Music Chat: Call Me Ignorant, But Is This Classical Music? (Part 2)

[@steveeliscu1254]

What always gets me is when someone reports attending a long ballet at Christmas time and , when asked, says it was "The Nutcracker Suite."

[@lokmanmerican6889]

12:13 Dave's gong goes off. Always wanted to hear that!

[@garysikon1812]

When Spielberg asked John Williams to write the music for Schindler list, Williams said he wasn't good enough Spielberg told him "I know, but the ones who are good enough are dead"

[@veselinboyadzhiev4724]

Dave's double tounging from during the Nutcracker improvisation is incredible.

[@mike-williams]

I think the extended editions are discs issued during tours with some extra tracks, possibly encores.

[@moodindigo445]

Thank you for that beautiful Nutcracker medley!

[@DavesClassicalGuide]

That's nothing. You should hear my Swan Lake!

[@allthisuselessbeauty-kr7]

It's all part of the dreaded 'crossover' music concept which in my experience has nearly always been dubious artistically and/or just plain dreadful (Paul McCartney's Liverpool Oratorio and the pieces contained on the 'Working Classical' album to give just two examples). The problem here is that these types of works are often not just merely derivative, but poorly derivative with none of the technical ability, imagination, or genius of the original models they seek to copy. Not to pick on Paul McCartney but why would someone who had created or helped create some of the most memorable, inventive, ground breaking pop songs ever written think doing something like the bloated car crash that is the Liverpool Oratorio was a great idea? If I was a novice to classical music with any kind of musical sensibility, and that was my introduction to it, I'd have run a mile - crossover my arse! I deeply admire many forms music, and think whatever the genre, quality will out and can produce something culturally significant (Greenwood's music for the film There Will Be Blood is as significant as anything written by Hermann, Waxman or Korngold in that medium IMHO). This however is just about shameful marketing of something which it's not!

[@bart1366]

Another great talk! Thank you. Some of the releases you mention here are indicative of the classical music labels trying to get on streaming playlist by whatever means. Streaming services have, by and large, conditioned mainstream listeners that classical music has no intrinsic value, either artistically, or financially. Sales of physical media have been going down, and digital downloads (as distinct from streaming) haven't been able to make up for the loss of revenue. Classical record labels have an abundance of new recordings every year because artists are mostly motivated by their own need to record their work for the sake of prestige, posterity, or simply keeping up with the changing classical landscape. Thus, labels have to market the new music somehow, and playlist with catchy names, holiday themes, commemorating special occasions, etc., are perhaps the only way they can sell "classical music" to mainstream consumers. Your talk on making classical music worthless was very insightful and touched on a lot of these issues. Fortunately, there are still a handful of phenomenal new releases every year to keep die-heard fans happy. I try to buy some of them on CD and add to my modest collection. I hope that there are enough of us out there to keep these fabulous albums coming (e.g, Manfred Honeck on Reference Recordings, Vasily Petrenko on Lawo Classics, Iván Fischer on Channel Classics Records.). Having said that, I spend more of my very limited budget these days on access to live concerts online than on CDs. There are a few first-rate digital concert halls out there, including Berlin Philharmonic, Detroit Symphony, Chicago Symphony, Frankfurt Radio Symphony, Warsaw Philharmonic, and others). Being physically unable to attend live concerts, I find virtual concert halls to be the best new development in the constant evolution of classical music.

[@michaelbase4438]

The Poor Clares are an order of nuns; Roman-Catholic, part of the Franciscans. They live in Arundel, England. I assume they sing.

[@DavesClassicalGuide]

Since this is a digital release, maybe they should be called the E-Clares.

[@patrickhows1482]

Jess Gillam is a young British saxophonist, who presents a program on BBC Radio 3 where she talks to musicians about favourite pieces of music.

[@DavesClassicalGuide]

I guess that explains it.

[@geraldparker8125]

Maybe "Spencer" will include some classical (sounding) gems in it like the Viola Concerto that is part of the original music for the score of that film "Lady Caroline Lamb" back in (I think) the 1960s or 1970s. Now that was a film that had a really fine classically styled film score, especially that lovely short concerto embedded within it.

[@BrainiacFingers]

Out of curiosity I searched for Luke Howard and wasn't surprised when the track I listened to turned out to consist of a five minute drone over which he plinks and plonks at his piano, producing a monotonous, tonally inoffensive and exceptionally dull sonic wallpaper.

[@cartologist]

Moby’s last name is Hall. His family is said to be related to Herman Melville, hence the stage name.

