Anyone Into Classical Music?

[Anderton]

My initial exposure was in 4th grade while I was still in school in Switzerland. The music class consisted of the teacher telling us briefly about a piece of music, and then we were required to close our eyes and listen. Some of the music I really liked (Bach), some not so much (Chopin).

 

In high school, I went to the public library and took out a few classical albums every week until I had gone through them all. Then I bought records of my favorites, and noticed a few things:

• By definition, ALL classical music is played by tribute bands.
• Some performers are so impressed with themselves they forget that the music is what's most important.
• No-name eastern European orchestras on budget labels like Nonesuch often played with much more passion than the big-name famous orchestras. They treated the music as vibrant music, not museum exhibits.
• I know there are exceptions, but it seems to me a lot of attendees at classical music concerts go to show off their refined musical tastes, of which they have none. I once attended a concert where the first violist was well-known and billed as a "must-see." She played as if her emotions had been surgically removed at birth, and phoned in her part. When she finished her solo, the audience went wild because, well, they were supposed to. The cellists and tympani player were awesome, but they didn't get any applause.
• If we had more performing musicians - rock, country, EDM, doesn't matter - attending classical music concerts, the concerts would be better because the performers would feel the energy from people who live and breathe music.

 

Anyway, I'm listening to a CD of harp music with re-issues of music recorded in 50s and 60s, and re-mastered perfectly. It just sounds so effing good. Too bad there's quite a bit of classical music played by people who just seem to go through the motions. They could use a little humility and realize they're playing in a tribute band

 

[KuruPrionz]

When I was maybe 7 or 8, Mom took us 4 kids to see Artur Rubenstein in concert. It was just him and a Steinway grand in a great sounding concert hall. 

Fantastic, this cool little Jiminy Cricket in a tux with tails sitting calmly at the piano. It looked like he was just tickling the keys but sometimes it sounded like thunder on the mountains. At home she would occasionally stop with the Brothers 4, Smothers Brothers and Roger Miller and put on some dreary Brahms that I didn't get into. 

 

A few years later my brother started bringing home a wide variety of albums. He put a pretty good stereo system together and besides NY Jazz and International Folk Musics, he started checking out some classical stuff. I loved Bach's Tocatta and Fugue in D minor played on a pipe organ somewhere in a European cathedral (my memory only stretches so far), I enjoyed Vivaldi's 4 seasons for what it was - vintage European pop music and after he'd gotten a couple of different versions of Beethoven's 9th Symphony I really got into that piece - fabulous. 

 

Then he explored Bartok, Debussey and Varese - searching for other musical worlds. Some great stuff there too. 

At some point we discovered that you could go to the dress rehearsals at the Fresno Philharmonic for free. 

Some interesting stuff including listening to the conductor explain what he was wanting when he would stop a piece and re-rehearse a section. 

One night we got to listen to Jean Pierre Rampal playing his gold flute and the orchestra was tight all the way through so it was just like hearing the actual concert except there were only about 30 people there and we could get great seats for $0.

 

I've heard a few concerts since then, the most memorable was the last one. The name escapes me but there was a Canadian violinist who played with the Whatcom Symphony Orchestra at the Mount Baker Theater (one of a chain of Fox theaters up and down the West Coast, a fantastic venue). The Canadian won an annual countrywide competition at age 7, competing against 14 year old kids. At some point along the way, an Italian collector of violins gave him a Stradivarius violin.

I never found out if he brought that with him (or if it was a "real" one!!! 😇) but after he'd done the concert (mostly some fairly dreary Brahms etc.), he did 3 encores as a solo violinist and brought down the house 3 times. Stellar, just crazy good. He was executing sliding triple stops at a madman's pace on the last one, just blazing!

 

So yeah, there is a place in my world for classical music. I have a deep love for many other types of music as well, I'm pretty open to listen to just about everything. 

[RABid]

I like playing classical more than listening to it. My exposure began with Saturday morning cartoons and carried on when I bought the soundtrack to Fantasia. For playing my favorites are Beethoven and List. Piano only while playing. No desire to play classical on percussion, horn or guitar. For listening, I don't know if anything beats March of the Valkyries. 

