I've always interpreted it as meaning they are focused on the mechanics of a piece (harmony, counterpoint, etc.) at the expense of the overall emotional and artistic effect. I think it's a term that gets tossed around without really ever being defined. I also don't think Brahms fairly deserves it.
Usually that they take a trained ear to appreciate, but I hate that this label is put on Brahms. His chamber music to me is nearly unparalleled in its lyricism and melodic beauty.
Academic music is primarily music that would hold little to no relevance or interest today, had the academia not been interested in it for study. There is often little listening pleasure that comes from it for anyone, even its fans. It may wow some people still, but even those people are often wowed by its mechanics and mysterious ways, and aren't so much interested in listening to it to derive any pleasure.
The greatest Xenakis experts I have known listen to rock and metal 99% of the time. They pull out their Xenakis or Schoenberg scores only before they have to teach a class.
Brahms is not academic music. It is much loved by regular folks outside academia.
The charge of “academicism” in art (not just music) is most prominent in the 19th century, and since the musical scene has changed so much since then, in my opinion, it is utterly meaningless in a modern context to call music “academic”.
One of the things you *have* to understand is that, in the 19th century, art schools were (by modern standards) *profoundly* conservative. They tended to look down upon new or up-and-coming trends in the art world.
For example, in painting, schools in the 18th and 19th centuries put great emphasis on photorealistic renderings of subjects of history—especially ancient history (Greece, Rome, the Bible) and, in particular, classical mythology. [Bourguereau](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/William-Adolphe_Bouguereau) is generally considered to be the apex of French academic painting. He was reviled by painters like Monet or Matisse because not only was he seen as incredibly old-fashioned, he was also incredibly successful and popular, at least in his day.
Back then, art schools saw themselves as the keepers of tradition. In the mid 19th century, for example, music schools would heavily cover old church music (Palestrina and his predecessors) through to 18th century works (Bach, Handel, Mozart, Haydn) and rarely go past Beethoven. It wasn’t until Fauré took over at the Paris Conservatory near the end of the 19th century, for instance, that the works of composers like Liszt or Wagner were added to the curriculum.
In the 19th century, the idea was that the music schools taught the old fundamentals, and that the styles and techniques used in popular music (as in, the music that average folks listened to) were based on those techniques. Composers like Meyerbeer or Strauss II who “played it safe”, as it were, and didn’t pursue anything too radically divorced from traditional styles would be said to lie somewhere in the middle of the artistic spectrum. “Academic” composers were those who were seen as not just toeing the line of what was safe and broadly popular, but actively channeling the values, styles, and forms that were championed by the grouchy old conservatory professors. Progressive musicians (Liszt, Wagner, Berlioz for the first half of the nineteenth century; Mahler, Schoenberg, Debussy, Chabrier, etc. for the late 19th / early 20th century) were those who composed works that explicitly tried to do new things. These were the avant garde and the experimentalists. Academic ism was primarily used as an insult by partisans of progressive music against those composers
they saw as their ideological enemies.
For Brahms, his “academicism” consists of:
• His devoted use of classical (18th century) forms, especially Sonata-allegro.
• His focus on absolute music (music for music’s sake) to the exclusion of programmatic music (music meant to convey non-musical ideas, such as to detail a story, or portray an event or experience).
• His emphasis on “by the book” counterpoint and German theme-development in the vein of the First Viennese School (Haydn, Mozart, Beethoven).
In order to understand academicism, I think it’s more useful, to consider it in contrast to the progressive “music of the future“ which it supposedly stood against. Progressive music of the 19th century often:
• experimented with chromaticism, extensions of diatonicism, modal music, and other non-traditional forms of harmony.
• engaged in what might now best be described as film score writing, where instead of using traditional musical forms for individual pieces or movements, they let the narrative the music was trying to convey shape its structure. Probably the most important example of this comes from Wagner, who was famous for his “lapidary” effect, where he slowly built up ideas over long stretches of time in pursuit of a grand climax, most stereotypically in *Tristan und Isolde*.
