Toby the Tenor

Why do we call it “classical”… Part 3

If the word “classical” is an inaccurate term for the genre of music under its umbrella, what classification might be better? 

Where am I going with this string of blog posts? The genre of music collectively termed “classical” has outgrown the word. It’s time for a rebrand. 

I’m not kidding myself that by writing about this I will bring about an international collective decision to start calling a whole genre of music by another name. Of course I’m not. I do want to have the discussion, nonetheless. 

What would the alternatives be? “Serious” music is a starting place. It requires no explanation but it’s both inaccurate and off-putting. How do you sell a concert of “serious” music and it doesn’t do justice to lighter music or comic opera. Similarly, “formal” music seems boxed in and doesn’t help those of us who prefer not to wear white tie on the concert platform. 

I prefer “Western art” music to “classical”. Calling it “art” places the music on an altar and doesn’t help non-musicians claim it for themselves. I’m not sure what a composer like Tan Dun would think of being classified as a Western art composer. Such a geographical specification would jar with composers like Tan Dun, whose compositions channel Asian musical traditions. 

I also like “unpopular” music to some extent. It acknowledges its relative appeal alongside pop music with a wry smile. It wouldn’t work, obviously – I can’t think of anyone who wants to be an “unpopular” musician. 

“Erudite” music? Pompous. No thanks. Similarly, “Legitimate” music. What does that say about other music categories? Making outlaws of other genres is not going to help the cause. 

The problem with most of these alternatives is that they tend towards putting the genre on a pedestal, above other types of music. Even “classical” makes me think of marble depictions of emperors on horseback raised on a plinth. 

Is there a term that relates to every type of music we call classical without aggrandising it, reducing it or mislabeling it?

“Historical” music? What about the music being written today that is performed by the same musicians who play Beethoven or Bartok? No, but there is something within “historical” that I like. It’s to do with the way the music is recorded by the composer for it to be played accurately by musicians anywhere and in any decade. All the music we are considering is manuscripted in the same way, using the same method of clefs, keys, time signature, staves for pitch and a system of dots and tails indicating the length of a note relative to the other notes being played. All of the music we are considering here is annotated. 

I hear you say, “Hang on, I’ve seen a book of Billy Joel songs in a music shop before. Wasn’t that annotated?” Yes, but in a generalised way. What you get in a collection of well-known pop songs are transcriptions of songs that were written as words and music organically, mostly at the keyboard and then sketched in manuscript. Such music owes a lot to improvisation and is never set in stone for its instrumentation or the way it is to be interpreted by the performer. 

The music of which I am talking has been the reason for the development of a precise and universal system of annotation. Gustav Mahler and Edward Elgar peppered their scores with words and phrases to help performers find the precise mood they were looking for in their music. Benjamin Britten wrote horizontal lines over the notes of many of his melodies, reminding the musician to make each note vibrant and sonorous. Janacek’s chaotic scores contained dynamic markings (ppp for ultra soft through to fff for very loud) of such precision that musicians often think there is a mistake in their score when some instruments are required to play very quietly while others are asked to play at full-tilt. 

The miracle of musical annotation, evolved over centuries since medieval times, means we know exactly how the plainchant and organum (an early form of polyphony in which singers took parallel lines at different pitches) of the early Christian liturgy is to be sung even now. 

Talking of performance, what do we mean when we say someone is “classically trained”? I can’t think of a classical method of training a musician, like the training of a ballet dancer who learns the basics of technique and form. The meaning of “classically trained” has come to mean the musician has learnt to read music and has developed their ability to play the instrument through reading, studying and practising annotated music for their instrument. The challenges of the music that leads to advanced technical skill and musicianship can only be manifested through annotation. It takes a musician of rare talent to imagine and write works like Schubert’s Impromptus and the skill to play them would not be attainable without the works being written down. 

To get the ball rolling on my wished-for rebrand of classical music my offering is “annotated music”. And if anyone wants to split hairs, I’d call it “precision annotated music” because composers, since the system for writing music was formulated, are prescriptive about the way their music is performed and a large part of the skill set required to be a performer is to read, understand and convey the wishes of the composer.