[Dave Bryce]

I quite like classical music, especially when it’s piano oriented.  I could listen to Martha Argerich (my fave!) play for hours.

 

This one is gorgeous, and not very long:  

 

 

 

Or, if you wanna go more intense:

 

 

One with an orchestra?  Sure…
 

 

dB

[ElmerJFudd]

On my mom's side of the family they were european, German.  They revered the classics, Bach, Mozart, Beethoven, Brahms - especially the sacred works.  This was balanced with my dad's love for big bands of the swing era and later, rockabilly, rocknroll, bluegrass and country music.  I heard a lot of these sounds growing up in addition to the FM radio in the 70s which was heavy in classic rock, southern rock.  Then the pop rock of the 80s.  Since I wound up studying music, piano music mainly, when accompanying, conducting, and studying theory I got exposed to a lot of choral music, opera,  concert band and orchestra music.  My interest in jazz and jazz piano also began around that time as well.  

 

I really enjoy all or at least most music and get bored with listening to only one style.  And ya, classical music resonates with me and continues to be a good % of my listening.  

[ElmerJFudd]

7 minutes ago, Dave Bryce said:

I quite like classical music, especially when it’s piano oriented.  I could listen to Martha Argerich play for hours.

 

This one is a fave:  

 

 

 

Or, if you wanna go more intense:

 

 

dB

She's brilliant, Dave.  Good call.  Your shares over the years made me a fan.

[timwat]

My parents introduced me to classical music very early. It was well before 6 years old, but I'm not sure exactly when. The first record I remember listening to was "Majors for Minors" by the piano duo Whittemore and Lowe - excerpts of famous classical music works (I'm not sure all of them were of "major" importance...Prokofieff's March from the Love of Three Oranges?). So the first music I ever heard demanded close attention, offered layers upon layers of nuance and detail. It was what I equated in my young mind with "music".

 

Classical piano lessons started at 9, and I wasn't introduced to popular music until I think I was 11 or so - the Beatles, then popular radio, then Elton John. Which coincided with Phillipe Entremont records, with Louis Armstrong and Nat King Cole and Perez Prado. I really credit my mom in this - apparently our pediatrician encouraged her to really push us and expose us to as much as possible to broaden our world, understanding of culture, perspective on the life around us (do pediatricians do that anymore?)

 

But like a lot of kids, I didn't apply myself wholeheartedly during the 10 years of private lessons. But I have always had a love for classical - it's just "music" to me - and I can deeply thank my mom for that.

 

Rachmaninoff moves me like no other - his symphonies and concertos especially. Chopin and Liszt (although I struggle playing either), Beethoven's pathos, drama, and sense of structure. And of course, is there a higher mind than Bach? The beauty, the order, the complement of voices and counterpoint? 

 

Martin Luther once said something like, "Next to the Bible, God's greatest gift to man is music" - and no matter how anyone feels about God or the Bible (not trying to get banninated here, just quoting Martin Luther), I'm guessing we each have a place in our hearts grateful for the gift of music in our lives. 

 

Well, for me, when I recall that quote of Luther's, I think of Bach. Even thinking about this right now gets me a little misty, no lie.

 

It is sort of like, over the years, I have been given a capacity to hear and appreciate music in a way that many others, through the accident of circumstance, were not privileged to have a chance to develop. So many tell me, "Yes, I love classical to study to" or similar. But there in the best of works, there is such passion, and scale, and nuance, and opportunity to say something of substance that other genre simply do not have the means or the breadth. I hope this doesn't come off elitist or anything like that. All I'm saying is, well, I can't appreciate chess the way my grandmaster friends appreciate chess. I had an opportunity to understand a genre that requires a little bit of time and care to fully appreciate, but rewards that investment exponentially.

 

I was given a gift. First by my mom (who didn't grow up listening to classical), and then by teachers, and then by books and what others have encouraged me to consider about music and its place in my life over the years.

