Over the last two decades, something has happened to classical music.
It has become deeply popular with a brand new audience.
Classical music — with roots in the 16th and 17th centuries, and a repertoire spanning centuries — never went anywhere, of course.
But today a younger and wider audience is connecting with classical music through very contemporary means: movies, TV, video games and social media.
That’s brought with it profound implications.
From string quartets being asked to bring a touch of Bridgerton to a wedding ceremony, an orchestra putting on a concert of video game music, Studio Ghibli inspiring a love of composer Joe Hisaishi, or discoveries of Saint-Saëns’ Organ Symphony via TikTok, new and passionate audiences for classical music have emerged in the most unlikely of places.
A changing audience
Classical music’s modern renaissance shines through the results for the ABC Classic 100, the nation’s annual poll of Australia’s favourite classical music, which kicks off for 2024 this weekend.
Over 23 years, the Classic 100 has slowly but surely captured not just a change in taste and audience, but also the bolt of energy and popularity that the screen has brought to classical music.
While the first generation of Hollywood blockbusters like Star Wars and Jaws made powerful use of orchestral music in the 1970s, pieces of music from soundtracks were still completely absent from the Classic 100 for its first ten years of voting.
Going off results of the early Classic 100’s, the ABC Classic audience saw the worlds of the concert hall and the cinema as firmly separate.
Back in 2001, when the audience could still submit votes via post and Mozart’s Clarinet Concerto topped the Classic 100, there was not a soundtrack to be heard among the final list.
That continued to be the case right up until 2011, when there was a stark moment of change.
Ennio Morricone’s music from The Mission broke through the Classic 100, voted in at #36.
Morricone opened the floodgates.
The Classic 100 has a specific annual theme to take advantage of the centuries-deep field. In a sign of the times, in 2013 the Classic 100 was exclusively film music themed, with The Mission taking out the number one spot, cementing its status as a trailblazer.
The soundtrack takes hold
From 2013 on, soundtracks started making serious inroads into the Classic 100.
In 2015 the Classic 100, themed “Swoon” , asked listeners to vote for music that “makes their world stand still”.
Australians responded by choosing John Williams’ Theme From Schindler’s List (#51), Morricone’s Cinema Paradiso (#70) and local composer Nigel Westlake’s music from the documentary Antarctica (#36).
Voting also reflected changes in the concert hall, as Australia’s symphony orchestras began programming concerts full of film composers like Williams and Westlake.
In 2017’s Classic 100, themed “Love”, John Barry’s music from Out of Africa, came close to placing in the top ten (#13), with support from the likes of Maurice Jarre’s Doctor Zhivago (#32) and Michael Nyman’s The Piano (#99).
Television also made its first appearance that year, with Geoffrey Burgon’s theme from Brideshead Revisited making it all the way to #43.
By the time it came to vote in the Classic 100 for Australia’s favourite composer in 2019, a full 21 out of the 100 final composers had written music for film, including John Williams who reached #15, beating greats like Sibelius, Wagner and Gershwin.
The classical soundtrack
Traditionalists may have grumbled at someone like Williams placing above those who had influenced him, but Australian audiences have a genuine love for music for the screen.
Over just ten years, what began as a single Classic 100 soundtrack entry in 2011 became commonplace.
The soundtrack and the screen have given new listeners the means to connect with an art form that still possesses the capacity to move us deeply.
The 2022 Classic 100 took the change even further and included not just film but television and video games for the first time in the count, too.
Game of Thrones (#10), The Legend of Zelda (#23), and Halo (#29) all did well, with a dominating performance from John Williams’ Star Wars series (#1) finally dethroning The Mission.
Early indications from this year’s Classic 100 suggest that it will break the record for the most screen entries ever (in a non-screen themed year).
The palette has expanded once again, too, with musicals like Mary Poppins included in voters’ shortlists.
How and where audiences fall in love with classical music has changed, and will continue to change.
But its appeal remains as strong as it has ever been.
Loading