Does some contemporary classical music contradict the fundamental definition of "classical music"?

Not at all.

Wikipedia is often enough somewhat good while at the same time being God-Awful. Someplace in that big article it probably says something very sixth gradish about 'melody' etc. or some of the classical period as being the 'apex' of western civilized thought, etc. and yada yah.

What it does not say which it should, and which is more fundamentally the truth, is that art music is organized sound. Period.

So... classical or 'art' music is organized sound - and perhaps to qualify that further, only when it is written down. Art music is generally more highly organized than folk or improvised music.

That is all it really should say about 'what music is.' But it has to put its foot in its own mouth while trying to be a titch politically correct. Pity.

That more fundamental definition covers Gregorian plainchant, John Cage (including his famous 4'33'') and later 'avant garde' developments you list, all very capaciously and comfortably.

At every stage of the game, era to era, though often slow and subtle, there have been shifts, and one generation after the next and the next after that have been 'breaking the rules' - or better - precedents - set by the previous generation.

It is that simple.

I see the shifts you are talking about as no more 'radical' than music in unison being 'busted' by subsequent generations who kept adding more 'forbidden' intervals until there was a full and extensive harmony, which once established went from modal - for hundreds of years -- until Monteverdi turned the tide of music history by going more tonal.

Since the 1900's everything has moved and changed more rapidly than ever before. Society itself has changed so radically that you would only wish to visit, as a time-traveler tourist and with a full roster of inoculations, any earlier era - if there were real opportunities to go back, very few would take advantage of it. Most of us would be poor, owned by a boss or some royal, and lead miserable illiterate or semi-literate lives.

Those developmental changes over time are seen in all arts, sciences and letters. Perhaps you are just picking up on the ones in music. I've always found it rather amazing that the general public can easily assimilate a two-plane perspective picture by Picasso, a split-screen episode in a film or television presentation, follow multiple simultaneous lines of dialogue in film and theatre (Just Not Done until the 20th century) but have huge problems with everything analogous to those aspects when it comes to even the earliest of 20th century music. As opposed to almost all the other arts, It is in music that the general public is most behind (about 100 years, as a matter of fact).

Your list, and a potentially common reaction to 'the new music' might be likened to one who is still in shock that visual art no longer need be representational 'pictures' of anything, or that films or literature can be something effective but wholly lacking a plot as we formerly expected :-)

Remember, Beethoven (especially) burst just about all envelopes of convention in his time. Now that it is old, considered traditional does not (or should not) make it any less 'avant garde' than it was in its day - it is just that by context it might be difficult to hear it with mid-19th century ears and sensibility. A composer whom reviewers and public kept exclaiming with each new piece after his middle period that he had gone totally mad :-)

Mozart broke many conventions of his day, and was -- get this -- considered far too dissonant (all those minor thirds, you know) and far too outwardly emotional (an asset in the romantic era, but here, Mozart, classicism, restraint, yet at the time criticized for writing outwardly emotional music.)

I don't think there is anything so radical about any of the shifts you named - all results of step by step developments over hundreds of years.

P.s. and Oh, Yeah - I detest the word 'experimental' when applied to the arts. There is some 'experimental' work going on, sure, in labs, as it were, and in some less than hugely public venues where it is presented.

By the time something is being performed in a larger venue, or recorded and distributed world-wide, its pretty safe to assume the experiments are over and what you are seeing are the successes from those experiments. The word as term is far too often used as a dodgy qualifier by less than confident musicians and / or less than open minded listeners. So. Experiments happen and belong, for the most part in the lab. The lab, generally, is not usually open to the public.

Best regards.

fun question,

im gonna say "no, it does not".

wikipedias definition is not flawless, and there is room for debate.

also, "classical" has a few different meanings, since it could refer to the classical era specifically, western classical, or other cultures classical music styles.

better to think of it as a continuous yet evolving tradition, rather than thinking of things its "not allowed" to include.

new notational devices have been developing that whole time. if you look at sheet music from the 12th century and compare it to the 15th century, it is pretty different.

and while microtones were not used for a long time in the european tradition, they still knew they existed and in fact the common notation we use for them now is from tartini back in the 1700s.

yes we have electronic instruments now, and that is a new development. but you are talking as if the the orchestra was an unchanging institution that existed from the 11th century. its not. they didnt exist for like half that time. some of the "traditional orchestral instruments" have only existed for a few hundred years. if we could add a clarinet in the 1700s, and add valves to a horn in the 1800s, why cant we add the ondes martenot in the 1900s and supercollider in the 2000's?

its always been changing, so to continue the tradition, it will continue to change.

so while the era itself and the specific new philosophies may get new names, they are still classical. putting a brick wall between them as if there is no continuity is not necessary.

looking backwards, its easy to see the connections and think that all the old stuff belongs in one box, and the new stuff is totally different, but remember, all the famous classical composers are the ones who innovated and pushed the boundaries of the older traditions. it didn't sound "normal" yet when they did it. beethoven was new and different at the time, but with historical context he makes sense because he influenced the direction things took after him.

calling the new stuff "experimental/art music" is a little troubling because:

1. it implies older music wasn't experimental. it was.

2. it implies other music isn't art. it is.

we do have terms you can learn to differentiate specific contemporary directions, but they still get included in "classical".

In my opinion it does. It contradicts because it throws away the old definitions and makes them invalid if we consider contemporary classical music to be put in the larger class of classical music. It says that a completely different type of music is also classical music and that this type has not the original meaning. But at the same time it does not contradict classical music itself because it is an evolution of it. So it contradicts the "definition" but not the "object" itself.

I view contemporary classical music as a stand-alone genre, so it can't contradict the definition of classical music - it's something completely different.

To reword: In my opinion, contemporary classical has it's own definition which includes such things as exotic instruments, micro-tonality, atypical forms, techniques, notations etc. and the definition of original classical music should be irrelevant.

I'm of the opinion that much of the music after about 1960 challenges what is classical music but in a more dull sense. Take for example Einaudi's piano music, or Steve Reich's pop and world music influenced sound. An even better example is much of Kapustin's jazzy classical music; it is sometimes difficult to determine whether the music is jazz or classical (he circumvents the isue by calling himself a jazz-classical composer). A case can be argued in both instances that they are not really classical. Likewise, Wikipedia's definition is flawed in that Asian classical music composers are beginning to become known even in the west. Ultimately, as John Cage's 4.33" partly wanted to suggest, music is ultimately what you perceive it. If the composer intended the music to be defined as classical, then the piece is better considered classical. Likewise, seeing as genre is often a social, not musical construct, if an audience considers a piece classical (which often lies in how it was marketed and, again, the composer's intentions) then it generally is a classical piece.

It is generally accepted that the period of about 1600-1900, when classical music was most 'classical', is called 'Common Practice Period'. This avoids issues of whether other music is classical, thus 20th century classical music is still classical, but is not common practice.