Quote:
Originally Posted by Catlady
I'd put Gershwin in the Broadway/popular category--he and brother Ira gave us standards like "Embraceable You," "Someone to Watch Over Me," "Fascinating Rhythm," "They Can't Take That Away From Me," "I Got Rhythm."
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Quote:
Originally Posted by skinmaan
You get my point, then. A lot of American composers of that time straddled the line, stylistically. No one questions whether Ravel or Stravinsky (contemporaries) are classical music. The Gershwins definitely had Jazz influences in their music ("I Got Rhythm" is a classic example) so some would argue whether their music should be considered Classical or Jazz. I think it is largely irrelevant now days. Most people would consider his orchestral arrangements as Classical. Shorter compositions might be termed Jazz or Popular.
Stage performance material sometimes gets its own classification or other times is lumped in with others. "Porgy & Bess" was a stage performance but is generally today classified as an English opera, which is a subset of classical. Ballets by Tchaikovsky and Stravinsky are similarly classical music. In contrast, we also have "Jazz Musicals" and "Rock Operas."
It probably goes without saying that this is a particularly favorite topic of mine, so I could go on for days. I'll stop blabbering on about it now before the All-Powerful Hand of the Moderator descends.
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Americans aren't going to win a classical music competition, but who's keeping score anyway? On the other hand, the US gave us jazz and the American songbook, both great of their kind, just not as "high culture" as classical. We're richer for all of them.