Classical music thread

[symbolguru]

My favorite classic song is the "1812 Overture" by Tchaikovsky.

[wontaek]

Originally Posted by Theowne

There is a really interesting, well-written, article about an experiment conducted in Washington. The world famous violinist Joshua Bell, who plays to sold out crowds, on a violin worth millions, took his stuff to a Washington subway and pretended to be a street musician. Here's the result:

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn...hpid=features1

Thank you very much for the article. I am just awe-struck how people just walked by. Bach's Chaconne is one of my favorite solo violin piece, and I would have stood and listened even someone half decent was playing, so I guess I would have ruined the experiment. I think what usually is most important in making impression with music is familiarity. People tends to respond more actively to something they are familiar with and 99% of people on the street would never have heard the title of Chaconne. The violin's sound is dead give-away to the how expensive the instrument was for me, but again, I think only one out of 1000 people would have recognized that. This experiment confirms that 90% of people coming to classical music concert has no idea how the music on the program should sound like. ( in other word, being able to discern the true quality of the performance )

[Theowne]

I would have stood and listened even someone half decent was playing

You're telling me......if I had come across someone like in this experiment, who knows how long I would have stayed for.

But even with all that, I appreciated the stories of the few people who actually did stop to listen to him. Like the child who kept turning to look at Bell even though his mother kept trying to move him along in a hurry.

The best part is seeing the video of the man who enters the room, looks around to locate the source of the music, hesitates then leaves through the exit, but then simply turns back around, leans against a wall, and sits there absorbing the music.

And he wasn't familiar with classical music at all.

[wontaek]

I wonder what the result would have been like if they chose more leisurely hours and stations where lots of people would have been likely to have more free time on their hand. Everyone would put their livelihood above enjoying some music on the street, but if they had more freedom to choose, the outcome of the experiment might have been drastically different.

[stigmataeyes]

I have played classical guitar for quite sometime, i am more attracted to that in the classical genre while orchestras are nice i dont enjoy listening to them much unless its rodrigo or something

[Plamo]

I listen to Nobuo Umatsu's stuff, I'm in the opinion that a good portion of it could be considered classical.

[Manifold]

Originally Posted by wontaek

My first recommendation would be Rachmaninov's 3rd and 4th piano concerto, plus the famous Rhapsody on a Theme of Paganini(...)

Funny you mentioned a theme on Paganini. I had just bought a collection with the 18th variation of that on it. It's lovely, but too short.. I will check out the other recommendations later. Thanks.

ADDED: Isn't Nobuo Umatsu the composer for most of the Final Fantasy music?

If you include him, then you must include Joe Hisaishi.

[Plamo]

Originally Posted by Manifold

Isn't Nobuo Umatsu the composer for most of the Final Fantasy music?

Yes he is, as well as most of the music for Blue Dragon

[Gaia]

Originally Posted by Manifold

ADDED: Isn't Nobuo Umatsu the composer for most of the Final Fantasy music?

If you include him, then you must include Joe Hisaishi.

Let me add Kenji Ito if we already go that far.

Maybe Yasunori Mitsuda, Motoi Sakuraba, Hiroki Kikuta, ... ... too. No, no... That's no classic at all.

Aesir

[BANANABANANA]

harumscarum.....well ignorant as i may be, i always did like Beethoven


oooh and Edvard Grieg

[Sylf]

Originally Posted by Chuii_Riza

Beethoven is something that everyone is familiar with. I've recently developed an affinity for classical music that have Requiem-themes. Beethoven has done one, so did Mozart, Verdi, and Brahms. Not to sound morbid, but I actually feel myself relaxing when I hear them. I heard that musicians are very superstitious and not everyone would make one. Mozart died before he finished his Requiem.

If you like Requiems, there are couple pieces I must recommend. First one is Requiem by Berlioz. If at all possible, you will want to hear this one live. They have a huge orchestra and chorus on the stage, with 4 additional brass choir placed around the concert hall. (Because of its sheer size, it doesn't get performed often.) The other one is Benjamin Britten's War Requiem. It's not much like other pre-20th century requiems. (Well, duh, this piece was written in mid 20th century.) This piece really gives me a chill. At times, I can almost hear people's screams through the music. It's just very powerful.

Other requiems I've heard recently includes ones by Praetorius, Schutz (7 last words of J.C. on the cross), Faure, Saint-Saens, and von Suppe. They're all fine pieces too.