 

 

 

 

[Jeff Leites]

I have quite a few classical LPs and CDs.  I don't seem to find the time to sit down a listen to them much any more, or any other music for that matter. ☹️

 

A couple of classic (no pun intended) moments.  Once we were at the Hollywood Bowl for a performance of the 1812 Overture (complete with canon and fireworks of course).  At the end of the performance, a not so favorite, pompous, relative proclaimed, "There was only one part that was recognizable.". 😮   In another instance, this same person put on an LP he had received for free.  It contained several well know pieces.  When Vivaldi began to play, I said, "That's the Four Seasons."  to which he replied (in a condescending manner) , "That's not the Four Seasons, that's classical music".  Sometimes his doofusness [sic] is amusing 😂

[Polychrest]

4 hours ago, Anderton said:

She played as if her emotions had been surgically removed at birth, and phoned in her part.

I was dragged to a couple of “young people’s” matinee performances of the Toronto Symphony Orchestra as a kid.  I’d been exposed to recorded classical music at home, but the staging and performance of it in a live setting was a revelation.  The only emotion I could see on stage came from the long-haired guy (it was always a guy) standing on a box facing the musicians, waving his arms in the air, jabbing a little white stick at random groups of players, nodding and shaking his head, his face at times angry, serene, constipated, relieved.  The musicians didn’t seem to be paying him much attention—more interested in flipping pages and tending to their gear between sporadic bouts of musical exertion.

 

My developing brain liked and recognized the quality of some of the music, but giving it the total attention it deserved was beyond my powers at that stage of life.  It bored me.  With age and exposure, I learned to embrace classical symphonic music, its power, complexity and emotional depth, but after those first concert exposures, the only on-stage job I had any interest in was conductor.  That guy looked like he was really into it—doing something cool.  And easy.  Much easier than playing that damn upright piano in the chilly basement for half a miserable hour every day after school.

Opera I never warmed to.  As opposed to performers showing no emotion, opera seemed redolent of nothing but emotion:  florid, overblown, palpably fake emotion.  That willing suspension of disbelief that all good stories induce couldn’t happen for me when every female opera singer I ever heard automatically evoked images of Kate Smith warbling God Bless America before a frothing Philadelphia Flyers home-game crowd.  In the immortal words of Toronto blues legend Danny Marks, opera is the professional wrestling of classical music.

 

[timwat]

5 hours ago, Anderton said:

I once attended a concert where the first violist was well-known and billed as a "must-see." She played as if her emotions had been surgically removed at birth, and phoned in her part. When she finished her solo, the audience went wild because, well, they were supposed to.

 

I got myself fired from a gig as Fairfield's first live music reviewer for the Daily Republic for calling this out.

 

I knew my role was to be unabashedly, unapologetically positive about local talent, as a way to promote live music in the little town of Fairfield, California. I did this for several reviews - major on the positives, ignore the negatives, polish with a veneer of objectivity, and come see the show.

 

Until the local symphony orchestra decided to perform Beethoven.

 

A lifeless friggin' train wreck on wheels. Or, to put it more diplomatically, an example of reach exceeding grasp. They were simply overmanned and ill-equipped - and it showed for an entire evening of cringefest. Which was, of course, finished off with a STANDING OVATION from the audience to rival Ashkenazy at Carnegie.

 

So I mentioned as kindly and diplomatically as I could muster (mind you, I was a more direct and cruel bastard in those days) the disconnect between Beethoven's vision, the orchestra's performance, and the audience's response.

 

For some reason, my tenure ended shortly thereafter, with a terse, short phone message. Services no longer required.

 

 

[KuruPrionz]

I forgot something worth remembering.

 

At a certain point in Fresno, I was friends with a guitarist/composer who wrote some pieces that Antonio De Innocentis added to his repertoire.

Antonio played a show as a guest of the University and my friend contacted him to play another show in the area the following year. 

I was invited to come to dinner and to meet Antonio. We ate, hung out a bit and then Antonio started playing in the living room, practicing for the concert the next evening. 