[@DavesClassicalGuide]

Like I said.

[@marknewkirk4322]

Why did you start performing Eight Songs for a Mad King in the middle of this video?

[@DavesClassicalGuide]

Why not?

[@TonyMatthewsComposer]

Loved the medley :-)

[@intramonto]

Maybe a deluxe edition of your Nutcracker Medley single just in time for Black Friday?

[@jonathanleeds8544]

Just listened to Greenwood's Spencer soundtrack, and I would definitely recommend it. It struck me as smoky jazz bar music with baroque sensibilities, and vice versa (plus a healthy dose of high anxiety and flugelhorn for good measure). For what it's worth, I've heard the movie is really more psychological horror rather than your average princess Diana fare, and the music definitely reflects that at parts.

[@DavesClassicalGuide]

Thanks for the tip.

[@dennischiapello7243]

I admired the music in Spencer (and the acting, but I was bored to death.) The same director used an original score by Mica Levi, of whom I know nothing else, except her music was outstanding and like nothing I've heard before. Quite a unique sound.

[@laurentwatteau8835]

The best Nutcracker version I've ever heard ! where can I buy it ?

[@waverly2468]

I just bought the new ABBA cd. Looks like they finally figured out how to make an attractive, plastic-free cd cover. Now here's the bad news: the booklet contains nothing except the lyrics to the new songs. The picture on the cover features the singers as they looked like 40 years ago, with new costumes digitally added. I guess they expect you to go online if you want more info about the release. If new classical cd releases start to look like that we're in trouble.

[@DavesClassicalGuide]

They already do.

[@samuelheddle]

Even some of the smaller labels like crossover stuff sometimes. I remember Nonesuch (or ECM, maybe) doing a Steve Reich techno remix album. It wasn't very good, but at least Ken Ishii was on it.

[@matthewv789]

I suspect the “Spencer” music might not be quite like you expect. Greenwood is guitarist and keyboardist of the band Radiohead, but has won a number of awards for his film scores, including for instance “There Will Be Blood”. He also did a collaboration album with Krzysztof Pendereski. “Reprise” only seems to be classical because it includes orchestral and acoustic arrangements of Moby’s songs… in other words not classical at all. The Mayer album seems to be almost entirely arrangements for oboe, so the extended edition adds six more arrangements.

[@DavesClassicalGuide]

Lucky us.

[@atomkraftteddy]

"Extended Edition". Play it very slow?

[@TdF_101]

I'll give Greenwood a pass, he has now extensive 'classical' and academic training and experience. He is very famous for soundtracks, but he could be like John Williams and is able to cross that 'bridge'

[@DavesClassicalGuide]

I will too. I was just speculating, which is never a substitute for actual listening.

[@TdF_101]

@@DavesClassicalGuide you're right, and I agree.

[@carlconnor5173]

Agreed: No thanks! I don’t think dumbing down Classical music or reimagining it is a good way of promoting it or profiting from it.

[@ayethein7681]

i fell about laughing at the Nutcracker performance.

[@owengette8089]

In general, these albums will mostly fall out of favor with the more passionate classical music crowd like you and me, but they would serve as a good gateway from popular music TO classical, so for that reason I do have some respect for these artists.

[@DavesClassicalGuide]

In my experience the best "gateway" to classical music is just plain old classical music. There's no need to sugar the pill.

[@OuterGalaxyLounge]

@@DavesClassicalGuide This will be anecdotal, but it was John Williams' soundtrack to Star Wars that made me tear off the plastic seal and listen to my parents' LPs of Tchaikovsky, Bruckner and Verdi, thus affording me my first experience of classical and sending me forward on my questing and listening journey and ultimately the possession of thousands of classical albums in my collection. There is such a thing as a gateway. (FYI, my parents did not listen to classical, they just somehow ended up with some free classical albums. I freed them from their cellophane.)

[@davidbo8400]

​@@DavesClassicalGuide Well, I wouldn't call Luke Howard sugaring the pill, quite frankly. That particular pill's more liky cyanide for the ears, the ideal gateway to tone death. Who's sponsoring this guy's work anyway? Great music is a gateway to other great music, garbage is a gateway to the landfill.

[@davidbo8400]

@@OuterGalaxyLounge Even Zunin Mehta played the SW suite. Williams soundtracks are exciting and his themes are memorable, though hugely derivative. Not so much with regards to the music discussed in the above chat

[@EddieJazzFan]

Call me crazy, but artists like Moby & Sting (although very talented) should not be on DG.