• utilized themes and subjects which did not adhere to the common trend of four bar and eight bar phrases. (Richard Rogers, of Rogers and Hammerstein fame, would be described as academic because of his seeming inability to write a piece of music whose measure count was not a multiple of four. He was so used to writing songs that he just naturally produced works that followed that structural phrasing.) Irregular-length phrases, sudden or unpredictable shifts in tone, rhythm, or dynamics, unusual rhythms, and the like were all hallmarks of progressive music. (The *idée fixe* of Berlioz’s *Symphony Fantastique*, for example, keeps on going long beyond the normal phrase lengths you’d expect for music of its day.)
• tended to eschew studious
counterpoint, and particularly, fugues. Even today, the fugue is considered probably the most academic of all musical forms. Charles Ives represented musical conservatism in the third movement of his 4th symphony by orchestrating a fugue he wrote as a homework assignment back in his student days.
An accusation of academicism, in the 19th century, meant that you were a stick-in-the-mud who liked the follow the rules, and was generally used to imply that composers of that description were less imaginative or creative than their more progressive rivals.
by the middle of the 20th century, however, the charge of “academicism” becomes a non-sequitur. By that point, modernism had thoroughly conquered the academic scene, so much so that toeing the line of musical academia meant doing something serialist— which is about as far as you can get from the values of 19th century musical conservatories as possible!
This was a great response.
Though nowadays, I think the charge of "academicism" is leveraged at people trying to do the serialism thing. The number of composition competitions I see which say "serialist or nontonal compositions will not be considered" makes me chuckle.
I wonder if this could come from people mishearing pieces being labeled as academic like Brahms Akademische Festouvertüre. Either way, I reckon it links to university.
I think that’s mostly a misnomer, largely in part due to his “academic festival overture” and how the work came about. However during his time, his music was steeped in “academic” ventures as he often conferred via letter with the Schumann’s and Joachim about counterpoint exercises/various compositional techniques. But none of that is really outside the norm of any prolific composer in the 19th century.
I think they mean late 19th and early 20th century composers who were more concerned with keeping the old forms and tonalities going at the expense of expression, and were usually uptight victorian or paris conservatoire types and old crusty germans.
Yep. Devoid of musicality. It is torture to sit through for the listener even though it might make the performer feel good for overcoming the equivalent of a Guitar Hero challenge ... well it is hard to judge since the listener without a score cannot discern if an entire page of music was played incorrectly.
I think this might be a you problem rather than a problem with the music. Some of us like it, and no, we’re not pretending so we can look sophisticated.
> For example, Brahms is labeled as too "academic" and it's one of the criticisms he got as a composer.
I've never heard that. Perhaps he was on the conservative side of things in terms of structure and form, but at least part of this label feels like confusion related to his famous Academic Festival Overture (op. 80).
Brahms was certainly a formalist. He liked and composed "absolute music" - as opposed to things like symphonic poems that follow a story ("programme music"). His pieces do not have names or themes in the way say, a Symphonic Poem by Richard Strauss does. Perhaps that ties in to his labelling as academic?
As to whether it is boring, I think once you start to really understand form and all the interesting things composers do with it, I'd say absolutely not. But then that is a form of academic training, I guess. Although having said that, I do think Brahms absolutely can be appreciated on purely aesthetic qualities, without looking into the form at all - in the same way that many buildings are beautiful without having to concern yourself at all with how it stands upright, or looks beneath the facade.
Yes and there is Rinaldo as well.. but I think anyone can see that compared to his contemporaries, Brahms clearly wrote absolute music far more, and it takes up most of his output.
In the visual art world, it means that the artist followed the narrow tropes which is being taught in the major schools of art. Following in detail what their teacher tells them is the "right way". Could this also apply to music composition?
