For the general public, the distinction between classical and pop seems to have blurred in many of the arts. Da Vinci Code and Harry Potter for literature? My editors are throwing up as we speak. The problem is that when the public at large, perhaps because of the way producers and PR have been targeting it, is no longer able to recognize what is truly its own—pop—and calls it by another name, it does injustice both to pop and to that which is not yet its own. With the advent of MTV, radio, and piracy, we live in a generation that has been increasingly influenced by pop, yet decreasingly able to recognize its various incarnations. The problem is not that the public no longer appreciates genuine classical music or punk or rock. The problem is not even that the public can no longer differentiate classical music, which it in general has not been fed, from other forms of music. The problem is that the public can no longer differentiate pop, which it has been consuming, from any other form of music.
By calling pop classical, the public is depriving itself of the opportunity to listen to real classical music and to evaluate for itself whether it can appreciate classical music. At the same time, it is depriving itself of the opportunity to enjoy pop music in its new form. Just as by calling pop punk, the public deprives itself of the opportunity to listen to real punk and to evaluate for itself whether it likes punk.. Because the bottom line these days seems to be money and therefore the number of sales, everything that is not pop is reinvented in a way that the general public can swallow better so that it will sell more. But, unlike cough syrup, does what is classical retain its classicalness when sugar-coated?
Take, for example, the Mona Lisa. There may come a time when its popularity will wane. What if, in order to make the public find the painting more attractive, its owners have it repainted, giving Mona Lisa a trendier haircut or more fashionable clothes? Sure, people may flock to it once again, but would it still be the Mona Lisa?
How then is classical music different from pop? The music textbook A History of Western Music by Donald Grout defines classical music primarily in this way: art music as opposed to vernacular or entertainment music. Ramon Acoymo, vocal pedagogue and Dean of the UP College of Music, says that classical music was "specifically created not for the entertainment of the masses but to give a certain small group a means to vent their compositional desires and needs." Thus, he points out that although classical music also had been used as a form of entertainment, the compositional agenda behind the work was more important to the producer or composer than its marketability or palatability to the public. Acoymo is quick to point out, however, that classical music is not intrinsically unentertaining or that what is entertaining is automatically not classical. Nevertheless, the purpose of the song must primarily be to give vent to a compositional agenda, whether or not it is also entertaining.
Thus, while many people can appreciate "Whistle Down the Wind", let us please not include it in a classical album. Or worse, an instrumental arrangement of "My Heart Will Go On". I’d like to believe that anything from Titanic isn’t classical.
