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Topic: Just what IS Classical?

9th Aug 2014, 12:01 PM
	Magic Marmalade If you're not lost... It's not an adventure! Member since Jun 2014 3773 Points Moderator	You will probably find more versions of Gershwin made by jazz, and pop artists than you would classical arrangements... and these versions or styles are probably regarded as more definitive, or regarded as the more generally style of the most celebrated renditions of these. Perhaps in approaching this question, it ought to be working from the outside in... eliminating, and excluding everything we can most surely say is NOT classical, until we reach the greyer areas and points of contention, but with reference to some very basic points of reference; that is: the word "Classical" itself. For instance, Dictionary.com gives a set of definitions which largely agree with other dictionary sources: clas-si-cal [klas-i-kuh l] Word Origin adjective 1. of, pertaining to, or characteristic of Greek and Roman antiquity: "classical literature; classical languages." 2. conforming to ancient Greek and Roman models in literature or art, or to later systems modelled upon them. 3. marked by classicism: "classical simplicity." 4. Music. a.of, pertaining to, or constituting the formally and artistically more sophisticated and enduring types of music, as distinguished from popular and folk music and jazz. Classical music includes symphonies, operas, sonatas, song cycles, and lieder. b.of, pertaining to, characterized by, or adhering to the well-ordered, chiefly homophonic musical style of the latter half of the 18th and the early 19th centuries: "Haydn and Mozart are classical composers." 5. Architecture. a.noting or pertaining to the architecture of ancient Greece and Rome, especially the religious and public architecture, characterized by the employment of orders. Compare order (def 27b). b.noting or pertaining to any of several styles of architecture closely imitating the architecture of ancient Greece or Rome; neoclassic. c.noting or pertaining to architectural details or motifs adapted from ancient Greek or Roman models. d.(of an architectural design) simple, reposeful, well-proportioned, or symmetrical in a manner suggesting the architecture of ancient Greece and Rome. 6. (often initial capital letter) pertaining to or designating the style of fine arts, especially painting and sculpture, developed in Greece during the 5th and 4th centuries b.c., chiefly characterized by balanced composition, the separation of figures from an architectural background, and the naturalistic rendering of anatomical details, spatial movement, and distribution of weight in a figure. Compare archaic (def 4), Hellenistic (def 5). 7. of or pertaining to a style of literature and art characterized by conformity to established treatments, taste, or critical standards, and by attention to form with the general effect of regularity, simplicity, balance, proportion, and controlled emotion (contrasted with romantic ). noun 13. classical music: "a jazz pianist who studied classical for years." Origin 1580-1590 1580-90; classic + -al1 Related forms classicality, classicalness, noun classically, adverb anticlassical, adjective Can be confused classic, classical. Dictionary.com Unabridged Based on the Random House Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2014. Cite This Source British Dictionary definitions for clas-si-cal Expand classical /ˈklæsɪkəl/ adjective 1. of, relating to, or characteristic of the ancient Greeks and Romans or their civilization, esp in the period of their ascendancy 2. designating, following, or influenced by the art or culture of ancient Greece or Rome classical architecture 3. (music) a.of, relating to, or denoting any music or its period of composition marked by stability of form, intellectualism, and restraint Compare romantic (sense 5) b.accepted as a standard the classical suite c.denoting serious art music in general Compare pop1(sense 2) 4. (music) of or relating to a style of music composed, esp at Vienna, during the late 18th and early 19th centuries. This period is marked by the establishment, esp by Haydn and Mozart, of sonata form 5. denoting or relating to a style in any of the arts characterized by emotional restraint and conservatism a classical style of painting See classicism (sense 1) 6. well versed in the art and literature of ancient Greece and Rome 7. (of an education) based on the humanities and the study of Latin and Greek 8. (physics) a.not involving the quantum theory or the theory of relativity classical mechanics b.obeying the laws of Newtonian mechanics or 19th-century physics a classical gas 9. another word for classic (sense 2), classic (sense 4) 10. (of a logical or mathematical system) according with the law of excluded middle, so that every statement is known to be either true or false even if it is not known which Derived Forms classicality, classicalness, noun classically, adverb Collins English Dictionary - Complete & Unabridged 2012 Digital Edition © William Collins Sons & Co. Ltd. 1979, 1986 © HarperCollins Publishers 1998, 2000, 2003, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2009, 2012 Cite This Source But when the word is broken into constituent parts... it gets a little more confused: class [klas, klahs] Spell Syllables Synonyms Word Origin noun 1. a number of persons or things regarded as forming a group by reason of common attributes, characteristics, qualities, or traits; kind; sort: "a class of objects used in daily living." 2. a group of students meeting regularly to study a subject under the guidance of a teacher: "The class had arrived on time for the lecture." 3. the period during which a group of students meets for instruction. 4. a meeting of a group of students for instruction. 5. a classroom. 6. a number of pupils in a school, or of students in a college, pursuing the same studies, ranked together, or graduated in the same year: "She graduated from Ohio State, class of '72." 7. a social stratum sharing basic economic, political, or cultural characteristics, and having the same social position -ic Word Origin 1. a suffix forming adjectives from other parts of speech, occurring originally in Greek and Latin loanwords ( metallic; poetic; archaic; public) and, on this model, used as an adjective-forming suffix with the particular senses “having some characteristics of” (opposed to the simple attributive use of the base noun) ( balletic; sophomoric); “in the style of” ( Byronic; Miltonic); “pertaining to a family of peoples or languages” ( Finnic; Semitic; Turkic). 2. Chemistry. a suffix, specialized in opposition to -ous, used to show the higher of two valences: "ferric chloride." 3. a noun suffix occurring chiefly in loanwords from Greek, where such words were originally adjectival ( critic; magic; music). -al Word Origin 1. a suffix with the general sense “of the kind of, pertaining to, having the form or character of” that named by the stem, occurring in loanwords from Latin ( autumnal; natural; pastoral), and productive in English on the Latin model, usually with bases of