[Maljan]

People, I love classical music, but I don't know how the names are named or the difference between each other, it's just when I listen to a csong, like Beethoven Moonlight Sonata, it sends shivers up my spine, Certaint Opera's Like the 1 Mr Bean preformed on His new movie and then there is Carl Orffs Carmina Burana, it's as if it is multipleing my life energy! Something to settle my senses Strauss's blue lagoon! Man I just freak about these emosion I go throught!

Can somebody please teach me about the termology of classical musuc? PLEASE!!!

[Sylf]

There are so much people can talk about....

First, the musical periods.
Renaissance and earlier - This really isn't a part of every-day classical music selection, but you do hear some of these from time to time. There's no sonata or symphony or opera etc that we're mostly familiar with from this period. Some of the composers you may hear from this period includes Palestrina, Gabrielli, Victoria, Byrd, etc.

Baroque - This is where likes of J.S. Bach, Handel, and Vivaldi comes from. Pieces will sound more familiar. But they were still trying to define some of the very basics of music fundamentals during this period. Sacred music still played very large part of the music repertories. I'm sure just about everyone has heard of Vivaldi's Four Seasons, Handel's Messiah (especially the Hallelujah Chorus), and Bach's Toccata and Fugue in D minor.

Spoiler for Specific musical styles of Baroque period:

Suites - a set of compositions that are meant to be played together. An instrumental style in both solo and group settings.

Oratorio - pieces like Messiah, where the singers would sing a story, but don't do any acting. It's almost like an opera without any acting.

Opera - Orchestra would play in the background, and singers would sing and act on the stage. Opera is not a particularly dominant form of music in this period yet.

Concerto / Concerto Grosso - Orchestral pieces that features some soloists. Vivaldi's Four Seasons falls under this category. Just about all major composers from this era wrote many of these.

Mass - Sacred pieces to be played in Catholic Mass. Requiem is a type of mass, following the same structure.

Classical - The pieces will start sounding even more familiar to your day to day listening. Composers like Haydn, Mozart, and Beethoven come from this period. Many familiar types of music was popularized during this period.

Spoiler for Specific musical styles of Classical period:

Sonata - Even though there are pieces named "Sonata" from the Baroque period, it was really Haydn who solidified this form of music. The first movement is usually a fast movement in sonata form (one very notable exception being Moonlight Sonata), and consists of 3 to 4 movements. It's always written for solo instruments (with accompaniments for non-keyboard instruments), never for vocalists. And when the sonata forms starts involving multiple musicians, they are usually called Trio, Quartet, etc.

"Sonata form" follows a very specific pattern - theme (usually theme A and theme B), development (where they expand the musical motifs from the themes), recapitulation (themes A and B are played again), and coda (the conclusion). Moonlight Sonata's 1st movement is in this form too, but played slowly.

"Rondo form" also follows a specific pattern. The key to this form is the recurring theme - the original theme keeps coming back. One popular style follows a pattern of theme A - theme B - A - C - A - B - A - coda. (Such as the third movement of Beethoven's Sonata Pathetique.)

Symphony - An orchestral piece. All symphonies from classical period are purely instrumental. (Beethoven's symphonies no. 3 and up should be considered Romantic.) Some of Haydn's and Mozart's early symphonies had 3 movements - fast, slow, and fast. 4 movements styles were more popular toward the end of this period.

Opera - opera format really started taking off during this period. I'm sure you've heard of many of Mozart's operas, like Magic Flute, Don Giovanni, Marriage of Figaro, etc.

Concerto - A symphonic piece that features a solo instrument (unless it's a double or triple concerto). There's no such thing as vocal concerto.

Theme and Variations - This isn't the type of music you hear every day, but I believe it's note worthy. A theme is presented once, then the composer presents a series of embellished or modified version of the themes. A composer may use his original melody, or a borrowed melody from someone else (or his own piece from somewhere else.) Beethoven wrote a few notable ones such as Eroica variations (The theme is shared with his third symphony, Eroica) and Diabelli variations. Mozart wrote one on a French folk song called "Ah, vous dirai-je maman" - most of us knows it as Twinkle Twinkle Little Star.

Romantic - Composers in this period really expanded on the freedom of expression in music. The sizes of compositions grew, and many people wrote in many styles. Beethoven's later works are considered to belong in this category. Some people really pushed the limits. Wagner's Ring Cycle, a series of four operas grouped together, takes four nights of performance. The premier performance of Mahler's 8th symphony had over 1000 performers on and off the stage. Other notable composers from this period includes Schubert, Berlioz, Liszt, Schumann, Puccini, Elgar, Grieg, Mendelssohn, Tchaikovsky, Chopin, Bizet, etc... the list is nearly endless.

