art music
Noun
Meaning
art music (uncountable)
Music composed with advanced structural and theoretical considerations, as opposed to folk music and pop music.
Synonyms
Examples
The art music of the West has developed through out its history by means of individual geniuses, and out of the soil supporting them; non-Western musicians were born, and grew like the grasses of the field.
Although New Musicology emerged from within historical musicology, the emphasis on cultural study within the Western art music tradition places New Musicology at the junction between historical, ethnological and sociological research in music.
An example is Scarlatti's use of the Phrygian mode and other tonal inflections more or less alien to European art music.
Aoidh notes however that while different types of art music were commonly played among the upper classes of Scottish society in the 18th century, the Donegal tradition drew exclusively from the popular types of Scottish music.
Bartók's style in his art music compositions was a synthesis of folk music, classicism, and modernism.
However, in the 20th and early 21st century, as "common practice" Western art music performance became institutionalized in symphony orchestras, opera houses and ballets, improvisation has played a smaller role.