Classical music

[johnnyhoward]

Does anyone here listen to classical music? I've never really got into it but I've seen people in the office with CDs and apparently it increases your thinking power and relaxation.

Is it only for rich, older snobs though?

 

[Woodson]

Is it only for rich, older snobs though?

Don't believe it for a second. Classical music featured heavily in Looney Tune cartoons and whether you cared to have paid enough attention, it develops the mind, imagination and thought process. Stimulating.

 

[patsmith]

Classical music is great. I can easily go from listening to some Minor Threat or Blood Brothers to some Symphany No. 5 in C Minor or Serenade No. 13 for Strings in G Major.

Open your mind and try some new stuff. You could very well love it.

 

[- PC -]

Don't believe it for a second. Classical music featured heavily in Looney Tune cartoons and whether you cared to have paid enough attention, it develops the mind, imagination and thought process. Stimulating.

Fantasia

 

[evo]

The Ride of the Valkryies by Wagner is pretty cool.

It's the one played before the attack on the village in Apocalypse Now.

 

[Contra Mundum]

I used to like the Baroque a lot but now all I listen to is the Romantics - got Mahler on right now! An easy way into it is to buy the intro CDs like "Gothic Classics" or "Bach for Bedtime" - Pop Music is great but sometimes you need something more

If you never listened to it before a good starting point is Beethoven - more particularly the 9th Symphony [with the Ode to Joy in it], the 3rd sometimes called the Eroica and the Pastoral which is very evocative

 

[Groove]

I used to like the Baroque a lot but now all I listen to is the Romantics - got Mahler on right now! An easy way into it is to buy the intro CDs like "Gothic Classics" or "Bach for Bedtime" - Pop Music is great but sometimes you need something more

If you never listened to it before a good starting point is Beethoven - more particularly the 9th Symphony [with the Ode to Joy in it], the 3rd sometimes called the Eroica and the Pastoral which is very evocative

I wouldnt call Mahler a romantic... He was post romantacism if i remember correctly.
Personal favs are mahler 3 and 5, and 6

 

[Contra Mundum]

I wouldnt call Mahler a romantic... He was post romantacism if i remember correctly.
Personal favs are mahler 3 and 5, and 6

He is the locus classicus of Late Romanticism:

"Mahler combined the ideas of Romanticism, including the use of program music, and the use of song melodies in symphonic works, with the resources that the development of the symphony orchestra had made possible. The result was to extend, and eventually break, the understanding of symphonic form, as he searched for ways to expand his music. He stated that a symphony should be an "entire world". As a result, he met with difficulties in presenting his works, and would continually revise the details of his orchestration until he was satisfied with the effect."

You would not call him Early Modern would you - Debussy is the cross over artist;

"The period that includes the final decades of the nineteenth century and the first decades of the twentieth is sometimes called the post-Romantic era. This is the period when many popular composers concentrated on the traditions of their own countries, producing strongly nationalistic music. Others, such as Mahler and Strauss, were taking Romantic ideals to their utmost reasonable limits. In France, Debussy and Ravel were composing pieces that they felt were the musical equivalent of impressionistic paintings. Impressionism and some other -isms such as Stravinsky's primitivism still had some basis in tonality; but others, such as serialism, rejected tonality and the Classical-Romantic tradition completely, believing that it had produced all that it could. These Modernists eventually came to dominate the serious music scene. Though the sounds and ideals of Romanticism continued to inspire some composers, the Romantic period was essentially over by the beginning of the twentieth century.

 

[evo]

How do you expect to usher in the ubermensch listening to that soft stuff CM.

 

[johnnyhoward]

The only stuff I've heard is the standard Beethoven (5th and 9th symphonies), Pachelbel's Canon and O Fortuna. Amazing how much I've already heard through TV shows and ads.

 

[- PC -]

If you never listened to it before a good starting point is Beethoven - more particularly the 9th Symphony [with the Ode to Joy in it], the 3rd sometimes called the Eroica and the Pastoral which is very evocative

I would refer people to Hooked on Classics from the 80s. Pop kitsch but as an introduction to a range of classical music its ok , or alternatively as noted the Looney Tunes and Fantasia

 

[sigur]

And for anyone who thinks that all 20th century classical music is rubbish...
check out the Symphony of Sorrowful Songs by Gorecki (symphony number 3). You need to listen to it loud and you have to be able to sit still for more than 5 minutes.

