radio commercials, or elevator music. Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony and Bach fugues come to mind immediately. But I remember hearing the Portland Symphony Orchestra perform a Mahler symphony (possibly the sixth?) that blew me away with its power and beauty. The music just rolled off the stage like thunder and slammed into the audience, quite a feat because that was before Merrill’s renovation, when the sound quality improved.
But the most compelling, memorable experience I have of classical music comes from my childhood. It lives in me as a bright memory from the first movie my parents took me to see—Disney’s Fantasia. The theater darkened and then the screen came alive with color and music.
I had heard classical music before. Our house was always filled with music: either the radio was playing or my dad was playing his favorite classical, choral, or Broadway musical LPs – those large, round black discs played on a turntable – on our stereo. With speakers all over the house, we couldn’t escape music. We had a piano, too.
But Fantasia changed me forever. On that day, classical music became a synesthetic experience. I can’t listen to classical music without closing my eyes and seeing colorful shapes floating through the air. I imagine the music washing over me in a wave of color and sound; it carries me along with its ebb and flow of dynamics, tempo, and orchestration. It’s as entertaining and enthralling as the animation in Fantasia. My life would be downright bland without it.
Try expanding your musical repertoire with the upcoming PCA performances by the Borromeo String Quartet or violinist James Ehnes. They are passionate about all kinds of music and love sharing their enthusiasm with their audiences.
Elliott Schwartz says:
Speaking of “classical music"… It speaks directly to the interests of many music lovers. I find the phrase “classical music” very confusing and misleading, since musicologists narrowly restrict it to a specific time and place – Vienna between 1780 and 1830 – and others think of it in terms of social snobbery, or demographics (music by dead white male Europeans), or stuffy-serious emotions. A colleague of mine has coined the term “non-pop” to label what I think of as “classical.” That is, music which is created to engage the ear and the mind, and to make a statement, and (usually) to hold the attention, but not to sell anything. As Frank Zappa once described his work – no commercial potential.
Ruth says:
enjoyed the memories....