When Does ‘Classic Film Music’ Become ’Classical Music,’ or Can It?

When Does ‘Classic Film Music’ Become ’Classical Music,’ or Can It?
With the rise of composer Bernard Herrmann, film compositions changed. Here he is pictured conducting the orchestra in a scene from the trailer of director Alfred Hitchcock’s “The Man Who Knew Too Much” (1956).
Michael Kurek
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In recent years, as symphony orchestras have struggled to remain in the black, they have adopted increasingly innovative programming to sell tickets. One way to do that has been to increase the number of better-attended pops concerts and decrease the number of classical concerts during their season. Even in the classical concerts, they have taken to playing suites of film music excerpts, which used to be performed only in the pops concerts. Often, these have taken the place of the concert’s “new music” slot, formerly reserved for often dissonant contemporary pieces.

While leading pre-concert discussions, I have frequently been asked by an audience member something like this: “Isn’t film music really the new classical music?” It seems a reasonable question, given that fewer people than ever in the populace as a whole even know that the so-called contemporary, “academic” genre of classical music even exists. It also seems reasonable because so much film music has long endured and is loved. It is often written for the same orchestral instrumentation as many classical pieces and in a late Romantic style, influenced by classical composers like Richard Wagner or Gustav Holst.

Michael Kurek
Michael Kurek
Author
American composer Michael Kurek is the composer and producer of the Billboard No. 1 classical album, “The Sea Knows,” and a member of the Grammy Producers and Engineers Wing of the Recording Academy. He is Professor Emeritus of Composition at Vanderbilt University. The most recent of his many awards for composition was being named in March 2022 “Composer Laureate of the State of Tennessee” by the Tennessee State Legislature and governor. For more information and music, visit MichaelKurek.com
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