Spoiler for Specific musical styles of Romantic period:

Symphony - Composers from this period produced vast large number of symphonies. Symphonies lasting 40minutes or more is uncommon anymore. Some composers start including vocal parts to their pieces, starting with Beethoven.

Symphonic Poem - a symphonic piece that tells a story, or draws a scenery. Some of well known pieces in this categories are Smetana's Moldau, Mendelssohn's Fingal's Cave Overture, etc.

Opera - There are also some very notable opera composers, like Wagner, Rossini, Puccini, Verdi, etc. Not a new style of music, but it's more expanded than ever.

Ballet - The music is an accompaniment to the dances to be performed on the stage. I'm sure everyone has heard of the title Lake Swan by Tchaikovsky. There are other notable ones as well.

Piano solo pieces - many composers also wrote many pieces for solo piano, including sonata, ballad, nocturne, prelude, rondo, rhapsody, capriccio, fantasy, polonaise, etc.

Songs and Song Cycles - Song cycle is just a series of songs. Schubert really expanded the style.

Chamber music - a music for a small group of instruments. A dominant style in this category is string quartet, performed with two violins and one each of viola and cello. Also, a note - when you hear terms like Piano Quartet or Piano Quintet, they don't use four or five pianos. Those forms require one piano and three or four string players, respectively.

20th century, modern and contemporary - styles including French impressionism, atonality, neoclassicism, post modernism, film music, experimentalism, etc etc... Styles really expands. Some forms are more accessible to us than others. Some composers continued to write in Romantic style well into mid 20th century, like Rachmaninoff. Others took more liberal approach earlier on like Schoenberg. If I started listing different styles etc of this period, there will be no end. So I'll just name a few composers from this period you may have heard of - Debussy, Ravel, Respighi, Stravinsky, Prokofiev, Shostakovich, Copland, Barber, Vaughan Williams, Holst, Gershwin, Bernstein, Grofe, Messiaen, etc...

This is by no means a complete list of styles etc. And I apologize for sections that are not very clear - I just wrote this on a whim, and with no proof reading.

[Mirificus]

This is something I wrote for another forum. It helps explain some of the terminology of classical pieces.

Classical works often have relatively long names. More often than not, these names are not arbitrary but rather descriptive. While this is by no means a thorough guide and is simplified in many respects, I thought that a few pointers might prove useful to some for understanding song titles like this one:

Concerto No. 2 in G minor, 'L'estate', RV 315: II. Adagio - Presto

This piece is the second movement of Vivaldi's 'L'estate' (Italian for summer) concerto as denoted by a Roman numeral in this case. The tempo markings adagio and presto indicate that the piece will start off slowly and then switch to a fast tempo. Movements may not have any name assigned by the composer. In that case, they are usually named based on their tempo markings by the publisher.

Naturally, this work is in the concerto form with a small and a large musical group playing contrasting roles. RV 315 simply means that it is Vivaldi's 315th work indexed by Ryom in his thematic catalogue of Vivaldi's works. A lot of other composers like Mozart (KV), Handel (HWV) and Bach (BWV) have had similar catalogues compiled. The catalogues are usually arranged in chronological order but can also be arranged thematically as with Ryom's. Catalogue numbers can be a useful shorthand to refer to a composer's specific work.

Classical composition follows a lot of conventions that evolved from the Western music tradition. While these conventions limit a composer in some ways, they still allow for a great deal of creativity within their framework and give the listener an idea of the musical structure to expect. The best classical composers knew when they could best bend or or even break from them but generally, these conventions have not changed much over the past few centuries.