[@TheCastlepoet]

Somehow the film Spencer had escaped my notice entirely, so I just watched the trailer to hear some of the music, then looked up the movie on IMDB. There's a hilarious and concise one-star (out of a possible ten) review by one viewer, under the heading "I had to leave the cinema as I couldn't stand the score." The first sentence: "I put my hands over my ears and took my hearing aids out, but nothing worked." I guess that sums it up in a nutshell. Speaking of nutshells... er, Nutcrackers... I eagerly await the Tinnitus Classics release of "Tchaikovsky: Complete Music for Kazoo--The Extended Edition!"

[@DavesClassicalGuide]

We're working on it.

[@marknewkirk4322]

I remember back in the day (i.e. the late 1970s) waiting eagerly for my Columbia Record Club magazine. Every month, half of the space in the magazine was taken up by "easy listening" that was passed off as light classical. So this is nothing new. In particular the "record of the month" was almost always something of questionable taste - Rampal plays Zamfir. Well, OK, not quite that bad, but that was the gist of it.

[@samuelheddle]

Also: regarding bad (or presumably bad) music about catastrophe, I was very excited when I saw the Seattle Symphony was doing an own label debut of an new American symphony, and then the description mentioned it was written about the Parkland school shooting or something. Zero percent chance I'm listening to that one.

[@bertranddaldy9748]

I’ve seen the film “Spencer” and it’s actually quite good. The actress playing Diana does a brilliant job. Greenwood’s music works perfectly and is very good in the context of the film. However, his music is more in the realm of atmospheric, slightly discordant jazz- it’s not “classical”.

[@wesmarshall8137]

Greenwood is the lead guitarist for Radiohead.

[@marknewkirk4322]

Nazgûl Snezick Yegen. One tune to bore them all, and in the deafness bind them.

[@DavesClassicalGuide]

LOL!

[@ronnyskaar3737]

Lovely medley. You should do a critical review of it. Not sure it would survive 😂 By the way: good critisism is so important. All that bloated pompous merchandise needs scrutiny. Competent scrutiny. Thanks.

[@mostresticator5]

out come the cantatas LOL

[@stuartraybould6433]

This video for all my respect of your knowledge stinks of musical snobbery. I myself suffer from this from time to time as it is also in the progressive rock and for want of a better word, avant-garde fields. Film soundtracks classical, well that depends on the form not the composer. The wonderful English composer V Williams did film soundtracks, lets not forget. J Greenwood, although the guitarist for the rather wonderful experimental Radiohead has also written a number of film soundtracks, all of them are in a classical form and high quality. It's the music that counts, snobbery can kill things, it makes some people who might like this music turn away before they hear it. Snobbery as crept into prog rock and it hurts the popularity that was once there. This is partly why prog, electronic, avant-garde music and now jazz, as joined classical music as a shall we say, left field environment. Snobbery doesn't help the growth and popularity of these forms, it turns people off. While your knowledge of classical music is admirable, the snobbery in this particular video is unwanted. Great music, is great music no matter what the form.

[@ip7116]

I don’t see any snobbery at all. People with actual knowledge of the classical canon are often dismissed as snobs because they tend to fail in their duty to worship at the shrine of whatever the latest pop fad is. We should value discernment rather than dismiss it, particularly when it’s as amusingly delivered as here.

[@stuartraybould6433]

@@ip7116 If this video didn't stink of snobbery I don't know what would. Here is another example off his website: In his review of Max Richter. Vivaldi’s The Four Seasons. Now let’s face it, Vivaldi is not the most intellectual of composers to begin with, so it’s fair to ask if there is anything to be gained by dumbing down the music to the degree that happens here. Clearly he is belittling Vivaldi and then hasn't understood that Max Richter was using Vivaldi's music to create a Ambient album. A very beautiful album at that. So a lack of understanding of the Ambient form as well as putting down a classical composer. If that's not snobbery I don't know what is. Ralph Vaughan Williams, a superb composer, composed film soundtracks. Johnny Greenwood's soundtracks are wonderful pieces of classical music and yet he asks 'is it really classical' just because of who composed it and that it is a soundtrack. Greenwood has got classical training by the way. Max Richter as composed loads of music, most of it classical form and he is a classically trained composer. There are all forms of classical music as we know, this video puts down music that could introduce some people into this wonderful field that over time could lead them to discover Beethoven and Mahler. Listening to this would turn them right off.

[@cartologist]

Orchestral music used in films is called classical.