I was maybe 8 feet away, listening and watching. I also went to the show, which was successful enough to pay for the plane fare to and from Italy but not much more. 

Everything I've found on YouTube is live and there is quite a bit of noise but here are a couple of videos, enjoy!

 

 

 

https://youtu.be/EPHfxakiXDk

[Nowarezman]

Huge classical fan here.  Early childhood exposure was limited, but really stuck.  Bernstein's Young People's Concerts especially - the combination of close listening, skilled and sensitive performance,  deep emotional response, and the vision of an entire cultural world of musical genius, beauty, and feeling - I got the germ of all those things in the first half hour.  I had always responded to music and listened closely as a natural, unthinking response.  Bernstein taught me that was just the door - infinities of musical richness lay beyond the door if you would take the journey.

 

All that gushing aside - I've made my forays into classical and I have my favorites.  Even after 5 decades of serious listening and reading, a lot of music labeled "classical" escapes me.   To my ear, there are a lot of boring hacks in the classical repetoire.  It's not beyond me to criticize even the greats, either.  For example, I generally can't stand Beethoven's orchestration of woodwinds - so often in the "big parts" of symphonies, those woodwinds seem to me to be shrill and overblown and almost funny, like something PDQ Bach would do, or Satie would lampoon.  

 

Classical music is an institution and is always suspect of being a sanctuary for snobs.  Well, so what? - I don't care what snobs do.  People get all snobby and stuck-up about all sorts of things - politics, hairstyles, athletic shoes, perfectly-tended lawns, proper grammar, correct pronunciations, expensive whiskies, the most carbon-neutral lifestyle, handbags, vacation spots, just about anything.  Welcome to the human race.

 

I listen the most to Faure, Chopin, Debussy, and Ravel.  I study their sheet music, read their biographies, their critics, and the analyzers of their styles and harmonies, etc.  Second in line come Sibelius, Walter Piston, Bach, and Early European music (the early stuff that is heavily modal and before "common Western usages and harmonic rules.)   I do love Beethoven's Piano Sonatas - but I listened to his symphonies so many times I need about a ten-year break.   

 

What I like to listen to and study in no way constitutes what I think is the "best" classical music.  I'm not up to the task of canon-making.  I'm just an amateur and an enthusiast.

 

nat

 

 

  

 

 

[Notes_Norton]

I love classical music, but definitely not all of it. Mozart, Bach, Brahms were genius composers, and I can appreciate that, but mostly I lose patience because their music doesn't really speak to me.

 

Mostly I love symphonies from the Romantic era forward and by Russian, Eastern European, Jewish and Spanish composers. Dvořák, Tchaikovsky, Shostakovitch, Prokofiev, Smetana, Suk, Saint-Saëns, Janacek, Beethoven, Rimsky-Korsokov, Kachaturrian, Villa-Lobos, Bartok, de Falla, Ravel, Glazunov, Respighi, Grieg, Mussorgsky, and the like. It's the "Heavy Metal" of the classical music genre.

 

I have a couple of hundred classical CDs.

 

Label and conductor makes a big difference. 30 years or so ago, I bought a CD of Tchaikovsky's 6th symphony by Ormandy and the Philadelphia. It was meh. Tchaikovsky reportedly cried while writing it and they think committed suicide by drinking polluted water afterwards. I was on the way home from Tampa, and I heard the 6th, and it was thrilling. I started to move out of range of the station, so I parked at the side of the road to finish listening. When it was done, I went to a pay phone and called the radio station to get Kurt Masur and the Gewandhausorchester Leipzig.

 

My first exposure to the classics was in school band. Our band director/conductor was into heavy classics, and that suited me just fine. If I had a choice of 'desert island' genre, it would be this kind of music. It doesn't get old and 'memorized' as quickly as other forms of music.

