Blurring the lines between pop and classical styles?

My default position is that a combination of style and intended audience and performance venue define genre unless there are strong overriding factors evident in the presentation or the work.

Frank Zappa is another example that's come up before. He's a bit more confusing to deal with.

He has his music that is clearly pop from the first decades of his career. Then he aslo had a serious classical side (he was selected for the Frankfurt Festival in 1992 along with heavy weights John Cage, and Stockhausen). The Ensemble Modern also commissioned and performed several works.

Something like G-Spot Tornado is troublesome. The original version is pop, but then the Ensemble Modern asked him to borrow from himself to make a classical arrangement that is considerably different from the pop version:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=imAWVWi5PIU

And what do you call a performance of Bolero that mixes Zappa's band with the Ensemble Modern complete with a cigarette smoking Frank Zappa as the conductor? They've made enough changes that I hesitate to call it classical and yet it's not like any pop I've ever heard. If we can call anything a successful fusion of pop and classical it's this:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HttVFpgObCo&feature...

I would just say that it is polystylistic and call it a day. Or you could call it neo-Classical (or neo-Baroque?), quoting a pop song I suppose. I don't feel that quoting a pop song really makes it a pop song. Rochberg's Nach Bach quotes a Bach Partita, but it's still an atonal fantasy, not a Baroque partita... It's all about style.

Paul Breiner btw has a cd I believe called Beatles Go Baroque that has (you guessed it) Baroque-sounding arrangements of Beatles songs. He isn't the only one, just the only one I can think of right now.

a little off the question: where does PDQ Bach ( Peter Schickele) fit in? As cross-over, or simply wanna-be classical?

and just to be very nasty and nitpicky, where does that leave the Ah je vous dirais, maman? .

As a curmudgeonly old opera singer, I like the respect due the genre. I love to sing jazz and the old standards as well, so I can't find fault with people experimenting to find the limits of their voices nowadays, as long as it is done in a healthy manner ( style is another question altogether).

Perhaps it is the overlapping or conflation of what is good vs what is traditional/new that irks me the most. No hard and fast rules?

I love the King's Singers. They come around to my neck of the woods every other year. When they sing pop arrangements, where do we put them? Classical or pop?

What a can of worms.

Thanks for letting me ramble.

No, it's still pop. "Bach style" doesn't mean the same thing as Bach actually writing a piece. Still, it's fun. There was a really funny routine by the Kings Singers several years back where they sang a modern composition that was written "in the style" of famous classical composers. And darn I actually found the thing! (I love Youtube)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JXhAz0DOpMU

Of course, it's easier to find classical works turned into pop songs.

I remember there was this horrible pretentious singer on one of those talent shows (can't remember if it was America's Got Talent or Britain's Got Talent) that took pop songs and sang them like "opera" or what people unfortunately think of as opera (I don't mean that Prince Poppycock guy who was actually entertaining---but some other guy I don't remember the name of and don't want to look up really).

@MissLimLam

I have a similar CD, 'Beatles Go Baroque' arranged by Peter Breiner.

Some of the pieces are well done, in my opinion. Here is what I could find on youtube:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vz6QclHduAs

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h0d0T6KD-Ao

I am reminded of an old cassette tape that I have of "Baroque Beatles." It was essentially arrangements of the Beatles music, that imitated baroque music. I cant seem to find it on youtube though!

What a cool question del_icio. I love Rap mixes with Handel, Rap with Debussy and Vivaldi too. There's nothing like a good mix!

<<<When classical borrows from folk, it's considered classical.>>>

Examples include Madama Butterfly and Turandot.

<<<When popular borrows from classical, it's considered popular.>>>

Examples include "Tonight We Love," "Going Home," and "Hello Mudduh, Hello Fadduh."

<<<When popular borrows from folk, it's considered popular.>>>

Elvis Presley's "Love Me Tender" was borrowed from a folk song entitled "Aura Lee."

There have been at least two popular song treatments of "I Gave My Love a Cherry."

<<<When folk borrows from classical, it's considered folk.>>>

I know only one example here.

A Black spiritual beginning with the word "Hallelujah" begins with quotation from Handel.

Here is the primary source:

One tune more. 1961. Delaware, OH: Cooperative Recreation Service: 58.

Here is a secondary source:

Bradford, L. L. 1978. <b>Sing it yourself: 220 pentatonic American folk songs</b>.

Sherman Oaks, CA: Alfred Publishing Co.: 59.

http://books.google.co.kr/books?id=6ocExcjS0yAC&pg...

<<<When folk borrows from popular, it's considered folk.>>>

Or at least that's what I always assumed.

Here is a collection of rhymes gathered from the Australian playgrounds.

The rhymes include bawdy adaptations of nursery rhymes, folk songs, and popular songs:

Turner, I.; Factor, J.; & Lowenstein, W. 1978. Cinderella dressed in yella. Richmond, Australia: Heinemann.

So we see 5 out of the 6 possible permutations,

and in each case, the style which is borrowing the melody wins out.

That may not be fair, but that's the way it is.

In light of the foregoing, I suggest that the Lady Gaga Fugue is classical.

Either way, it's a heck of a good fugue.

I like the more niche styles that borrow from classical music, like Coco de Mer.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aZzgRohgOq4&feature...

And Kelis's "Like You"

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v7gHULq5-Qo