Classical music remixes? Are they good or bad for classical music, what do you think?

Bravo Mordent! (I do like a lot of what he said)

I am a musician. I am also a composer. This puts me in a unique position to know what it feels to be on both sides of the creative/respectful barrier.

I know I am going to offend a lot of purists, but remixes are ESSENTIAL for Classical Music's survival. If "Classical" Music is to continue breathing, it HAS to be changed up somehow. (By the way, the term "classical" is so narrow and ill-chosen, but if I were to discuss that, I would have a book on my hands...)

What I mean is that recording technology is so good now as well as the preservation of data, that if we continue to be too pure for our own good, Classical Music will die. Sure, people will still play it, and there will be live concerts featuring it (for you can't beat the feeling of a live performance), but it will be less and less of a sought-after commodity.

Think of it like a language. If a language cannot adapt or change to fit current needs, and no one sees the need to speak it anymore, it will die. I don't think that it will ever go extinct, but it will become the hobby of nerds and musical historians. I guess a better way to put it is that it will not become like ancient Babylonian – maybe more like Latin. "Dead" in a sense, but a language still studied and used semi-widely.

As a composer, I welcome adaptations, arrangements and "remixes" of my original works. The only thing I can claim is the melody and harmony. I don't think many of the composers were as hard-nosed and pure about their music as their devotees pretend. Sure, there were and are some arrogant composers, but most of the time, what they did was spontaneous.

Here is what the root problem is in my mind: there are musicians who can only play the "ink," and there are musicians who can really PLAY. Unfortunately there are far too many out there that HAVE to have music. Without it, they are lost. To me, that is not a musician. It is like saying someone can speak a foreign language fluently as long as he has a script in front of him.

Wrong.

I guess you have probably figured out that I also play jazz. And guess what – I AM AMERICAN!! (Oh boy, I am in it deep now!) For all of the flak that Americans take, just look at where the world's sound for "popular" music came from. The reason that many peoples have latched on to our style is that we were "uncouth" enough, as it were, to throw convention to the wind and return music back to what it was anciently: an expression of the soul.

When an artists cannot express himself because of the constraints that convention and preservation place upon him, is he really an artist, or a CD player that can walk, talk, digest and perform other bodily functions? In other words, is Yo-Yo Ma a cellist or a glorified boom box?

I know, I can feel everyone cringing. I personally love Yo-Yo Ma. I have several of his albums. The reason why I consider him an artist is that he branches out well beyond the constraints of classical music. He has great World Music, as well as Folk and borderline Jazz recordings. Though the purists have boxed him in in the Classical arena, he has found his expression of soul in other genres.

So after all of that, I say let people who love music play it as they like. The composers don't care (as long as they get credit and royalties). Only the really narrow-minded can think that once the composers put down the pen that the final word was spoken. It takes a genius to take another genius' work and remix into something that is equally as masterful.

THAT is the clincher: if a remix is crappy, then YES, it was a big mistake to mess with it. But if someone can rearrange it fantastically, it can only be an homage and tribute to the original composer. Besides, I don't think that the devotees of Classical music can be too picky any longer. They have to see that the writing is on the wall. If they continue being so pure, their breed will die out with the dinosaurs.

Ok, I'll admit to not knowing much about remixes. The only remixes I've ever heard have been taking otherwise fine songs, and adding a new drum track, etc. I assume that the practice is more involved in that, and can certainly imagine what it entails.

Does "A Fifth of Beethoven" qualify as a remix? In terms of novelty and entertainment, it's certainly fine. Clever, funny, and makes me smile. But to pass this off as a work of art is borderline offensive. And certainly, it's not the sound that Beethoven had in mind.

I don't see how writing a theme and variations in the same as a remix. Writing a theme and variation involves a true act of creativity. We're talking about a single melody, treated in a variety of different ways...not about a complete piece of music bastardized for profit.

I'm curious about what a "classical remix" really IS. Post some links for me to check out, please.

Define "modern". People have been reworking classical music into different styles as long as there's been classical music. What style are you looking for? Jazz recordings abound. In the surreal world of analog synths, nobody has ever topped Isao Tomita's albums. Plenty of people have tried to apply dance beats to classical music. For the WXPN crowd, there's Richard Stoltzman's "WorldBeat Bach". For Dr. Demento fans, there's "Spike Jones is Murdering the Classics". There's probably an adaptation to suit anybody's taste (except for the purists).

I think that remixing or doing your own version of music is perfectly acceptable - in fact it's pretty much mandatory. If we weren't trained in writing Baroque chorals then one of the bases for conservatoire composition would be lost. I was forever writing the damn things! Perhaps these aren't quite in the same league as remixes - but it is pretty much impossible for us having heard more modern sounds to write a choral exactly how Bach would have done. If one follows the rules you get something bland (even Bach broke the rules), but you can be sharply criticised by purists if you include even a chord 7 in a legit location.