 

I played Dvorak's 9th in school, and have had 3 or 4 different recordings of it through the years, Cleveland Orchesta Christoph von Dohnányi conducting is my current favorite. Needless to say, I've heard it hundreds of times. A few years ago, after listening to it one of those hundreds of times, I noticed that in a spot of the 4th movement he combines part of the second movement and forth movement themes for the melody (that is obvious) but what struck me then for the first time was he also used slightly disguised fragments of the first and third movement themes for the background. Brilliant.

 

I don't go to rock, or any other pop concerts anymore, but if a symphony orchestra is playing a piece I love, on a day I'm not gigging, I'll go.

 

When I travel the world, I always try to include a concert. We've heard concerts by the symphony orchestras in their own halls in the Czech Republic, Italy, Hungary, England, Austria, Canada, USA, Scotland, Netherlands, etc., and even China.  I also try to take in jazz and pop music while I'm traveling, but I will book vacation dates when the orchestra is playing a symphony that I love.

 

OK, I'm weird.

 

Notes ♫

[CEB]

Huge fan of Classical Music. 

 

I also really like New "Classical Music".  I really dig some of the composers who do work for video games.  I recent became found of a singer named Sabina Zweiacker.  I googled her expecting to find a  Wiki page but there is hardly no online presence.  She seems to sing a lot of video game music.  Movie soundtrack work is also often amazing.  The classical music world should not snub these modern composers.

 

I loved this piece.

 

 

[NewImprov]

I took classical piano lessons from age 6 to 18, by the end, I was playing some pretty serious repertoire, Bach/Brahms/Beethoven/Chopin, etc. Of all these, I only really loved Bach. Also, my last piano teacher, who was one of the better teachers in my area, instilled me with this deep sense of perfectionism, and basically made me feel ashamed of every mistake I made. So, it was really liberating when I discovered I could play rock music, and later Jazz. For many years, I couldn't play classical stuff without feeling inadequate. In recent years, when I got access to a good piano, I pulled out the Bach Well-Tempered Clavier, and discovered, after 40 years of feeling bad about playing it imperfectly, I could relax and just enjoy the notes and lines, and not care if I screwed up. I'm enjoying playing these pieces for myself, I have no desire to ever perform them for an audience.

 

As a listener, my tastes are that I love stuff up to and including Bach, and I love a lot of stuff from Stravinsky and later, and could pretty much take or leave everything in between. I really love a lot of modern classical though, Messian, Varese, Xenakis, the minimalists, especially Steve Reich, Arvo Pårt, etc. One of the most devastating listening experiences of my life was hearing a live performance of Penderecki's Threnody for the Victims of Hiroshima conducted by Penderecki, it was astounding and utterly visceral.

[KuruPrionz]

Reading on, I am reminded of enjoying Prokofiev but not currently remembering which pieces.

Stravinsky, the Rite Of Spring is amazing. 

[Nowarezman]

Absolutely 100% re: the Rite of Spring.  Gives me shivers.  

 

Y'all (I am a Texan, ok?) check out Faure's Requiem.  I so want to convert someone, anyone, to being a Faure fanboy like myself!   If not the Requiem, then his Pelleas and Melissande.  

 

nat

 

[KuruPrionz]

12 hours ago, Nowarezman said:

Absolutely 100% re: the Rite of Spring.  Gives me shivers.  

 

Y'all (I am a Texan, ok?) check out Faure's Requiem.  I so want to convert someone, anyone, to being a Faure fanboy like myself!   If not the Requiem, then his Pelleas and Melissande.  

 

nat

 

Well, by Golly Bubba, I'm from Fresno CA and y'all just sound like normal folk ta me!!!! 😇

Back when the Dust Bowl hit, Fresno and surrounding areas got migrated to by Okies, Arkies and Texans abundant. 

I'm none of the above but I sho' nuff kin fit right in... 😃

 

Im off to check out Faure's Requiem!

[Anderton]

20 hours ago, Polychrest said:

Opera I never warmed to.  As opposed to performers showing no emotion, opera seemed redolent of nothing but emotion:  florid, overblown, palpably fake emotion.  That willing suspension of disbelief that all good stories induce couldn’t happen for me when every female opera singer I ever heard automatically evoked images of Kate Smith warbling God Bless America before a frothing Philadelphia Flyers home-game crowd.  In the immortal words of Toronto blues legend Danny Marks, opera is the professional wrestling of classical music.

