Anyone Into Classical Music?

[KuruPrionz]

On 12/14/2022 at 7:54 PM, bill5 said:

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): 

 

 

That's just insane!!! She got pipes, no two ways about that!!!!!

[RABid]

15 hours ago, timwat said:

 

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

 

 

Wow. I also only learned the slow part.

[Bill Heins]

No matter what type of material I create Classical styling is always in my head...I've always loved classical, it's the most elegant and thoughtful of music forms.

 

Bill

[BMD]

19 minutes ago, Bill Heins said:

No matter what type of material I create Classical styling is always in my head...I've always loved classical, it's the most elegant and thoughtful of music forms.

 

Bill

 

This

[Notes_Norton]

When visiting lhe Czech Republic some years ago, we planned our visit around this concert by Josef Suk. It's a wonderful piece of music that is never performed in the USA. We're in the audience somewhere, but the camera never found us.

 

It was a great performance, the acoustics were nice and from where we were sitting, everything was balanced.

 

I like hearing orchestras in the "home" venues.
 

 

[KenElevenShadows]

On 12/13/2022 at 9:51 AM, Anderton said:

 

• By definition, ALL classical music is played by tribute bands.

Did no one catch this? This is comic gold!

[Dave Bryce]

2 hours ago, KenElevenShadows said:

Did no one catch this? This is comic gold!

It’s just a fact.  I’ve been wryly referring to classical orchestras as cover bands for years. 

 

dB

[KenElevenShadows]

I've done that as well. But it's still funny!

[Gillespie1983]

I really enjoy counterpoint and 20th Century orchestral music.  My favorite for the longest time was Stravinsky's early ballets--especially his heavy metal work,  The Rite of Spring.  A ballet that broke many stereotypes--not pretty, not sweet, just brutal at times, https://youtu.be/YOZmlYgYzG4?t=265  

[Joe Muscara]

Actually, I might argue that most classical music is played by cover bands, but the tribute bands in the genre are the ones that set up the instrumentation and perhaps even the clothing to exactly match the period of the music they play. Orchestras in Mozart's day were smaller than modern ones, IIRC.

[Notes_Norton]

15 hours ago, Dave Bryce said:

It’s just a fact.  I’ve been wryly referring to classical orchestras as cover bands for years. 

 

dB

Me too. Cover bands.

 

I don't consider them tribute bands though, because if a Shostakovitch symphony was first performed by the USSR symphony, the modern orchestras playing it are not a USSR Symphony Tribute band, but simply a cover band. (Or orchestra). As they don't don the attire and try to imitate the USSR orchestra.

 

Plus, in concert they might also play a piece by Bartok, Beethoven, Respighi, or Saint-Saëns.

 

But that's just a sticky point.

 

In my duo, we are a cover band and we cover hundreds of different artists/songwriters (+600 songs in our book). None of them classical although songs like "A Whiter Shade Of Pale" have a strong classical influence.

 

Insights and incites by Notes ♫

[KenElevenShadows]

5 hours ago, Joe Muscara said:

Actually, I might argue that most classical music is played by cover bands, but the tribute bands in the genre are the ones that set up the instrumentation and perhaps even the clothing to exactly match the period of the music they play. Orchestras in Mozart's day were smaller than modern ones, IIRC.

 

Exactly. And the phrase "tribute band" is just extra funny to me.

 

The "tribute" is already pretty great.

 

But also describing an orchestra as a band! 

[Dave Bryce]

46 minutes ago, KenElevenShadows said:

But also describing an orchestra as a band! 

 Hey, why not?

 

Once you start looking at things like smaller orchestras and big bands, where’s the dividing line?  Strings?  Tell that to Kansas, or ELO.

 

dB

[Anderton]

5 hours ago, Joe Muscara said:

Actually, I might argue that most classical music is played by cover bands, but the tribute bands in the genre are the ones that set up the instrumentation and perhaps even the clothing to exactly match the period of the music they play. Orchestras in Mozart's day were smaller than modern ones, IIRC.

 

The irony is that we don't know if there were any stylings that weren't notated because "eveyone knows that." Some musicologists believe that Bach used a taste of "swing" because music was done that way at the time, rather than the more metronomic approach we take for granted now. However, I don't know how they could possibly back up that theory...pther than thinking that Bach actually does sound pretty cool with just a tiny bit of swing

[The Real MC]

1 hour ago, Dave Bryce said:

or ELO.

