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Classical Music for Those Who'd Love to Love it, but Never Learned it.


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Oh, and for those few of you who happen to own an iPhone and/or iPad ;) :

 

https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/beethovens-9th-symphony/id601942399?mt=8

 

I have this app and like it a lot.

One never knows, do one? - Fats Waller

The fairest thing we can experience is the mysterious. It is the fundamental emotion which stands at the cradle of true art and true science. - Einstein

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Is anyone willing to write, by themselves or with someone else, a series of articles to educate people about classical music (with a bent toward audiophiles)? I would love to publish these on the front page and put them in the CA Academy as a great reference for a long time.

 

Questions, comments, concerns? Post here or private message me here.

 

I shall take it upon myself to peer-pressure Bob Stern into doing this.

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I'm a little unsure about how you feel about classical music, Chris. In your initial post you write: "I'd love to love it, but I don't understand it." In your second post you write: "I really like some classical ..." How do you define "really like" in this context? Has the classical music gotten under your skin and given you goosebumps? Or is it just not to disagreeable?

 

Where I'm going with this is that my own approach to learning to not just like, but love a new piece of classical music is to play about 20-30 minutes worth of it while I'm doing others things, say household chores. I repeat that procedure 3-6 times with a couple of days/weeks inbetween, and then suddenly--boom! Then it opens, and I get goosebumps all over. Provided the music is any good, of course.

 

This was how I got into classical music. Little by little, I have also picked up more knowledge about classical music, but to me it wasn't critical for my enjoyment of the music. Nice, but not critical.

 

This post is not meant as an argument against well-written essays by knowledgable people--I would love that. But to me, cracking the nut, i.e. getting the music under my skin had to come first before I was motivated to learn more. I think I have previously posted a list of music candidates for cracking the classical nut, but I don't seem to be able to find it now. It was several years ago ...

 

To complement any essays, I can also recommend the book Ring Resounding by legendary Decca producer John Culshaw. It is a fascinating read in its own right, and you also "inadvertently" learn a lot about the music.

All best,

Jens

 

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I am not an expert, cannot play an instrument to save my life, cannot read music - and yet, I love classical music passionately.

 

Over the years, what has helped me appreciate it more deeply are: taking a music appreciation class in grad school, attending live concerts at the local symphony or at world class orchestras when I travel, and reading and listening to experts.

 

One key factor - I did not do these things "to learn to love," but rather "because I love" classical music. The former is just tedious, the latter is no work at all.

 

One other excellent source of information is the Benjamin Zander series of Mahler recordings. They contain a bonus disc of Zander discussing the piece, which I treasure as much as the recording itself. I think one of them - his Mahler 2nd on Linn - is available as a free download. I'll post a link here if I find it.

 

 

Sent from my iPhone using Computer Audiophile

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@The Computer Audiophile

 

This is a great thread. I too am excited to find such knowledgeable CA readers who are ready to write guides for us. I can't wait to see the results.

 

One humble suggestion for this endeavor: can we not leverage Tidal playlists to accompany these guides? It would be amazing if each guide had associated with it a Tidal playlist that the author had curated as well.

 

Of course, Tidal playlists could also be contributed by others on the thread, although some guidelines would be nice. Perhaps a suggested limit on the playlist size, and adherence to a theme of the author's choice, rather than a random list. However, I'm not advocating any strong restrictions, just suggestions.

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I'm a melody guy. Here's one of my top 10 in the emotion category. Still gets to me after hundreds of listenings.

You don't need to be a musician or music insider to appreciate it.

 

So true Coot, put this on and no words or understanding are needed. It's just this German dude from 200 years ago speaking straight to your heart.

Not everything that can be counted counts, and not everything that counts can be counted.

- Einstein

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I'm a melody guy. Here's one of my top 10 in the emotion category. Still gets to me after hundreds of listenings.

You don't need to be a musician or music insider to appreciate it.

 

 

Youtube has a number of videos of Barenboim talking about music. They popped up as suggestions when I listened to the movement you linked to.

 

'How to listen to music' by Daniel Barenboim

 

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I agree that live performances and playing an instrument really help you appreciate music.

 

When I was a little kid, my dad took to me a performance of the Nutcracker with a full pit orchestra. That did it for the rest of my life. I studied piano at the conservatory. I think reading music is quite important. I don't understand painting or sculpture, and I don't think art history classes would help turn me on.

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Look up

Keeping Score

on youtube

 

or buy the videos at San Francisco Symphony.org

I've just watched a bit of the episode on LvB's Eroica... Very good indeed.

 

R

"Science draws the wave, poetry fills it with water" Teixeira de Pascoaes

 

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For a first approach to the subject I recommend the Naxos Discover Music book collection, an informative and easy read.

 

And then there is Bernstein's "Young People's Concerts" DVD set, probably the best way to get you interested.

 

R

 

x2. And online guides are available.

Classical Music Education: Introduction to Classical Music

 

I would add that I don't need to inform myself about the classical works to enjoy them. However, when I listen to something, and I read about it, it deepens my understanding of it and also my appreciation of the art of the performers.

I like to keep a fresh and informal approach to classical...

And more that other genres, classical music calls for a lot of live concerts. We can feel much more the energy released and appreciate the intricate interplay between the musicians, the importance of the venue...

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Given this crowd, recommendations of superior sound quality make a lot of sense. My own reentry into classical on the system built partly from CA advice was a recent Boston Symphony orchestra release of Shostakovich's 10th entitled Under Stalin's Shadow. It's on tidal. Give it 5 good listens and you may find yourself soon listening to his other works, and then other composers. It's a dark, emotional piece, and very well produced. Some fantastic bass drum parts that will shake your innards if your sub is doing its job.