 

[Contra Mundum]

And for anyone who thinks that all 20th century classical music is rubbish...
check out the Symphony of Sorrowful Songs by Gorecki (symphony number 3). You need to listen to it loud and you have to be able to sit still for more than 5 minutes.

Bartok and Shostakovich's Leningrad which I saw MSO do last year is also fantastic

 

[evo]

My knowledge on classical could fit comfortably on a postage stamp.I did get hooked on classics though

You'd have to rate 'eine kleine nachtmusik' on name alone

 

[Contra Mundum]

My knowledge on classical could fit comfortably on a postage stamp.I did get hooked on classics though

You'd have to rate 'eine kleine nachtmusik' on name alone

I only know about it because I did Music as a subject up to Year 12

 

[- PC -]

I only know about it because I did Music as a subject up to Year 12

My mum got Classics for Children ( 1968 record) and played it for us. Peter and the Wolf etc

 

[sigur]

I only know about it because I did Music as a subject up to Year 12

I did double music in year 12, went to do do some music stufy at uni, even worked as a music typesetter and proof reader. I don't listen to a huge amount of classical, but I've probably got about 60 cds worth - you can pick up plenty of stuff for less than a tenner and the compilations can be a pretty good introduction to the field. The Classical Chillout series is good for newbies.

There's a reason why people still listen to this stuff after hundreds of years.

 

[Contra Mundum]

I did double music in year 12, went to do do some music stufy at uni, even worked as a music typesetter and proof reader. I don't listen to a huge amount of classical, but I've probably got about 60 cds worth - you can pick up plenty of stuff for less than a tenner and the compilations can be a pretty good introduction to the field. The Classical Chillout series is good for newbies.

There's a reason why people still listen to this stuff after hundreds of years.

NAXOS is brilliant - I played the trumpet and tried to overload a music subject in first year uni - proved to be a bit much

 

[Roddy]

Listen to Vivaldi's Four Seasons at least once a week. And heaps of other stuff. Regularly turn on classicFM.

 

[patsmith]

Also, listen to some Sigur Ros. Might not be classical in the classical sense (haha), but it is amazing. I'm not sure what they'd be classified as. Maybe neo-classical?

 

[sigur]

Also, listen to some Sigur Ros. Might not be classical in the classical sense (haha), but it is amazing. I'm not sure what they'd be classified as. Maybe neo-classical?

Yeah...already a big fan of sigur ros....

 

[patsmith]

Yeah...already a big fan of sigur ros....

Really? I would never have guessed.

But yeah, to everyone who has never heard them, put it on your to-do list. One of the most creative and inspiring bands in the world. Simply amazing.

 

[TheBloods]

I love it - I often prefer it to more modern music. It's much better as background music when working or reading.

Some of my favourite composers are Bach, Dvorak, Tchaikovsky, Mozart, Elgar, Shostakovich, Mendelssohn, Smetana, Handel, Holst, Tchaikovsky. I particularly like Baroque.

Plenty of individual pieces really stand out for me, like Mussorgsky's Pictures at an Exhibition, Canteloube's Bailero, Albinoni's Adagio, Haydn's Trumpet Concerto No 3, Beethoven's Symphony No 7, Borondin's Polovtsian Dances, Khatchaturian's Spartacus Adagio, Orff's Carmina Burana, Vivaldi's Four Season, Pachelbel's Canon.

I like opera - Puccini, Verdi and Mozart are some of my favourite composers.

You would recognise a lot of classical music from movies, such as the superb and moving Barber's adagio for strings, used in Platoon, part of Verdi's Rigoletto in Wall Street, O'Fortuna from Carmina Burana in Conan, and in Fatal Attraction "One Fine Day" from Puccini's Madame Butterfly (an amazing piece of music).

 

[Constipated Duck]

Listened to it a lot as a kid, believe it or not, but these days most of the interest in classical is in interpretrations performed on electric guitar. I do like classical, but to me its often more interesting done on guitar (usually violin parts) when done properly.

 

[johnnyhoward]

Listen to Vivaldi's Four Seasons at least once a week. And heaps of other stuff. Regularly turn on classicFM.

Yeah that's another of the limited works I have, Vivaldi's Four Seasons is brilliant.

In the classical section at JB there's a huge bin filled with CD's under $2. Is there quality across the board in bargain basement titles of the genre?