 

Well, the name of the band is Electric Light Orchestra...

[Dave Bryce]

1 hour ago, The Real MC said:

 

Well, the name of the band is Electric Light Orchestra...

That’s fair….but wouldn’t you say most folks think of them as a band? 🤔

 

dB

[KenElevenShadows]

5 hours ago, Dave Bryce said:

 Hey, why not?

 

Once you start looking at things like smaller orchestras and big bands, where’s the dividing line?  Strings?  Tell that to Kansas, or ELO.

 

dB

 

There's nothing wrong with it, and obviously, there isn't any discrete dividing line. 

 

I just find that applying the phrase "tribute band" to an orchestra is humorous! 

 

I've been describing things using alternate words for years because it puts it into a different context and is often humorous. 

 

I mean, it's sort of like if I describe a camera like a mirror-flapping light grabber. I mean, that's what it is, that's what it does. But it's humorous!

[Strays Dave]

I don't listen to music nearly enough these days.  I believe that repeated listenings to a specific work is important to digesting music, especially when it has more "heft" to it.  I do have a small pool of classical works that I listen to on occasion. Over the several last decades I've favored Stravinsky's "Symphonies of Wind Instruments".  It's been suggested that it uses some of the same musical language as the Rites Of Spring.  In the last 2 years I became aware that there's a piano reduction available from Boosey and Hawkes.  Piano transcription performed below.  I also sight read slowly thru some of Bach's Well Tempered Clavier pieces. 

 

Over the years I've read a few (2 or 3 ?) interviews with jazz pianists who said they play some of Debussy's Preludes.  Back circa 1980 I read an interview, probably in Downbeat magazine, with a guy who worked for Charles Mingus.  He said he played thru Bach's 4 part  Chorales. The chorales are not difficult to play.  Around 1973  I saw Dave Brubeck in concert.  He introduced one of his songs saying something like "all jazz pianists like Chopin".  I think he was making a point about Chopin's  forward looking harmonies. 

 

Bartok's 4th String Quartet is also sometimes compared to Stravinsky's Rites of Spring. 

 

I should listen more. But  I think of my preferred classical pieces and works as a sort of  "well"  to drink from.  I don't think Captain Beefheart's  Trout Mask Replica would be what is was without exposure to Stravinsky (I think it was something Van Vliet listened to with Zappa in their youth).  The Beatles wouldn't have had the harmonic depth they had without classical influences - whether input from George Martin,  or things that McCartney figured out by ear. 

 

 

[Anderton]

Does anyone else find it very interesting that a thread on classical music has this many views? Cool.

[Nowarezman]

Classical music is like some huge, ancient city that you can wander through for a lifetime, or just visit and hit the highlights.  The continuum of classical say, from the Brandenburgs to Ligeti's music for Kubrick's 2001 covers as big a universe as I care to explore.  Any number of people can visit the city and never walk the same streets or see the same sights.

 

nat

 

[Anderton]

2 hours ago, Nowarezman said:

Classical music is like some huge, ancient city that you can wander through for a lifetime, or just visit and hit the highlights.  The continuum of classical say, from the Brandenburgs to Ligeti's music for Kubrick's 2001 covers as big a universe as I care to explore.  Any number of people can visit the city and never walk the same streets or see the same sights.

 

That is a truly awesome piece of writing.

[Notes_Norton]

20 hours ago, Strays Dave said:

The Beatles wouldn't have had the harmonic depth they had without classical influences - whether input from George Martin, 

From what I hear in the catalog of The Beatles, George Martin had a huge influence. I hear a lot of Bach in many of their short but delightful B or Bridge sections, and I've read Martin was well versed in Bach.

 

I hear a bit of Mars, from The Planets Suite in a Zeppelin song, I can't remember the name now but I can hear it in my head.

 

And almost a quote from Tchaikovsky's Capriccio Italien comes a section in a Moody Blues song.

 

The melody of Dan Fogelberg's Same Old Lang Syne is Tchaikovsky's 1812 Overture.

 

There are plenty of others, too. Eric Carmen comes to mind, channeling Rachmaninov.

 

I was fortunate to go through the school system's symphonic band program from 7th grade on. I learned how to listen to classical music, how to identify the themes, and the variations on those themes, and also observe how the pieces were developed.

 

I think it's a benefit for a musician to listen to all forms of music. Especially genres that they don't play. The influences will mix in your brain and come out in the most delightful manner.