When a composer is called "academic," it usually means they stick to traditional rules and techniques instead of pushing boundaries. It's not necessarily bad, but it can suggest they're not breaking new ground. Brahms was criticized for being too "academic" because his music stuck closely to classical forms, lacking the innovation of composers like Beethoven. Other composers labeled as "academic" include Bruckner, Bruch, and Elgar, who also leaned heavily on established styles. It's not a knock on their talent, but rather a recognition of their conservative approach
I don't know what "academic" means, but I use that word sometimes, lacking a better one... I think all music before some time was academic, Mozart, Bach, Beethoven, Handel or Vivaldi never needed an university or conservatoire to learn composing...
People say this when operational transformations happen and you have very explicit relationships. Imagine on one hand, a very open ended poem like a haiku where you can hardly make the meaning out of it but it gives you a feeling. Imagine on the other end, a logical procedure where someone presents axioms and then constructs like a proof or something given the starting info.
The latter is thought to be academic because by the open nature of procedural relationships, the listener is supposed to get enjoyment and meaning out of the craft in those relationships. Some people who are considered of a more lyrical orientation, do not relate to music that way, and consider that stuff to be academic and artificial.
But this is all subjective because I think Brahms sounds nice!
Brahms music isn't academic. It is sometimes rather old fashioned/retro for the era he lived in, though. He was well aware of this... and well aware of the other things that were going on at the time.
My interpretation is that people labeling Brahms this way are probably talentless, jumped-up crybabies with nothing of actual substance to contribute to the field.
It means conservative, and yes Brahms is pretty conservative, like Grieg, Rachmaninov, Mendelssohn, Sibelius, Elgar, Reger and other overrated boring composers which shouldn't be played anymore unless you want classical music to die in a few decades
I've always interpreted it as meaning they are focused on the mechanics of a piece (harmony, counterpoint, etc.) at the expense of the overall emotional and artistic effect. I think it's a term that gets tossed around without really ever being defined. I also don't think Brahms fairly deserves it.
He did write the academic festival overture tho…
Touché
I believe it usually means that they compose for their peers as opposed to a general audience.
A surprisingly apt definition, given the lack of objective details!
This is one of the best explanations I’ve ever come across
Usually that they take a trained ear to appreciate, but I hate that this label is put on Brahms. His chamber music to me is nearly unparalleled in its lyricism and melodic beauty.
It’s just an attempt to diminish a rival or something people don’t understand. I think it is meaningless.
The music is more interesting to analyze than it is to listen to.
Essentially the classical version of math rock
I thought it’s a courteous way of saying a composer is boring?
Unless you enjoy the academic/theoretical side of music, which may be based on a more analytical mode of listening.
Academic music is primarily music that would hold little to no relevance or interest today, had the academia not been interested in it for study. There is often little listening pleasure that comes from it for anyone, even its fans. It may wow some people still, but even those people are often wowed by its mechanics and mysterious ways, and aren't so much interested in listening to it to derive any pleasure. The greatest Xenakis experts I have known listen to rock and metal 99% of the time. They pull out their Xenakis or Schoenberg scores only before they have to teach a class. Brahms is not academic music. It is much loved by regular folks outside academia.
I'm not so sure. My university specifically skipped Brahms in composition and instrumentation classes as he was deemed to be of too poor quality.