 

 

Sent from my iPad using Computer Audiophile

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Many people learn to like or even love classical music for the beauty of the melodies. However, unlike much of popular music, there is much more than the surface beauty. A deeper appreciation of classical music can give much greater rewards to the listener.

 

An analogy. If you are a casual observer of sports - perhaps invited to a professional basketball game with the Golden State Warriors. You see a lot of movement of the ball, but what impresses and delights you are the half dozen or so amazing shots from 30 feet away by Steph Curry, resulting in 3 point plays. That is what you will impress you and what you remember, and what will even make you an occasional fan - not wanting to see every game, but enjoying the occasional game, or highlight reel. However, if you are a real fan, a student of the game, you will see so much more in the game, even during plays where no one scores. You will see defensive movements, switching players, passing, screening, blocked shots, rebounds - where the players are positioning out other players, movement without the ball, things that the casual observer will not see, or, if seen, will not think as very important. In fact, what the real fan might say were the most memorable parts of the game might be completely different from those seen by the casual fan.

 

That doesn't mean that listening to classical music for the surface beauty is not satisfying and often exhilarating, it just means there is much more there that can be revealed by some diligent study.

 

"Wagner's music is better than it sounds." Attributed to Mark Twain, it really says a lot about classical music in general.

 

I had the privilege to spend an afternoon with Dave and Iola Brubeck at their home in Connecticut back in 1987. Besides his fame as a jazz pianist, Dave was a serious classical music composer, having studied with famed French composer Darius Milhaud (the Brubeck's oldest son is named Darius). Dave was showing us parts of the piece he was writing for Pope John Paul II who was coming to the US and celebrating a mass at Candlestick Park in San Francisco. He showed us the structure of several parts of the piece and his compositional technique, very, very different from the improvisational style of his jazz playing. He even played a tape of a couple of sections of the piece, which he had recorded with a small group of singers he had hired to test out his compositions. He was using augmentation, inversion, dimunition, various harmonic modulations, and many other of the tools of composers, in addition to the surface melodies.

 

Larry

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Perhaps an adjunct part of any such writing effort as has been proposed might be something along the lines of "My First Time" - i.e., personal revelations of when and how you started listening to and then became a fan. This could include discussions of all the elements that drew you in, from CD listening to a particular Classical radio station to concerts you got dragged to, etc. With perhaps some insight on what helped interest or educate you best.

 

 

Sent from my iPhone using Computer Audiophile

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I'm a melody guy. Here's one of my top 10 in the emotion category. Still gets to me after hundreds of listenings. You don't need to be a musician or music insider to appreciate it.

 

 

Many people learn to like or even love classical music for the beauty of the melodies. However, unlike much of popular music, there is much more than the surface beauty. A deeper appreciation of classical music can give much greater rewards to the listener. [...]

 

Yes. I find that the mood of moody music usually comes from the harmony rather than melody. Melodies are usually rather straightforward, but harmony can work in much subtler ways. For the 2nd movement of Beethoven's Pathétique sonata, just did a quick harmonic analysis on the first 2 phrases:

 

Adagio_sonate_pathétique.jpg

 

First, the top line doesn't look very melodic in the score. And underneath, there are a bunch of harmonic subtlties going on. For example, the sudden speed up of the harmonic rhythm in bar 3, followed immediately by a drastic slow down in bar 4. Also, the first phrase ended in a perfect cadence in dominant key, which is in effect an imperfect cadence in the original key. The second phrase starts with a half diminished subtonic 7th chord, which is unusual. It later on turns into a dominant-tonic progression in the minor supertonic key. The A natural in bar 6 always sounded funny to me, turns out this is why.

 

Lots of interesting stuff you can find when you look under the hood...

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I read an article many years ago in which a very famous USSR composer, Rodion Schedrin said that many people do not have a chance to start loving classical music only because they never heard it in a high end sound. I believe such opinion has its truth, although my own initial impressions of listening classical music which came from very early childhood tell somewhat opposite. Every Soviet family had a basic "radio" at home, it was extremely poor devise which was receiving through a wire a single channel state program which was starting with USSR anthem at 6 in the morning (many used it as an alarm clock) and was completing at midnight with the same. Orwell mentioned it. It contained a perfectly crafted propaganda mostly, but, on a bright side, big part of a daily transmission was dedicated for a break to theatre plays and literature readings (many from great Russian writers, such as Tolstoy or Chekhov) and classical music. It was almost exclusively from Soviet musicians, but one would listen to lot of Gielels, Oistrakh, Richter, etc. for hours on everyday basis. So, good quality sound or early childhood everyday diet will do the task..)

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Given this crowd, recommendations of superior sound quality make a lot of sense.

 

Agree. In fact, my first ventures into--to my ears back then--less accessible music was because I had bought a record with exceptionable sound quality. It was Elgar's cello concerto with du Pré (the 1965 recording w Barbirolli conducting). I listened to it 4 or 5 times, and then it hit me hard. That's where I learned that it takes a little work to pry the music open. And when you think about--even the shallow 3-minute pop-music hit songs only become infectious after you have been exposed to them a couple of times.

All best,

Jens

 

i5 Macbook Pro running Roon -> Uptone Etherregen -> custom-built Win10 PC serving as endpoint, with separate LPUs for mobo and a filtering digiboard (DIY) -> Audio Note DAC 5ish (a heavily modded 3.1X Bal) -> AN Kit One, heavily modded with silver wiring and Black Gates -> AN E-SPx Alnico on Townshend speaker bars. Vicoustic and GIK treatment.

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