Is symphonic music kind of like Phil Spector got hold of chamber music?

No

😀An enjoyably ridiculous conversation starter to say the least. Gimme some time and maybe I'll come up with a suitably arcane, ridiculous come-backer.

Um no.

Ed: Thanks. I do my best.

That gave me a subtle laugh. 😏 

But it does raise the question are Fennel's Marches kind of like Phil Spector got a hold of that guy on the street corner drumming on a plastic bucket?

The Classical forefathers are turning in their graves.

Expand your musical horizon.

I think that's an amusing concept! 😄

I’ll abstain from personal judgment, but I think that another way of saying what I think you are trying to say is “orchestral music is to chamber music what Phil Spector (and his *wall of sound*) is to (most) Rock & Roll”.  There is some truth to that, but so what? 

Symphonic music has a wider tonal pallette than chamber music. Plus greater spatial effects.

Kinda like that but symphonic music came along way before Phil Spector. So it’s more like Phil Spector is like symphonic music got hold of Robert Johnson or Louis Armstrong or Billie Holliday or Bob Dylan. 

Mapman: I’m not so sure about that. Phill looks pretty damn old.
 

I think some miss the point. Phil Spector took the genre R&R and (in his own words) “augmented” the more traditional size of ensemble used in R&R and through the use of larger ensembles and the exploitation of studio techniques created a sound often referred to as a “wall of sound”; same style of music, much larger presentation.  Chamber music is typically Classical music for a small ensemble while, by comparison, Orchestral music is the same genre composed or orchestrated for much larger ensembles.  Clearly an oversimplification and no qualitative judgment suggested, but same idea as Spector’s approach.

In the 1960's Spector was referred to as the Wagner of Pop music. He was great with Girl Groups and other singers/performers, but when he tried to regain relevance in the 70's and beyond, it became anachronistic. The Ramones produced by Phil Spector?!

I enjoyed the heck out of the Phil Spector produced "End  of the Century."  Maybe Phil and the Ramones weren't quite a match made in heaven, but there was a lot of fun and energy in those grooves.  I'll bet the Ramones were devoted Phil Spector fans and were thrilled to have the old man on board. Even though Spector probably needed the job more than he wanted it, he brought a good deal of affection to the undertaking.  I played that record for a good long time.

@edcyn: Did you ever hear The Ramones talk about their time recording with Spector? Hilarious! He pulled a gun on them in the studio, took them to his castle, locked them in, and wouldn’t let them out for quite a while (more than a few days). Oh that Phil.

The Ramones were a "play it once" kind of Punk band, Spector a "if it takes a hundred takes to get what I want, so be it" kind of producer. Oil and vinegar.

When I saw them live at The Santa Monica Civic Auditorium, the sounded kinda like a Spector production. They were EXTREMELY loud (the loudest band I ever heard, far louder than The Who and AC/DC), and as you may know the SMCA a very "live" room, basically a huge cement bunker. It was hard to make out what was being played and sung. 

Haydn's Esterházy orchestra was 13-24 players in size, what we might often consider a chamber orchestra today.  The bloat--if that's what it was (Wagner and Mahler would disagree)--happened later.  AFAIK, Haydn wrote more symphonies than anyone else, so if he's not symphonic, who is?

Sad day when Spector has to be invoked in talking about chamber music and symphonies.

In response to the above post by @twoleftears, let me say that Spector didn’t have a deep enough education in music theory and composition to have alone created his 1960’s recordings, with their relatively-sophisticated horn and string arrangements. It was Jack Nitzsche who wrote and arranged all those parts for Phil.

Jack Nitzsche later did the same for Buffalo Springfield, Neil Young (he’s the pianist on Neil’s Harvest album), The Stones, Randy Newman, The Tubes, Tim Buckley, and produced albums for Crazy Horse (their fantastic debut album), Mink DeVille, and Graham Parker. He also did some fine film soundtracks (One Flew Over The Cuckoo’s Nest, Performance, The Exorcist), and in 1972 did a very interesting album entitled St. Giles Cripplegate, a modern Classical composition that was performed by The London Symphony Orchestra conducted by David Measham. The album was issued on LP by The Initial Recording Company (catalog no. IRC 006) in England, and by Reprise Records in the U.S.A. (MS 2092).

+1. @sbank 

I always enjoyed Jack Nitzsche's contributions to pop music. The contributions are a key component to the sounds of the era.

Hey, OP, how about some follow up?  Always appropriate.  Personally, it always feels manipulative when someone posts something of at least some controversy or possible misunderstanding and then disappears,  

Btw, re  **** I’m not so sure about that. Phill looks pretty damn old. ****

He should, he’s dead.

OP here. I was very curious to see what sort of replies I would get.  The original  notion just popped into my head as a silly little thing, but I thought it would be a provocative starting point for discussing chamber versus orchestral music. On the one hand, some folks seem upset by my post, while others can appreciate the humor in it. It’s been interesting that our  attention  has turned to Phil, who I don’t know too much about, and was interested to learn more about. I guess I hear some orchestral pieces as lush and overblown, And I know I like the sound of clearly heard instruments better than I like the combined sound of a bunch of instruments. That’s just me, and of course it’s no legitimate commentary on the merits of any particular type of music.

I have refrained from reacting to individual posts, since I did not want to appear judgemental or directive about what the threads were supposed to be about.
 

In response to the OP, no.

Not sure why a mid 20th century pop producer has to be invoked in order to differentiate between orchestral and chamber music? The differences have been around for much longer than mid century pop.

From my view, as a fan of mid to late 20th century and contemporary classical music, the differences between chamber and orchestral music have seemed to blur a bit.

Chamber ensembles of larger size, and chamber orchestras are pretty popular among mid to late 20th century, and contemporary composes, and often with a combination of instruments unusual by 19th century standards. This can tend to give them more harmonic substance than more standard chamber ensembles (string quartets, piano trios)

And orchestral music, maybe due to increased complexity of late 20th century music (the various sections being more independent from each other), do not sound as ’lush and overblown’ as in the past, so they can tend to have some of the attributes of chamber ensembles.

Coincidently, I was listening to Elliott Carter’s, "Piano Concerto (1964)" last night, and thinking to myself, "this comes off more like a chamber piece, than orchestral". Maybe the independence of each section of the orchestra gives them more of the sort of role each individual instrument would have a chamber piece?

And, on the other hand, Charles Wuorinen’s "Concerto for flute and 10 players (1964)" seems to me, to have more ’weight’ than the number of musicians would have one believe for so few (by orchestral standards) musicians.

...and here I'm pondering, when I read mention of the 'wall of sound', I thought 'Grateful Dead'....

It was fun to get lost in a Spector spectacular, actually.  The combination of the physical and the sound field involved would have a venue full of acid heads have a very Different sort of day...:)

Now I'm going to have to dig out my treasured first pressing of Rheingold-a-go-go: The Ronettes Rock Wagner.

Sure, if you completely ignore the metastructure.