 

First of all, that's some great writing

 

I hear you, I was never a fan of opera. Still not so much, but I did have an opportunity to see The Ring of the Nibelung totally by accident. A friend had bought $$ tickets for himself and his wife, but his wife got the flu, couldn't go, and he asked if I wanted to go. I did because I'm an experience junkie, but I gotta say, I was absolutely blown away. I haven't seen any opera since then, so I don't know if I'd be equally blown away by others or whether that was a one-oiff. But that was some experience. Amazing.

 

I did realize that in retrospect, perhaps the only way to experience opera is live. 

[KuruPrionz]

41 minutes ago, Anderton said:

 

First of all, that's some great writing

 

I hear you, I was never a fan of opera. Still not so much, but I did have an opportunity to see The Ring of the Nibelung totally by accident. A friend had bought $$ tickets for himself and his wife, but his wife got the flu, couldn't go, and he asked if I wanted to go. I did because I'm an experience junkie, but I gotta say, I was absolutely blown away. I haven't seen any opera since then, so I don't know if I'd be equally blown away by others or whether that was a one-oiff. But that was some experience. Amazing.

 

I did realize that in retrospect, perhaps the only way to experience opera is live. 

Regarding opera, we have to try and understand it from the perspective of it's creation. 

No TV, no movies, entertainment for the higher class people of the time. There is a reason we now call an entire TV genre "soap opera" (originally supported by advertising for detergents and such). If you look up translations for the language in many operas, you will find that they can be remarkably mundane or reasonably profound but - like Shakespeare - opera was intended to be entertainment for a night out for the well-to-do patrons. 

 

That doesn't mean the music is not amazing sometimes, or that the best of opera isn't great music. 

Another aspect - it reminds me of the glory we now bestow on the "oldies" from the 50's and 60's. The better stuff survived and the abundant mediocrity of the times is no longer considered. I think that's the logical outcome in both cases, just go for the good stuff!!! 

[David Emm]

I was raised on classical and soundtracks. When you start whistling "America" from "West Side Story" as a kid, the rest of the musical world has a high standard to meet. I started going to symphonies when I was 6 or so. It leaves a grand mark.

 

An honorary uncle took me to see the great piano duo Ferrante and Teicher, who knocked me out double when they did an African-sounding prepared piano piece mid-show. This uncle was playing nightclubs all over the world and spoke 4 languages. He could sit and pull off Chopin's "Fantaisie-Impromptu" fluidly, no small feat. I was an easy mark for prog, having seen classical performed with gusto.

 

I saw Virgil Fox do a subdued organ performance that wasn't his usual Bach bombast. Six months later, he died from lung cancer. That's a real trooper for you.

 

Brian Eno calls opera "An advanced form of yodeling," but I went to see the coloratura soprano Beverly Sills during her last season. "Die Fledermaus" was a real crowd pleaser. Its great fun to contrast her with Annie Haslam or Kate Bush.

 

I got to see Christopher Parkening do a solo classical guitar performance. Ooowee, does that memory still give me String Envy! 

 

I also got to see ELP and Keith's "Piano Improvisations" include a smattering of Ginestera, so I call that classical as well. 💪

 

There's also the fun of playing the first few bars from "Rite of Spring" in a music store and having someone laugh & grin.

[pinkfloydcramer]

I took 2 semesters of piano in college, butchered some Bach, dabbled in a little Debussy, raped some Rachmaninoff (Prelude in G Minor, to this day not my favorite Rachmaninoff). But my favorite piece I learned, by far, was Katchaturian's Toccata. From that point on I was intrigued by 20th century classical music, esp.  Russian composers. Not that I have actively pursued that interest. 

