Inventing the Classical: Demoting the Popular

Why is classical music separated from popular music? Change in the composition of the audience for operatic and symphonic compositions has its impetus in the 1830s. 18 th century concert stage performances relied upon the popularity of oratorio by audiences of all levels. These vocal forms of European music have long enjoyed a popularity within the United States. In mid-1830s writers began to use “classical” to describe works of music whose form and instrumentation was limited to works of known composers written for symphonic production.

What is the meaning of the word ‘classical’ in a musical sense? The music was emphasized a sonata form. Orchestral music was a sonata form in several movements, and described as symphonic. The usual order of the four movements was: An allegro, which by this point was in what is called sonata form, complete with exposition, development, and recapitulation. sonata form A slow movement, an Andante, Adagio or Largo.AndanteAdagioLargo A dance movement, frequently Minuet and trio or – especially later in the classical period – a Scherzo and trio.Minuet and trioScherzo and trio A finale in faster tempo, often in a sonata–rondo form.sonata–rondo form

Classical and popular The idea of a "classical" music accessible to those possessing superior sensibilities and aesthetic judgment evolved during the second quarter of the nineteenth century. It left, as its logical antithesis, an enormous and diverse residual class of "popular" music comprehensible to and, in some of its examples, widely known by "the populace" from whom the category takes its name. Some of the institutional contexts associated with the composition, performance, and consumption of the two genres during our own time had not yet developed; nevertheless, the contrast between the two and the limited appeal of the former was apparent before the Civil War.

The age of musical professionals 1842 the New Philharmonic Society formed an orchestra. Sought to edify both musicians and audience. 1. Theodore Thomas. violinist, immigrant from Germany. Became the leading conductor in the 19 th century. Theodore Thomas Orchestra ( ) Went to Chicago to create the Chicago Symphony Orchestra, a privately supported orchestra.

Sacralization of Culture To make something sacred is to create a hierarchy of culture that presumes that one form of culture is superior to all others. This creates a separation into categories of a canon and other. 1. To have a sacred domain demands the definition of the profane. In this case the definition of the popular which begins in the 1850s. It also demands the non- concert music, the folk. 2. The concert hall took on the characteristics of a (secular) religious service, by the trained clergy of the secular forms.

The concert hall became sacred space These included the absence of food in the concert hall (focus), the refraining from smoking (purification), and the proper comportment and attire. The sacralization also removed all other divergences from the focus on the musical event itself. Sacralization is a cultural fact, but not a cultural reality.

How sacralization influenced opera The question was not whether opera should be heard, but how it should be presented. 1. In the language of composition, which the audience could not understand, or in translation. 2. What leeway did the director have to abridge portions of the full opera? By 1900 the critics complained that to abridge a work was “to demean the very integrity of opera as an art form.” 3. What liberties might the singers take with their parts to compensate for their own vocal capacities?

Instrumental Music Prior to the creation of a cultural hierarchy the principal instrumental ensemble that audiences knew was the band. 1. Harvey Dodworth, was one of New York City’s most eminent Band leaders, at the same time he played violin in the New York Philharmonic Orchestra. The band concerts were a mix of popular and European art selections. a. His band included the young Theodore Thomas, who was making his living playing violin in bands, chamber groups, and as a soloist. 2. John Sullivan Dwight – Boston. Refused to assist in Patrick Gilmore’s lavish staging of the National Peace Days in Dwight insisted that his “was a grandiloquent pretension” and was uncongenial as possible to the whole sphere of Art.”

The distinction of “the music” and the “performance” To concentrate on the music is to play the ensemble as scored by the composer—or to arrange the score so as to respect what are seen as the intensions of the composer. There is no place for audience participation in this concept of a musical event. 1. To concentrate on the performance is to arrange the music so that it gratifies the audience. The audience is constantly engaged in this concept of a musical event. 2. The debate was less over who should enter the symphony hall, as over what they should experience when they did enter, what the essential purpose of these temples of culture were in the first place.

The Amateur and the Professional Sacralization increased the distance between amateur and professional musicians. 1. Consider, Olga Samaroff Stokowski who decried hausmusik as the grotesque and inaccurate renderings of the composers intensions. This was part of a Euro-centric attitude about life. (she had been Lucy Hickenlooper when she first went to Europe as a young pianist from Texas.) 2. This increasing emphasis on the score increased tensions between the soloist and the conductor.

The era of recorded sound accepted the dichotomy of classical and popular By the beginning of the 20 th century the sacralization of art music was complete. Policies would change, the meaning of the halls of culture—and of culture itself—was established. All else was commentary. It was very difficult for conductors to force both the audience and more importantly the musicians to respect the score. “If the first movement of Beethoven’s Eroica is philosophical struggle,” Thomas said, “to me it is Allegro con brio.” Thomas e mphasized fidelity to the score, and as the perfect symbol of sacralized culture he was also interpreting, rescoring, and adjusting the musical texts he presented. 1. It was one thing for non-musicians like George Templeton Strong to insist on musical purity and the total integrity of the sacred text, it was another for a musician to implement such ideas.

The assertion of sacredness is a form of artistic control. Charles Lamb asserted that because the presentation of Shakespeare cannot be done exactly as it had been intended, that it should not be performed, but only read. He then went on to create his own abridged and retold versions. Sacralization remained an ideal, but had considerable force. The attitude boils down the entire cast of participants in the production of musical expression and focuses on just a single individual. The reverence for works then became a critical view that gave the writers who championed the view a pulpit from which to create cultural critique that demanded hierarchy and order.