 

And the classical masters appropriated themes and melodies from folk music, so by returning them back to pop music, we just are keeping them alive and recycling them.

 

 

Insights and incites by Notes ♫

[KuruPrionz]

A good friend took me to the Skagit Symphony Orchestra yesterday. 

His daughter was first chair violin in the high school Chamber Orchestra - way ahead of the other students. 

About 5 years later, she auditioned for the Skagit Symphony recently and got a position in the second violins. 

 

For a relatively small city local orchestra they are very good, full instrumentation and excellent conductor. 

I'm glad she got that spot, over time she'll work her way up the ladder. 

[Nathanael_I]

I go to the symphony regularly, and have had season tickets for many years off and on starting at 17. I have a score cabinet in my studio.  I’ve been to the main halls in San Francisco, LA, NYC, DC, Chicago, London, Vienna, Sydney, etc. I love fine art music. I love hearing new work for orchestra. I can write in full score and am very happy writing, listening to and exploring fine art acoustic music. This extends to jazz, but I tire of the endless pizzicato bass and song forms. Large format work appeals. 

[Notes_Norton]

Until COVID I went to the symphony every year. I've even planned the timing of European vacations so I could hear a great orchestra play one of my favorites in their home venue.

 

In the winter, great touring orchestras come to West Palm Beach or Miami. I drove over 200 miles, to Miami Beach, to hear Shostakovitch's 4th symphony. The same orchestra played the 5th about 50 miles away in West Palm, but the 4th is almost never played. It was worth the ride.

 

If I were to have a desert island genre, and had to pick only one, it'd be symphonic, especially from Beethoven's #3 to the present. I consider #3 one of the first Romantic era pieces, even though it's still considered classical.

 

Notes ♫

[David Emm]

I once heard a university chamber orchestra whose program included three pieces by Raymond almighty Scott, including the immortal "Powerhouse." At the break, I chatted with an upright bassist and a couple of the other musicians. I said I'd loved it, but how did they come to perform that?

 

The bassist grinned and said "We all voted on it!" 

[Dave Bryce]

We go to Disney Hall several times a year.  Killer venue…

 

We’ve seen excellent classical shows at the Hollywood Bowl as well.  Also a pretty nice place to see a show. 😊

 

dB

[KenElevenShadows]

26 minutes ago, Dave Bryce said:

We go to Disney Hall several times a year.  Killer venue…

 

We’ve seen excellent classical shows at the Hollywood Bowl as well.  Also a pretty nice place to see a show. 😊

 

dB

It is a pretty great place to see a show. I've seen Afro-Peruvian singer Eva Ayllon there as well as an Icelandic music festival there, and both times were quite special.

[Ivan May]

I am a huge classical music fan. As a matter of fact, I actually own a few albums by flutist James Galway. He is an amazing flute player, and if you haven't heard of him, check out his cover of John Denver's Annie's Song.

 

I also really like the Canadian Brass. I think their album Basin Street is very good--it is a Dixieland jazz flavored album that even features George Segal playing banjo on a few tracks.

[Notes_Norton]

I used to have season tickets to the Florida Philharmonic before they went belly-up.

 

I had some nice talks with the conductor, James Judd, who shared my enthusiasm for Shostakovitch and Prokofiev. He would introduce pieces from these and other less mainstream composers in concerts, with the "War Horse" pieces that regularly make the rounds.

 

One evening on the way home, I stopped at a convenience store to get some coffee. The concert hall is a bit over an hour's drive from my home. I recognized one of the Double Bass players and told him that I really enjoyed the performance. He brightened up and told me how much fun he had playing the music. I told him I was a career musician and I know exactly what he was feeling.

 

As well as the touring pro orchestras, I like listening to college student orchestras. Some pieces are well suited for the enthusiasm of youth. Lynn University in Boca Raton does a nice job. When in Montreal, I stumbled on an ad for McGill U holding a concert. Of course, we bought tickets and it was delightful.

 

The farthest concert from my home we attended was in our Australian vacation. Vladimir Ashkenazy was conducting the Sydney Symphony orchestra, and the showpiece was Vladimir's mash-up of all 3 Prokofiev "Romeo and Juliet" concert suites. This was performed in the beautiful Sydney Opera House, and not only was the music and the orchestra superb, the acoustics were wonderful too. (see picture)

 

There is more than one kind of favorite music.

 

Notes ♫