 

While playing piano at restaurants I have learned a couple of fairly gnarly pieces that were occasional requests. Claire de Lune usually gets some recognition, mostly because it was included in the Ocean's 11 movie. I'm trying to memorize the entire 28 pages of Rhapsody in Blue (solo piano arrangement) just to say I did it, knowing full well no one will care (actually that's not entirely true- most will not care, but the ones that do care will care alot). Parts of it I love, but some passages are a little hokey, the arranger tried to be a little too cute IMO. I love Gershwin as a composer. 

 

THIS (sorry, couldn't imbed) is what I'd really like to learn, unfortunately it's one of the most difficult passages in piano lit. The whole concert (Prokofiev PIano Concerto #2) is mesmerizing, the supporting players are really immersed in the music and no one is phoning it in. PS- thanks to all for the suggestions, going to give the Rite another listen!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gPyfvCINifw 

 

 

 

 

 

  

[bill5]

 

  

On 12/13/2022 at 12:51 PM, Anderton said:

My initial exposure was in 4th grade while I was still in school in Switzerland. The music class consisted of the teacher telling us briefly about a piece of music, and then we were required to close our eyes and listen. Some of the music I really liked (Bach), some not so much (Chopin).

 

In high school, I went to the public library and took out a few classical albums every week until I had gone through them all. Then I bought records of my favorites, and noticed a few things:

• By definition, ALL classical music is played by tribute bands.
• Some performers are so impressed with themselves they forget that the music is what's most important.
• No-name eastern European orchestras on budget labels like Nonesuch often played with much more passion than the big-name famous orchestras. They treated the music as vibrant music, not museum exhibits.
• I know there are exceptions, but it seems to me a lot of attendees at classical music concerts go to show off their refined musical tastes, of which they have none. I once attended a concert where the first violist was well-known and billed as a "must-see." She played as if her emotions had been surgically removed at birth, and phoned in her part. When she finished her solo, the audience went wild because, well, they were supposed to. The cellists and tympani player were awesome, but they didn't get any applause.
• If we had more performing musicians - rock, country, EDM, doesn't matter - attending classical music concerts, the concerts would be better because the performers would feel the energy from people who live and breathe music.

 

Anyway, I'm listening to a CD of harp music with re-issues of music recorded in 50s and 60s, and re-mastered perfectly. It just sounds so effing good. Too bad there's quite a bit of classical music played by people who just seem to go through the motions. They could use a little humility and realize they're playing in a tribute band

 

Great topic/post. Totally agree with all of your bullets except perhaps the last one. Nice thought though. Love the part about the social snoots, most of which probably don't know nearly as much as they'd like to think.

 

I'm far (far) from an expert in classical music, but to me it's stating the obvious that it's the pinnacle of musical quality, generally speaking. And unlike many (most? all?) other genres, the compositions stand all on their own...no studio tricks or effects, no solos or unique takes on a given album (etc) there to lend weight to it. Music at its purest. Most of even the best artists of other genres can only dream of being half as talented as the greats of classical music. But of course it's not always that simple and at some point you get into a composition vs performance, apples/oranges thing...how can you compare a Mozart composition (or the performances within) to a Stan Getz solo? IMO you can't and it's foolish to try. 

 

 

 

[bill5]

PS the mention of opera reminded me of this, love this bit (and I'd give a months' pay to spend one night with this woman): 

 

 

[Notes_Norton]

For classical music, I prefer symphonies and other large-scale orchestral works, mostly from the Romantic Period to the present.

 

Opera and single instrument concertos are not as much fun for my ears. There isn't enough variety in voicing for me. Opera took a while because when I was younger, the voices turned me off. Now that I've learned to be a singer (the hardest instrument I've ever learned) I have more of an appreciation.

 

After saying all that, there are also some operas and concertos that I love. It depends on the music.

 

I really don't know why I like what I like. Why does Tchaikovsky speak to me much more than Copeland? Beethoven vs. Mozart? And so on?

 

Goes for pop music too. Some songs just affect me more than others. I'm bored by some really genius music, and delighted by some simple music and I'm also thrilled by genius music and bored by simple music. All my life I've tried to figure out why I like what I like, but I guess I like too many things in so many different genres that it complicates my thought process.

