Talk:Salon music

Is this term derogatory?

Chopin's music is "too good" to be salon music? Is this phrase mainly used for second-rate or derivative pieces? DavidRF (talk) 19:26, 27 January 2008 (UTC)

Yes, "salon music" is rather a pejorative term. It generally describes a type of music of a more superficial, lighter character, less serious in both construction and rhetoric, that aims to please a more popular taste and often could be easily sold on the retail market, rather than fulfill purely artistic aims or designs. For example, nobody would ever characterize the Beethoven string quartets as "salon music", yet they could be performed at a salon gathering and often are. The divertimenti of Mozart, in contrast, could easily be characterized this way even though they are compositions of real artistic merit; more to the point, he wrote them as background music for his patron's parties. Only the very best composers can write in this genre and still produce works of real and lasting artistic value, hence the description of Chopin's music being "too good" to describe it that way. Mantovani, Lawrence Welk, and Liberace are not. Laguna greg (talk) 16:42, 26 March 2012 (UTC)

Salon Perfomers?

I think this is rather a false distinction, and a misleading one ultimately. Many of the artists listed in this section had major, influential careers in the 20th century e.g. Kreissler, Heifetz, Casals et cet. that cannot be compared with someone like Thalberg in the 19th, who was something of a circus act by all accounts and whose compositions are long gone from the rep because they're so cheap. Even the transcriptions of the little pieces Casals and Kreissler made are too serious or well done to be classed in this genre, the bulk of them anyway. And everybody still plays them. Why are these people listed here? Laguna greg (talk) 17:15, 26 March 2012 (UTC)

Agreed. Paul Hindemith a salon performer? At the start of his career he may have taken gigs to pay the rent, but he certainly isn't known as a performer for social gatherings.

MarkinBoston (talk) 22:52, 26 January 2022 (UTC)