As far as remixes go, I'm all for them. Say Stravinsky wrote a piano piece and recorded it himself. Every single other version is an interpretation. NOBODY, no matter how many hours they spent dedicatedly listening to Stravinsky's recording could EVER perform it precisely as he did. Every change in dynamic, even by 1 decibel, the exact tuning of the instrument - these things are variations on the original. Are we to say that these changes therefore make the piece impure? What if Stravinsky recorded it on a terrible piano where one note was a quarter tone flat (not written in the score), would we all have to detune our pianos by a quarter tone? Would this piece played on a properly tuned piano be incorrect?

To say remixes of music is not as good is simply absurd. There is plenty of chance music which is different every time it is performed as the performer chooses the order to play the differing sections. Is their interpretation of the order wrong, because they have not got the same taste in order as the composer did?

Of course some remixes are terrible. Using Kucletus' example of Reich remixed, there are several pieces on that album which are tedious or do not work, yet there are some very good pieces of music (both the music for 18 musicians remixes are good in my opinion). If you take examples of where Beethoven's 5th or (heaven help us) Canon in D have been remixed, many of them have been butchered by people who have little understanding of how the original worked, and the subtleties which make it beautiful(however rare those subtleties may be; I mean you canon). It is like they have been to a back street plastic surgeon and have emerged clunky and ugly. However in the right hands one may build upon such music and interpret it in a new way; to say that this is impossible without degrading the original is very closed minded.

The instinct to preserve music exactly how it is today and was 100 years ago was the thinking behind the council of Trent. This was a council held by the church against polyphony; it was held to be ungodly because the music of the peasants was polyphonous; apparently a Bishop heard that a lovely new piece of sacred music had been set to the score of a polyphonous tavern song. Needless to say he wasn't pleased. The idea was that polyphony in all sacred music (and therefore the classical music which evolved from this) would be banned; only monophony and homophony would be allowed. The motion was defeated, and thankfully so.

I am quite surprised about the snobbery of Europeans in view of classical music. Having studied both jazz and classical music it is strange that it is the Europeans who are snobs; in jazz it's the Americans who insist on everything being as it was in the 50s (Wynton Marsallis has a lot to answer for). Being European myself I am also quite ashamed that my fellow musicians have such narrow creative horizons.

I have no problem with remixes- yes, most will suck (that is the nature of the art, I suspect) and a few will be good- but of course, I am American, so that should be expected of me.

Of course, the fact that Europeans like Berio and H. K. Gruber (not to mention groups like the London Symphony Orchestra) have done remixes (of much better quality than "Bach with Nature Sounds") kind of invalidates the theory of American exceptionalism.

And as far as poster Delug commenting about Americans: "This music is quite distorted and presented in a way different from the original, often they even add lyrics to the great classical work !!." - he really needs to check out the work of a couple of chaps named Flanders & Swann (who are about as American as mushy peas & marmite).

I hate how people posting are saying how North Americans have bad music tastes AND are obese at that.

I DO support "remixing" classical music IF it's good in a way that presents the original composer in a good light rather than a bad light.

Yes, I have seen these questions. I believe that they're musicians and they're composers. Musicians are content to play music. Where composers say, what if I were to.....

I think most people would agree, if you knew personally knew the composer and it was OK with him or he passed on with out completing his work and you knew what his intentions were. That's one thing. But for the sake of "improving" these great works, no.

You have to ask yourself, if you compose something do you want others remixing it? Probably not. The same applies.

Personally, it does very little for me. However, this idea that it is some huge taboo to tamper with an original is absurd.

Music is highly individualistic; that's why you may be able to listen to an entire Shubert string quartet and I can't and I can be fascinated by the juxtaposition of complex musical ideas and simplicity in form, structure, and melodic and rhythmic motifs in Terry Riley’s "In C" and you would find it boring. The fact that someone somewhere is enjoying a remix of Carl Orff's Carmina Burana doesn't diminish the fact that I am currently enjoying listening to the original; it means that more people more places are getting more out of music. And I like that thought.

"If this word "music" is sacred and reserved for eighteenth and nineteenth century instruments, we can substitute a more meaningful term: organization of sound". ~John Cage

Remixes honestly do not bother me as much as other people, it seems. There are obviously some vast differences in quality between a professional and "DJ Weekend Warrior," but tasteful remixes can sometimes be enjoyable.

I had to tackle the issue of a "remix" of sorts when I was asked to write a marching band show based on a piece I had done for wind ensemble a semester earlier. I struggled with the decision for a week or so - why would I DEGRADE my music with a mere arrangement of the original! - and finally realized that a) it's a chance for more people to hear my work, and b) depositing the check would feel much better than eating Ramen for the next 6 weeks.

For a sampling of good remixes of modern music, check out Reich Remixed. It's an album of DJ remixes of music by Steve Reich - released around 2003, it's a staple on my Itunes playlist.

l will never admit those famous "mix" forms.

I prefer to respect and perform exactly as the composer intended.

There's enough talent and creativity in our days so we can create our own music..

You are probably North American ..It is widely known that you people - with very good exceptions of course - are born listening to ridiculous arrangements

"mixed" with classical music..This music is quite distorted and presented in a way different from the original, often they even add lyrics to the great classical work !!.

In general terns they do not teach respect for the composers in the USA.

Again, I repeat, luckily there are very numerous exceptions

I assume those people were trained in Europe or received European influence somehow.