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    Appreciating classical music

    I wouldn't consider myself any more or less cultured than the average person, but for whatever reason classical music remains a blind (or should that be aural) spot. I do regularly listen to it on the radio, but still find it impossible to distinguish individual composers (except for those pieces that everyone knows). Like every discipline, skill probably only comes to a practised ear, and I hardly expect to beat the intro like a University Challenge contestant, but what should I be listening for, in trying to tell Haydn from Brahms, Bizet from Vaughan-Williams etc.?

    #2
    Appreciating classical music

    Great post Bruno, it's always a pleasure to read your thoughts on Music.

    DR, try listening to stuff from widely different time periods, going back as far as you care to. I've been really caning early baroque recently, partly because I record Radio 3 Composer Of The Week programmes and listen back to them, and so can directly compare different ones. Also, there's loads of Lully on Spotify and I've been going wild for it.

    Something else that helps me is knowing an orchestral musician who studied to degree level. I made her explain serialism to me.

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      #3
      Appreciating classical music

      Yes, some good points by Bruno above.

      DR - I was in a similar situation to you about a year and a half ago. I can't recommend highly enough The Rough Guide To Classical Music, which has been a superb introduction to the music and the composers.

      In particular the preface has a section entitled '100 Essential Works' which can be a useful starting point.

      I'd also recommend, if you haven't already done so, signing up to a music streaming service like We7 which has most of the music that the book lists. That way you can start listening to a wide range of classical straight away and discover what you like and don't like.

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        #4
        Appreciating classical music

        Big shout to Bruno there. His recommendations to me for festive music a couple of years back have brightened every Christmas since.

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          #5
          Appreciating classical music

          The DK/Classic FM Eyewitness Guide might be worth a go. I don't have it myself but like the series. It seems to go through the basics before going all chronological, which makes sense to me at least.

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            #6
            Appreciating classical music

            Yeah, that was great stuff from Bruno, speaking as someone who also has a bit of a classical blind spot, and who writes professionally about music (and is sometimes shamed by his relative ignorance of the nuts and bolts).

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              #7
              Appreciating classical music

              Yes, fine stuff, Bruno.

              It may be my personal inclinations, but I'd suggest starting with 20th century classical music. Not necessarily the "difficult" stuff, the likes of Schoenberg or Nono but the likes of Stravinsky, late Mahler, Bartok even; surprisingly accessible stuff which speaks to modern times.

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                #8
                Appreciating classical music

                Radio 3 is your friend. The breakfast show is deliberately not difficult, with the presenter chipping in with interesting bits of knowledge. Ideal iplayer stuff.

                In Tune is also good.

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                  #9
                  Appreciating classical music

                  I think Bruno's first piece of advice, about forgetting the "becoming cultured" bit, is absolutely crucial. My stepdad was a crashing music snob of the old school (just one of several ways in which he was the most snobbish socialist I've ever met), and it took me ages just to relax enough to let myself just listen to the tunes. It's like wine: it's primarily about pleasure, and only secondarily about the kind of knowledge that deepens the pleasure and allows you to find more of it. But so many cunts treat it as an arena for showing off that you worry about looking like an idiot.

                  My longest-serving girlfriend at university had a dullard American cousin who was sent over to England on her gap year to Get Some Culture, despite really wanting to bum around California (which is what she should have been allowed to do). We kept offering to take her to King's College Chapel and stuff--you know, pretty places--only for her to reply "Sure, if you think it'd be good for me." I think that attitude poisons life and beauty. Art is good or bad to you. It's not good or bad for you.

                  By the way: Bruno isn't the only regular poster I turn to on matters classical, but I reckon he's become indispensable on the subject. Really, really good stuff as ever. What he said about Beethoven as well.

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                    #10
                    Appreciating classical music

                    I enjoy listening to classical music, usually in the car as there is so much shit played on most stations. A good programme for the classical novice can be found on Classic FM between 9-10am when they play music from their "Hall of Fame", which is the top 300 pieces of music voted by their listeners. I know nothing about classical music. I couldn't tell you which piece was playing at any one time unless it was a particularly famous piece such as the 1812 overture or Beethoven's 5th. One thing I have found out, though, is that I cannot stand anything composed by Gershwin, it's utter shite.

