For the past 25 years I have found the following to be a very comfortable way of looking at the matter:
In all civilizations, music tends to sort out into three streams, folk, popular, and classical. Folk music is the music of the countryside; its creators and performers are non-professional and musically illiterate, and individual works can seldom be assigned to a single identifiable individual. Popular music is the music of the whole urban population. Its creators are identified, and its performers are professionals, though they need not be highly trained. NB: after rural electrification, folk music becomes a fossil and pop holds equal sway in both the city and the country. (Modern "folk" musicians are really making popular music in imitation of folk styles) Classical music is the music of the intelligentsia, that subset of the urban population who crave music that demands and rewards intense and prolonged concentration. Its creators and performers are alike highly trained professionals, and occupy a considerably higher social stratum than other musicians in the same culture. Because it is by definition a minority taste, classical music can never depend entirely upon its audience for economic support. The music must in addition seek the patronage of the upper strata of society, who may be totally indifferent to the music (as was, e.g., JFK) yet will support it because they understand the importance of keeping the intelligentsia happy. It is not correct to say, as is so often casually asserted, that classical music is the music of the upper class. In the radio industry, conventional wisdom states that the core audience for any classical radio station consists of "doctors, lawyers, teachers, and musicians"--not, that is to say, the top layer of society, but one just below it, where society's brain-workers reside. In the West, as elsewhere, this has always been the case. Mediaeval classical music, for example, was created by and for the clergy--who comprised virtually the entire literate segment of society. Nor was this the music of popes and cardinals, but of a broad cross-section of clerical music-lovers. Bach wrote his cantatas for the churchgoers of Leipzig. Opera from the very first was open to anyone who could afford a ticket--nor was a princely sum charged for such. And so on. Now, as to things like film music. It should be evident that the borders between classical and pop are not fixed but flexible, with a large gray area in between of "light classics," "serious pop," and so on. Music in this area may well find acceptance among both audiences--and it is important to remember too that the classical audience is a *subset* of the pop audience, not separate from it. --Andrew Stiller Kallisti Music Press http://home.netcom.com/~kallisti _______________________________________________ Finale mailing list [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://lists.shsu.edu/mailman/listinfo/finale
