Genre story · Experimental
Neoclassical
An old name for music reconsidering older classical methods, and a newer name sometimes used for quiet contemporary composition.
Neoclassicism has more than one musical meaning. In twentieth-century classical composition it refers to musicians revisiting earlier forms and techniques in a modern language. Igor Stravinsky's work is a central historical reference, but the term cannot be limited to one composer. In modern independent and electronic listening cultures, neoclassical is also used loosely for piano, strings and minimalist arrangements that may have little to do with the original movement. Metal musicians sometimes use it again to describe virtuoso guitar techniques influenced by classical composition.
Three uses, one tag
A tightly composed chamber piece, a slow piano album and a guitar solo based on classical gestures might all be called neoclassical in different contexts. Their instrumentation, history and audiences are not interchangeable. The word tells the listener less about what the music will sound like than a more specific label would.
On IDIOTEQ
In this archive the label follows the newer meaning. Requiem & Simon McCorry's 2021 album Critical; Mass was presented as a fusion of cinematic, Ambient and neo-classical music, and a later release from the same collaboration as a neoclassical ambient offering. A 2015 interview with Luke Kelly used the idea differently: his album was introduced as hardcore punk gone orchestral.
Listening examples from distinct meanings
- 1920Igor StravinskyPulcinella1920 composition, recordings vary. Twentieth-century neoclassical composition.
- 2004Max RichterThe Blue NotebooksA later contemporary-classical/minimalist approach.
- 2007Ólafur ArnaldsEulogy for EvolutionA modern piano-and-strings recording.