Out of curiosity, can you recommend some good classical pieces? I find that classical music is the most difficult to separate the good from the bad, because all the songs are just musical phrases mashed together like "mezzo forte in Bflat minor Op. 22 by Brahms" or stuff like that. I've just never had much luck delving into the genre, but not for lack of trying :PLuncbox1
Oi... this is a difficult question to answer because your taste may be very different from mine, and I have no idea what you have and have not heard. When I talk about great cIassical music, I usually no longer refer to specific works, but rather composers and eras. Personally, there isn't much in Brahms's or Chopin's entire outputs that I dislike, and you can also do very well with late Dvorak, Liszt after his virtuoso period, Beethoven (especially in the mid-late years), or Mahler. Debussy, Franck, and Ravel can give you something with a more French flavour, and Verdi's Requiem is one of the greatest Italian contributions to the Romantic era. For Russians, I like Tchaikovsky and Rachmaninoff a great deal (especially their art songs, or 'lieder'), and Shostakovich and Prokofiev can give you something different and special. Also, check out Arvo Part from more recent times. Very quiet and tranquil... I love it. Start with Te Deum or Spiegel Im Spiegel. But really, it boils down to personally discovering what floats your boat, and being aware that what you hate today may later become your favourite music as you acquire a greater understanding of cIassical music through your studies, personal or formal. I disliked Brahms immensely in my teenage years. Now he's my favourite composer.
In retrospect, the best way to evaluate music and find stuff you like is to pick a single composer, then collect a cross-section of his works. Try to get a variety of pieces from different periods in the composer's life and with different musical titles (so don't just pick a bunch of symphonies or piano trios). If nothing strikes you, you pick another composer (maybe from a different nation or era this time) and do the same thing. If even one work by the composer is appealing to you, chances are very good that there will be others. So you look into that composer's life. Find out when he lived, where he lived, and who his musical contemporaries and especially friends were, because there's a great chance you'll like some of their music, too.
The real joy of cIassical music comes in self-discovery, so just keep listening, and keep a catalogue of those pieces that strike a real chord with you on first listening. They'll guide you to your next target. And... I can't stress this enough... if you ever want to fully appreciate this music, you'd do well to study it. The history and especially the theory of music are extremely important to understanding this complex music, especially given that the process of composition is very often just as interesting and beautiful as the resulting sound. Symphony, sonata, trio, minuet, scherzo and so forth aren't just random words to me. They provide expectations about what the form will be, what the instrumentation will be, and what I should be listening for, and that is very helpful in appreciating the work, especially when it takes a creative deviation from those norms, which you will actually recognize as creative! Listening skills are important, too, but you can't develop those until you know WHAT you should be listening for in the first place. If you don't know, it's just pretty sound, and you're only getting half of the story.
Log in to comment