[@DavesClassicalGuide]

Since when?

[@cartologist]

@@DavesClassicalGuide Since Discogs, I guess! Seriously, to most people, if a film soundtrack is orchestral, it is therefore Classical. There doesn’t seem to be a way to separate it from “real” classical music, since real classical musicians play on them, and are sometimes identified with real orchestras, like the LSO for Star Wars. I think this could be a topic for a Music Chat - where does soundtrack music fit into the classical realm, other than as a revenue stream (chiefly last century)? Alexander Nevsky started as film music, after all.

[@DavesClassicalGuide]

@@cartologist It should just be called what it is: orchestral music.

[@russschmidt7701]

Live kazoo music.... you out did yourself on this one....well done

[@adrianosbrandao]

Now even when the album is evidently classical it can’t look like it is. For example, the latest Stewart Goodyear album. He plays Mussorgsky’s “Pictures” - couldn’t be more classical than that, right? But the cover says only “phoenix” and shows some used matches. That’s it. The disc content is meant to be a well kept secret. Or maybe Goodyear is ashamed of it. I don’t known. The latest Kanneh-Masons album is called “Muse”. The cover shows the siblings. That’s definitely better than some used matches! But… what are they playing? No sign of it. It’s a secret! Nobody should know! Universal won’t tell! . . . . wait for it . . . . (They play the Barber and Rachmaninoff cello sonatas. Simple as that.)

[@mike-williams]

I noticed that none of the composers' names appear on the sleeve

[@adrianosbrandao]

@@mike-williams composers have become more and more absent from album covers

[@lenoakes2450]

Mmm, I'm on your side. I've always been sceptical of people who claim to be equally comfortable and well-informed with two or more genres, usually classical and pop. I span pop (I grew up with pop) and classical but I lost track of pop years ago (the 70s) whereas I still feel like a bit of a beginner with classical.

[@stuartweiner9972]

David... Is it possible to have a private moment to chat with you? Stuart

[@DavesClassicalGuide]

You can send me an email.

[@stuartweiner9972]

@@DavesClassicalGuide may I request your email address... I must tell you that I look forward to your commentaries... Just great! Stu

[@mike-williams]

@@stuartweiner9972 KZbin channels almost always have email addresses on the contact page. The Classics Today website also provides contact details.

[@DavesClassicalGuide]

@@stuartweiner9972 [e-mail].

[@TienTran-nm6ms]

I saw On the Transmigration of Souls live with a friend performing in the choir. It was very difficult to give her my opinion of the piece. Everyone involved was very moved. It was preceded by the national anthem, with the conductor directing the audience to sing along. Oy. One of the worst concertgoing experiences for me. The piece is mush!

[@davidbo8400]

No, it's not classical music. Is it even music? I've sampled most of the stuff you've mentioned and I think we should label this "The Sound of Misery, the 21st century mix, the unbearably long, extended edition". Moby is now label mate with Karajan! Wowie zowie. Couldn't stand more than 30 seconds of his "reprise" rubbish. Brian Eno he is not, not even close ("Another Green World" makes it plain obvious). As for "Poor Clares...", it's clarely poor, no arundel about it. It's dull. Same goes for Lukewarm (if not dead cold) Howard; even duller, in fact. He would have shoved his "collective destiny" down the toilet had he just a microgram of artistic integrity, and I'm being polite, really am. Mao Fujita's "Pavane" sounds like soundrack music to a romantic south korean soap opera and "Before the Deluge" is a lousy christmasy cover version of a Jackson Browne original song from 1974 reminiscent of "The Band" and Dylan (call it derivative). Ideal playlist material for shopping malls, I supppose. One thing (among many other things) I really liked about Mahler is that he ruled out bothering an audience with anything less than a masterpiece. That's artistic integrity for you. What you've highlighted in your chat is nothing but artistic travesty and mockery, and only but(t). Not everything produced today is that bad, though. However, it's been a while since I've heard a contemporary masterpiece, whether classical or pop. Was the last one of these Broadcast and the Focus Group "Investigate Witch Cults of the Radio Age" from 2009? Can't think of any other recent one and none from the last decade. I've heard wonderful things from South America and Africa, but underground press aside no one mentions any of that. If any "classical" work of genius produced in the last 10 years comes to mind to anyone of you, let me know. Thanks

[@neilcameronable]

The Bruuuuckner on Acid Super Deluxe Edition (or should that be Editions.)Get the Horses out!!!!.Its only a matter of time