Some of the main forms:

• concerto - a piece in which a small musical group and a large musical group are given distinct roles, with the smaller group to the fore. The most common kind of concerto pairs a solo instrument with a full orchestra.
• sonata - one of the mainstays of classical music. Literally means a piece that is played as opposed to sung. Usually has three or four movements: quick - slow - dance - finale in faster tempo
• fugue - begins with its subject (a brief musical theme) stated by one of the voices playing alone. A second voice then enters and plays the subject, while the first voice continues on with a contrapuntal accompaniment. Then the remaining voices similarly enter one by one. The remainder of the fugue further develops the material using all of the voices.
• symphony - an extended piece of music usually for orchestra and comprising several movements. Usually comprised of four movements: quick (often in sonata form) - slow - dance (minuet/scherzo in trio) - quick (often in sonata or rondo form)
• suite - an organized set of instrumental or orchestral pieces normally performed at a single sitting. The suite traditionally consisted of a set of dances but more recent suites are instead tied together by a common theme. (e.g. 'The Planets' suite by Holst). Although there are many variations, the usual order for a classical suite is: (Overture) - Allemande - Courante - Sarabande - (Gavotte) - Gigue

Tempo is, of course, the speed or pace of a given piece. In classical works, words are often used to describe tempo and mood rather than mathematical tempo markings (i.e. BPMs). These tempo markings are usually in Italian. Movements of classical compositions are generally named by their composer (or by the music publisher) after their tempo and/or mood marking. If the tempo changes during a movement, the changes are generally included in the name as well. Some names include the movement number before the tempo marking.

Common Italian tempo markings (from slowest to fastest):

• Largo - slowly and broadly
• Adagio - slowly
• Lento - "slow" but usually only moderately so
• Andante - at a walking pace
• Moderato - at a moderate tempo
• Allegretto - "a little allegro", understood to be not quite as fast as allegro
• Allegro - quickly
• Presto - fast

Various diminutive suffixes in Italian have been used, in addition to Allegretto including Andantino, Larghetto, Adagietto, as well as superlatives such as Larghissimo, Prestissimo.

Common Italian qualifiers and mood markings:

• non troppo - not too much; e.g. Allegro non troppo (or Allegro ma non troppo) means "Fast, but not too fast."
• molto - very, as in Allegro molto
• poco - slightly, as in Poco Adagio

Some markings that primarily mark a mood (or character) also have a tempo connotation:

• Vivace - lively (generally indicates a rather fast movement)
• Maestoso - majestic or stately (generally a solemn slow movement)

German tempo markings:

• Langsam - slowly
• Mäßig - moderately
• Lebhaft - lively (mood)
• Rasch - quickly
• Schnell - fast

French tempo markings:

• Grave - slowly and solemnly
• Lent - slowly
• Modéré - at a moderate tempo
• Vif - lively
• Vite - fast

A short list of chronological/thematic catalogues:

• BWV - "Bach-Werke-Verzeichnis" - Catalogue of the works of J.S. Bach by Schmeider
• D - Deutsch Number - Catalogue of the works of Schubert by Deutsch
• F - Falck Number - Catalogue of the works of W.F. Bach by Falck
• G - Gerard Number - Catalogue of the works of Boccherini by Gerard
• Hob - Hoboken Number - Catalogue of the works of F.J. Haydn by Hoboken
• HWV - "Handel-Werke-Verzeichnis" - Catalogue of the works of Handel by Baselt
• KV - Köchel Number - Catalogue of the works of W.A. Mozart by Köchel
• L - Lesure Number - Catalogue of the works of Debussy by Lesure
• Op - Opus number - Generally a chronological publication number that may have been assigned by either the publisher or composer
• RV - "Ryom-Verzeichnis" - Catalogue of the works of Vivaldi by Ryom
• S - Searle Number - Catalogue of the works of Liszt by Searle
• WoO - "Werk ohne Opuszahl" - "Work without opus number", typically unpublished works
• Z - Zimmerman Number - Catalogue of the works of Purcell by Zimmerman

[Maljan]

Thanks guys, I've printed these and I'm going to memorize them.

[Manifold]

That is an immense list. Made for good reading too, when I tire of Chopin/Rachmaninov, I'll come back here..

[Mirificus]

I've made some corrections and some minor additions to my last post. Are there other aspects of classical music that people would like to see covered?

[mdauben]

Unlike a lot of my contemporaries, I have enjoyed classical music since I was in Jr High and I discovered my parent's old classical LPs (That's right, vinyl LPs! God, I feel old...).

Back then, I was most interested in the old Baroque composers like Bach, Pachelbel, Vivaldi, etc. Now, though I find myself more attracted to the late-Romantic composers like Rachmoninoff, Sibelius, Tchikovsky, Rimsky-Korsekov or even the more traditional 20th Century composers like Bernstein and Copland.

[arcadeplayer987]

I like Beethoven, he is the great from all.

[FallenRain]

I do enjoy classical piano like Mozart and Beethoven other than that i don't i listen to much classical.