TheLonelyNoteNerd

About

TheLonelyNoteNerd, the musings of a UK-based professional musician, considers the well-known, and lesser known, from what’s usually referred to as the classical (and related) music repertoire, or ‘the canon’: compositions, their composers and performers. Though it’s not quite that simple.

That Idiotic Word Classic

In Johann Nestroy’s 1842 play Einem Jux will er sich machen, which could be roughly translated, or paraphrased, as On the razzle (though Britannica, in the hyperlink above, offers another translation – but you’ll get the idea), the character Zangler asks Melchior “Why do you keep repeating that idiotic word ‘classic’?” He responds: “Oh, the word isn’t idiotic, it’s just often used idiotically.”

From classic cars to the classical times of ancient Greece and Rome, from classic literature to classical music and music from the Classical (note the upper case) period, whether adjectives or nouns, Melchior cautions us against being idiotic with such words. Nowhere is this idiocy more pronounced than when referring to classical music. We can only assume that when someone says that they don’t like classical music, it means that they have an aversion to what might also be described as Western art music, or Western concert music.

But it’s still unhelpful, because I wouldn’t dare stray into the territory of defining ‘art music’ or ‘concert music’, not now in our age of multi-styles, genres, and the like. But let’s see where we end up…in no particular order.