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What is classical music? Is it a certain technique of composing? Is it anything written for a symphony orchestra? Or is it married to a certain era of history?
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Exactly! Which answer we pick is crucial to any subsequent discussion. I almost want to say, "I know it when I hear it," but I guess that's a cop-out.
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If we say classical music is anything written for a symphony orchestra, then we're faced with what to say about heavy metal songs which have been adapted to a symphonic format. Example: Led Zeppelin's Kashmir.
https://youtu.be/vgvdZsxc8fM
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We also need to remember that a great wealth of classical music has been written for a single instrument, or for two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, or nine instruments.
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If we say classical is married to a certain era of history, then we're faced with what to say about young classical composers active today. Example: Alma Deutscher.
https://youtu.be/W0xMpLXQNvM
Every musical genre is married to a certain era of history, but to define classical music, I think it's better to describe how it works within a certain tradition as week as in terms of formal music composition. Classical is more complicated than popular music, which mostly uses ABA structure and just a few chord progressions. Jazz is also more complicated than pop/rock/R&B, etc. but jazz has its own idioms that classical music doesn’t generally use as well as jazz placing a strong emphasis on improvisation, which is generally anathema to classical except in the case of cadenzas. There are also certain defined classical forms such that if you compose a symphony, a concerto, a sonata, a suite, or a tone poem with traditional classical instruments of strings, brass, and percussion, the understanding is that you are creating a classical composition.