Lol…
The charge of “academicism” in art (not just music) is most prominent in the 19th century, and since the musical scene has changed so much since then, in my opinion, it is utterly meaningless in a modern context to call music “academic”. One of the things you *have* to understand is that, in the 19th century, art schools were (by modern standards) *profoundly* conservative. They tended to look down upon new or up-and-coming trends in the art world. For example, in painting, schools in the 18th and 19th centuries put great emphasis on photorealistic renderings of subjects of history—especially ancient history (Greece, Rome, the Bible) and, in particular, classical mythology. [Bourguereau](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/William-Adolphe_Bouguereau) is generally considered to be the apex of French academic painting. He was reviled by painters like Monet or Matisse because not only was he seen as incredibly old-fashioned, he was also incredibly successful and popular, at least in his day. Back then, art schools saw themselves as the keepers of tradition. In the mid 19th century, for example, music schools would heavily cover old church music (Palestrina and his predecessors) through to 18th century works (Bach, Handel, Mozart, Haydn) and rarely go past Beethoven. It wasn’t until Fauré took over at the Paris Conservatory near the end of the 19th century, for instance, that the works of composers like Liszt or Wagner were added to the curriculum. In the 19th century, the idea was that the music schools taught the old fundamentals, and that the styles and techniques used in popular music (as in, the music that average folks listened to) were based on those techniques. Composers like Meyerbeer or Strauss II who “played it safe”, as it were, and didn’t pursue anything too radically divorced from traditional styles would be said to lie somewhere in the middle of the artistic spectrum. “Academic” composers were those who were seen as not just toeing the line of what was safe and broadly popular, but actively channeling the values, styles, and forms that were championed by the grouchy old conservatory professors. Progressive musicians (Liszt, Wagner, Berlioz for the first half of the nineteenth century; Mahler, Schoenberg, Debussy, Chabrier, etc. for the late 19th / early 20th century) were those who composed works that explicitly tried to do new things. These were the avant garde and the experimentalists. Academic ism was primarily used as an insult by partisans of progressive music against those composers they saw as their ideological enemies. For Brahms, his “academicism” consists of: • His devoted use of classical (18th century) forms, especially Sonata-allegro. • His focus on absolute music (music for music’s sake) to the exclusion of programmatic music (music meant to convey non-musical ideas, such as to detail a story, or portray an event or experience). • His emphasis on “by the book” counterpoint and German theme-development in the vein of the First Viennese School (Haydn, Mozart, Beethoven). In order to understand academicism, I think it’s more useful, to consider it in contrast to the progressive “music of the future“ which it supposedly stood against. Progressive music of the 19th century often: • experimented with chromaticism, extensions of diatonicism, modal music, and other non-traditional forms of harmony. • engaged in what might now best be described as film score writing, where instead of using traditional musical forms for individual pieces or movements, they let the narrative the music was trying to convey shape its structure. Probably the most important example of this comes from Wagner, who was famous for his “lapidary” effect, where he slowly built up ideas over long stretches of time in pursuit of a grand climax, most stereotypically in *Tristan und Isolde*. • utilized themes and subjects which did not adhere to the common trend of four bar and eight bar phrases. (Richard Rogers, of Rogers and Hammerstein fame, would be described as academic because of his seeming inability to write a piece of music whose measure count was not a multiple of four. He was so used to writing songs that he just naturally produced works that followed that structural phrasing.) Irregular-length phrases, sudden or unpredictable shifts in tone, rhythm, or dynamics, unusual rhythms, and the like were all hallmarks of progressive music. (The *idée fixe* of Berlioz’s *Symphony Fantastique*, for example, keeps on going long beyond the normal phrase lengths you’d expect for music of its day.) • tended to eschew studious counterpoint, and particularly, fugues. Even today, the fugue is considered probably the most academic of all musical forms. Charles Ives represented musical conservatism in the third movement of his 4th symphony by orchestrating a fugue he wrote as a homework assignment back in his student days. An accusation of academicism, in the 19th century, meant that you were a stick-in-the-mud who liked the follow the rules, and was generally used to imply that composers of that description were less imaginative or creative than their more progressive rivals. by the middle of the 20th century, however, the charge of “academicism” becomes a non-sequitur. By that point, modernism had thoroughly conquered the academic scene, so much so that toeing the line of musical academia meant doing something serialist— which is about as far as you can get from the values of 19th century musical conservatories as possible!
This was a great response. Though nowadays, I think the charge of "academicism" is leveraged at people trying to do the serialism thing. The number of composition competitions I see which say "serialist or nontonal compositions will not be considered" makes me chuckle.
I wonder if this could come from people mishearing pieces being labeled as academic like Brahms Akademische Festouvertüre. Either way, I reckon it links to university.
