Classic does not = Baroque/Romantic?
 

Ok, people... please stop saying that your favorite classical composer is Chopin and Bach. Their romantic and Baroque. To mix up the three would be completely terrible to the people who invented those genres, so to speak. Putting everything into the classical era is insulting to your "favorites", and giving to much credit to the Classical composers. imo :soapbox:

I'm pretty sure Baroque and Romantic were just eras of classical music in general

yeah, i dont quite understand what you are getting so mad about really...

It's the difference between music that is in the Classical style (as opposed to Baroque, Romantic etc etc) rather than "classical" music as a whole; classical being the word to describe what could be termed Western Art Music.

The OP is incorrect in their assertion that using the term classical to describe all these genres is incorrect.

Dave

Threadstarter officially takes things far too seriously. I have an A level in Music and I'm going to university for further study, and even I dont really think its that important.

I see somebody wishes to show off their newly-gained knowledge of classical music. :p:

Anything before the 1900s can be considered classical; be that Medieval, Baroque, Renainssance, Romantic or the true Classical music - it's all classical nonetheless.

Do you get pissed when I say Nirvana is my favorite rock artist? Or do I have to say he was my favorite Alternative Rock artist? In my mind, Classical Music has always been an umbrella term for Romantic, Baroque, Film Music, what ever. In my mind atleast.

Idk, just one Classical fan's humble opinion.

As A pianist, I can say, I feel no wrong saying that my favourite composers were Bach and Chopin, (Chopin Especially!)
Although I very much like Mozart aswell, I like the Fugues for Bach's. But I love the Espressivness, unique harmony, the Lyricissim and the beautiful melodies of the F.Chopin.
Mozart is also for Lyrical, and uplifting.

Well yes, technically it does depend on the time era that the composer wrote that music. But in cases where people say Chopin is their favourite classical composer, they most likely are just talking about the style of music. Usually they don't know that classical music is different from Romantic or Baroque. It's now casually considered as "that orchestra stuff with loads of violins and old people conducting". Opera, is also considered "classical" by many, regardless of the time era. Anyway, just think of it as people referring to the "orchestra mumbo jumbo" kind of thing, rather than between the 18th and 19th century; In other words, they're talking about art music. People consider some video game music composers to be "classical" composers, but the word they're looking for here is "art" music. It doesn't really bother me that much, though, because some people make mistakes like mixing up their "they're"s. It's all forgivable. And I do believe that if Chopin composed anything before he was 15, it could be considered Classical.

There are different periods of music. E.g. The Classical period, Baroque, Romantic, Renaissance, etc. But classical music is usually a general umbrella term to describe the genre as a whole. There's really no need to get that pedantic about it... most of you are aware of my strong dislike for pointless genre arguments. It really doesn't matter.

If you want to be this pedantic about things, try to figure out what Bach, Mozart, and Mahler considered their genres to be.

Don't you think that the terms baroque, classical, and romantic were invented, well, a little after the fact?

I've been to college, got degrees and stuff in music yadda yadda...

Everyone in academia is aware that "Classical" strictly refers to a short period between 1750 and 1820, but everyone with very few exceptions uses "classical" as an umbrella term to describe non-folk acoustic music.

Folk music is deemed to be traditional music, passed down from generation to generation, and performed by non academically educated people. That's a huge generalisation, as classically educated musicians often enjoy performing folk music (but never seem to get it quite right for one reason or another!).

Composers have long plundered the huge reserves of folk music for inspiration to their works. They did not think in terms of genres when they wrote the music, they just wrote what would go down well with their audiences, until the Romantics came along and decided that audiences should jolly well like whatever they wrote because it's art.

Just about every musical "movement" is misleading. It's rarely a movement of people getting together and saying "Hey, dudes, let's get Baroque on everyone's ass", it's just composers wanting to get paid for their work, and jumping on bandwagons of new, popular writing styles, and someone comes along years later and says "Hey, those dudes were like really Baroque in style" and their buddies go "Yeah, dude".

Some things never change...

You wouldn't mind letting me use this in my sig. would you?

thanks,
-nick

That's one long sig... and I guess every time I see a post from you I'll be reminded of some of the drivel I come out with.

Be my guest - thanks for the compliment, I think... :D

Who cares? I'm sure that people are just generalizing different classical eras altogether.

As there is no Baroque and no Romantic forum...we'll just have to make do somehow...