Symphonies & New Age Classical Music

Today is the Finnish Independence day.


To commemorate the fallen soldiers that secured the independence of the small nation, I will be writing about symphonic music. 
Some of the things may be quite difficult to understand for the non-savvy musicians, so I'll try to make it as simple as possible.


What is Symphonic Music?


Wikipedia Explanation:
A symphony is an extended musical composition in Western classical music, scored, almost always for orchestra. A symphony usually contains at least one movement or episode composed according to the sonata principle. Many symphonies are tonal works in four movements with the first in sonata form, which is often described by music theorists as the structure of a "classical" symphony, although many symphonies by the acknowledged classical masters of the form, Joseph Haydn, Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, and Ludwig van Beethoven do not  conform to this model.

My Explanation:
A symphony is an extended musical composition in Western classical music, scored almost always for orchestra. For those that do not know, symphonic music is what you hear by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, Ludvig Van Beethoven, and Joseph Haydn.


This is the grand, heavenly, powerful music that has the potential to shatter your eardrums. This type of music is often played by a big orchestra, in which several people will play the same instrument. For example, I've heard a philharmonic orchestra of near 100 people! Well, it's the standard, but it's still a lot of musicians.


Symphonies follow a given structure of composure. This is what the Wikipedia Explanation means by "...usually contains at least one movement or episode composed according to the sonata principle. Many symphonies are tonal works in four movements with the first in sonata form, which is often described by music theorists as the structure of a "Classical" symphony..."  


Even though I won't be able to explain the sonata-concept in this post, I might do so in the future.


What has come to happen in the last 20 years, is that this genre of music has gotten a "successor". These two styles co-exist in perfect harmony, however many do not know what the difference is. These two are Classical music and New Age Classical. 


What is New Age Classical Music?


To be quite frank with you, this type of music cannot really be described in words. There are different types of this music, too. All the relaxation music and yoga stuff is called New Age music. This is something that really annoys artists like Bradley Joseph and Yanni (I talk about him all the time, don't I?). Despite their general attempts to make people understand that they call their music Contemporary Instrumental, music stores categorize them as New Age artists.
The thing is this; what Jon Schmidt plays with Steven 'Sharp' Nelson is New Age classical. Yanni is also a New Age Classical artist.


Some of the categories and representing artists are:

Electronic New Age: Australis (composer, producer)
Ambient New Age: Paul Avgerinos (composer, producer), Daryl Aberhart,
New Age Classical: Yanni (Piano, composer), Jon Schmidt (Piano), Steven 'Sharp' Nelson (Cello)

- The genious returns the favour in music. -