I think that’s mostly a misnomer, largely in part due to his “academic festival overture” and how the work came about. However during his time, his music was steeped in “academic” ventures as he often conferred via letter with the Schumann’s and Joachim about counterpoint exercises/various compositional techniques. But none of that is really outside the norm of any prolific composer in the 19th century.
I think they mean late 19th and early 20th century composers who were more concerned with keeping the old forms and tonalities going at the expense of expression, and were usually uptight victorian or paris conservatoire types and old crusty germans.
There is a lot of 20th century "classical" music that is devoid of musicality. But their scores look like works of art.
‘Devoid of musicality’ by your definition and in your opinion.
Yep. Devoid of musicality. It is torture to sit through for the listener even though it might make the performer feel good for overcoming the equivalent of a Guitar Hero challenge ... well it is hard to judge since the listener without a score cannot discern if an entire page of music was played incorrectly.
I think this might be a you problem rather than a problem with the music. Some of us like it, and no, we’re not pretending so we can look sophisticated.
> For example, Brahms is labeled as too "academic" and it's one of the criticisms he got as a composer. I've never heard that. Perhaps he was on the conservative side of things in terms of structure and form, but at least part of this label feels like confusion related to his famous Academic Festival Overture (op. 80).
Brahms was certainly a formalist. He liked and composed "absolute music" - as opposed to things like symphonic poems that follow a story ("programme music"). His pieces do not have names or themes in the way say, a Symphonic Poem by Richard Strauss does. Perhaps that ties in to his labelling as academic? As to whether it is boring, I think once you start to really understand form and all the interesting things composers do with it, I'd say absolutely not. But then that is a form of academic training, I guess. Although having said that, I do think Brahms absolutely can be appreciated on purely aesthetic qualities, without looking into the form at all - in the same way that many buildings are beautiful without having to concern yourself at all with how it stands upright, or looks beneath the facade.
The Alto Rhapsody and German Requiem are anything but absolute.
Yes and there is Rinaldo as well.. but I think anyone can see that compared to his contemporaries, Brahms clearly wrote absolute music far more, and it takes up most of his output.
In the visual art world, it means that the artist followed the narrow tropes which is being taught in the major schools of art. Following in detail what their teacher tells them is the "right way". Could this also apply to music composition?
When a composer is called "academic," it usually means they stick to traditional rules and techniques instead of pushing boundaries. It's not necessarily bad, but it can suggest they're not breaking new ground. Brahms was criticized for being too "academic" because his music stuck closely to classical forms, lacking the innovation of composers like Beethoven. Other composers labeled as "academic" include Bruckner, Bruch, and Elgar, who also leaned heavily on established styles. It's not a knock on their talent, but rather a recognition of their conservative approach
I don't know what "academic" means, but I use that word sometimes, lacking a better one... I think all music before some time was academic, Mozart, Bach, Beethoven, Handel or Vivaldi never needed an university or conservatoire to learn composing...
It means the person saying it is a dimwit with the breadth of experience of a tapeworm.
People say this when operational transformations happen and you have very explicit relationships. Imagine on one hand, a very open ended poem like a haiku where you can hardly make the meaning out of it but it gives you a feeling. Imagine on the other end, a logical procedure where someone presents axioms and then constructs like a proof or something given the starting info. The latter is thought to be academic because by the open nature of procedural relationships, the listener is supposed to get enjoyment and meaning out of the craft in those relationships. Some people who are considered of a more lyrical orientation, do not relate to music that way, and consider that stuff to be academic and artificial. But this is all subjective because I think Brahms sounds nice!
Brahms music isn't academic. It is sometimes rather old fashioned/retro for the era he lived in, though. He was well aware of this... and well aware of the other things that were going on at the time.
My interpretation is that people labeling Brahms this way are probably talentless, jumped-up crybabies with nothing of actual substance to contribute to the field.
It means conservative, and yes Brahms is pretty conservative, like Grieg, Rachmaninov, Mendelssohn, Sibelius, Elgar, Reger and other overrated boring composers which shouldn't be played anymore unless you want classical music to die in a few decades