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                      #11
                      Appreciating classical music

                      Bruno wrote:
                      Snobbery can be a complicated business, too. A cunt's a cunt, but classical music has come in for its share of reverse snobbery. It can be hard to trace who's reacting to whom.
                      That's a fair point, certainly. The central point is that (a) the high art/low art thing is a minefield, and (b) you have to try to rise above it.

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                        #12
                        Appreciating classical music

                        Ha ha.

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                          #13
                          Appreciating classical music

                          Another Classic FM programme well worth a listen on this front is the "A to Z", presented very nicely by Blur's bassist Alex James.

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                            #14
                            Appreciating classical music

                            Just be careful back there... Listen to enough of the pure, clear tones of Renaissance polyphony and you might start to wonder why you ever thought a modern herd of bull sopranos in full vibrato was a good sound.

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                              #15
                              Appreciating classical music

                              A lot of Renaissance music is church music isn't it. Mass music. When I was in Italy the other year, I was sight-seeing around a church and there was a full mass on with hymns being sung that sounded a lot like Monteverdi. It was great. You feel a bit self-concious though. A "Don't mind me, mate. I'm just listening. Carry on with your mass as if I wasn't here" sort of thing.

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                                #16
                                Appreciating classical music

                                Mozart's three masses and Janacek's Glagolitic Mass are fucking amazing.

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                                  #17
                                  Appreciating classical music

                                  Yeah, those lads did good mass.

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                                    #18
                                    Appreciating classical music

                                    I'm actually pretty anti-religious but still a sucker for Requiems -- Brahms & Fauré in particular.

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                                      #19
                                      Appreciating classical music

                                      And Schütz, how th' hell could i forget Schütz. More coffee now.

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                                        #20
                                        Appreciating classical music

                                        Bruno wrote:

                                        Well, Brahms and Fauré were both of questionable religiosity. And Verdi, also a requiem composer, was not a man of faith.
                                        Mozart wasn't exactly a man of piety either.

                                        That's one of the great themes of the play/film 'Amadeus', where Salieri devotes himself to chastity and piety becuase he believes that God has blessed him with a musical gift.

                                        Then along comes Mozart, the dissolute and immoral creature who goes on to effortlessly create and produce music fit for God himself.

                                        Don't know how much of it is accurate, but it makes for a great story. I love the scene where Salieri has his epiphany.

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                                          #21
                                          Appreciating classical music

                                          I love that film too, but it's very 80's innit. That's one of the things I like about it. Mozart isn't just played like a rock star, he acts like a cross between Micheal Jackson around the time of 'Thriller', Prince around the time of 'Purple Rain', Motley Crue and the Beastie Boys.

                                          I doubt he was like that to be honest, but there's no way of knowing is there.

                                          The masses he wrote don't really make me think about going to church, no. They're incredibly passionate and full of fear, awe and wonder and all that stuff.

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                                            #22
                                            Appreciating classical music

                                            Bruno wrote:
                                            On the contrary, Mozart was quite religious and loyal to the Catholic Church.

                                            He was also a Freemason, but specifically a Catholic Freemason.

                                            I wouldn't go by Amadeus for my impression of the guy.
                                            Oh, of course not, but in my case it was a gateway into the world of classical music.

                                            The world needs films like Amadeus because classical music continues to have a snobbish, elitist image in the area that I live in, and if you can entice people into its wonderful world through films that tell a great story, then go for it.

                                            I do wonder how much of the Catholic Church's teachings Mozart personally believd in. Often it's the conflict within the soul that produces the greatest and most durable art.

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                                              #23
                                              Appreciating classical music

                                              Amadeus is indeed a great film but, as Bruno says, unreliable as a guide to Mozart's character and genius. For me, it also peddles a myth about the nature of creativity and talent, the idea that is un-"worked" at, channeled directly from some divine source.

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                                                #24
                                                Appreciating classical music

                                                We really should try and get that 'Classical piece of the month' thing going again. I can't remember exactly why it died a death but it was great, and sparked fascinating discussion about music that's since given me a lot of pleasure (and which I didn't really know at all previously).

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                                                  #25
                                                  Appreciating classical music

                                                  Bruno wrote:

                                                  For insanely prolific composers like Mozart or Schubert, supreme talent clearly manifested itself as monomania.
                                                  I think that's one of the many reasons that their music is so compelling.

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