 

Insights and incites by Notes ♫

[harmonizer]

On 12/13/2022 at 10:27 PM, KuruPrionz said:

Reading on, I am reminded of enjoying Prokofiev but not currently remembering which pieces.

Stravinsky, the Rite Of Spring is amazing. 

 

I find the end of Stravinsky's Firebird Suite, especially conducted by Bernstein, to be as exhilarating as any of my favorite classic rock and roll songs.

[Polychrest]

On 12/14/2022 at 1:47 PM, Anderton said:

I did realize that in retrospect, perhaps the only way to experience opera is live. 

My Scottish grandmother was a celebrated operatic singer in her youth and a respected voice teacher for half a century.  With the large chunk of DNA that I share with her, I should be a far better musician than I am.  Around 1970, when I was putting myself through university playing keys in rock bands and thought I knew something about music, I asked her who her favourite composer was.  Her answer:  Wagner.  She deprecated his character and lamented that Hitler’s Nazis had woven his work so deeply into their warped vision of German culture, but she embraced his music fully and completely.  Then she asked for my favourite composer.

 

“Lennon and McCartney”.

 

”Who?”

 

The conversation went downhill from there.  But I did delve into Wagner’s work and experienced his power.  What huge majestic canvases he worked upon.   By the time Apocalypse Now injected “Ride of the Valkyries” into mainstream North American culture, I was a fan—more of the orchestral stuff than the vocals, but still a fan.  If the first opera I ever saw live had been something from the Ring cycle, my view of opera in general might be less jaded.  But it wasn’t.  It was something obscure, tragic and Italian that a new, more musically literate girlfriend wanted to see.  My strongest non-girlfriend-related memory of the event is of the English translations of the dialogue and lyrics that scrolled relentlessly above the stage—surtitles, a proud invention of the Canadian Opera Company.  It was distracting and didn’t really help decipher the emotions being expressed in song—which came across more forcefully in facial expression and gesture anyway.  Cheese explaining cheese.

 

Here’s a surtitle anecdote courtesy of the Interwebz that underlines this point in a way that keyboard players using iPads and laptops in their stage rigs will appreciate:

“ . . . And, of course, there have been a few disasters along the way.  When Mimi lay dying at the end of Puccini's La Bohème in a Washington production, she begged Rodolfo not to leave her.  The surtitle replied, "Your battery is failing and your screen has been dimmed to conserve power."  (The titles were being run off a laptop.)”

 

The caustic disdain that John Lydon and his Sex Pistols generation expressed for stadium rock spectacles by so-called “dinosaur bands” like ELP and Pink Floyd may have some of its roots in the technological intervention and distancing between fans and performers that "enhancements" like big screens and surtitles were introducing at the time.

 

 

 

 

 

 

[RABid]

I always thought about how jumping from classical music to playing rock covers was so hard and focused on going from reading music to playing by ear. Today is the first time I really thought about how much benefit I got from my classical training when I moved from drums to keyboards in cover bands. One of my favorite songs to play on piano is Moonlight Sonata. So many songs on our playlist benefited from my classical training and looking back I approached many of them like I was playing Moonlight Sonata. Bass, lead, arpeggiated chords and pads all going at the same time. When playing songs like Sunglasses at Night my orchestration of parts really benefited from my classical background. More than one manager called me a wall of sound back then. I guess I have to give credit to my classical training.

[pinkfloydcramer]

I only learned the slow part of Moonlight Sonata, enough to satisfy piano bar requests. I would really like to learn the whole thing.

 

I think it may have been on HC where MC posted some of his playing Bach on a synth, and it was awesome. 

[timwat]

42 minutes ago, pinkfloydcramer said:

I only learned the slow part of Moonlight Sonata, enough to satisfy piano bar requests. I would really like to learn the whole thing.

 

IMHO, the 3rd movement is where the gold is, despite how universally-loved the 1st has always been.